Seattle to Marina Del Rey

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by handcrafted

Thank you all for your replies. I have to ask how many of you are referring to "Sail" expeditions? I posted this in what I thought was the "Power" boating section. Please correct me if i'm wrong here, but it seams that some of these suugestions/opinions are primarily based on sail/power boating, thus untilizing the sails as much as possible. I cannot begin to fathom the concept of swinging way out to sea 200 miles if I am only carrying 110 gallons of fuel. On another note I thought I originally listed a pretty good description of my boat, my biggest concern is the nearly flat bottom of my boat, nice bow but fairly flat from midway back.

No, what I'd try to say (gently) was I'd want a boat capable of going most of the distance without fueling every few miles so to stay far away from the hostile western coast. A boat with limited range (and seemingly with minimum sea-keeping capability) will have to be very picky about when it goes out. I don't have the courage to take a boat such as yours out to such seas. My advice? Stay in protected waters, trailer the boat down the coast, or get a more suitable boat.

[Tallswede]

I would agree with MarkPierce. I had a '62 model ChrisCraft Constellation with a hull very much like yours. It was great in flat water but following seas like what you might encounter offshore could get very hairy for a boat like yours. These boats are made for planing speeds and though you will get better fuel mileage at displacement speeds, the boats don't handle well at slow speed with following seas. My mileage was about 2-3 mpg in flat water at 1200 rpm. About 5 knots. You could expect similar numbers but less in any kind of seas offshore. I'm not saying you couldn't do this trip in your boat but I would be very cautious about the weather and range.

Kevin