Fuel Consumption

[bottle]

we have been travelling for 36 days not counting weekends and have used 300 litres approx 180 hours cruising @ 1.6 litres per hour. yes we ARE CC'ers that don't bridge hop

 

Slow down a bit and you could save nearly 0.4 l per hour.

 

That is 72 Litres

 

Depends on engine and the waters you are on though.

[Pykebird]

It depends on the weather! I am a CC'er who lives aboard and works. I tend to top my tank up every 5/6 weeks and put about 60-80 litres in each time.I top up because the diesel cooker runs off the main tank and needs a good head of pressure. This is dependant on the weather, as I have a large amount of electrical equipment and two 180 solar panels. It really varies, each boat has different circumsances.

[GoodGurl]

Slow down a bit and you could save nearly 0.4 l per hour.

 

That is 72 Litres

 

Depends on engine and the waters you are on though.

 

we tried that but still works out about the same consumption, shallow canals, flooded rivers oh and the wind

[bigkicker]

Have I stumbled into a canalboaters 'dirty secret' or something? Is it a question that it is considered rude to ask? (on par with "Can I use your toilet?"!!). I'm quite willing to share my 'dirty secret' I put about £35 of diesel in my car each month, I've now shown you mine, would you show me yours??

 

 

We used to fill our Chrysler Grand Voyager up and it used to cost us £90.00, sometimes twice a week !! Just depends how much driving was done. Same as with our boats, we fill them up when we need to, today, I put another £80.00 in the tanks, that should last me around 3 or 4 days, then I'll fill her again, probably around the amountmount, so I can bomb it down the Severn when I get there !!! It all depend how much you use your boat, what speed you'll be doing and how efficient your engine is. Its a "suck it and see" situation.

[bottle]

we tried that but still works out about the same consumption, shallow canals, flooded rivers oh and the wind

 

That is where knocking off a few revs will save money and you will go faster.

 

The other two use more fuel.

 

I do not know your engine etc. but have a look here at Beta 43 fuel consumption:http://www.betamarine.co.uk/inland/Beta_43/B43_Tech_Photo_Sheets/B43-IDS-0311.pdf

 

It is obviously only a guide but at 1200 rpm consumption is about 1L an hour and at 1400 rpm about 1.5L an hour and 1600rpm about 2L an hour.

 

We travel at about 1250rpm maybe slower on really shallow sections, hence our average consumption of 1.2L an hour.

 

Going up the Severn recently at 2,000 rpm, fighting the flow, I could almost see the fuel gauge dropping.

 

As before: Depends on engine and the waters you are on though.

[Grace and Favour]

That is where knocking off a few revs will save money and you will go faster.

 

The other two use more fuel.

 

I do not know your engine etc. but have a look here at Beta 43 fuel consumption:http://www.betamarin...43-IDS-0311.pdf

 

It is obviously only a guide but at 1200 rpm consumption is about 1L an hour and at 1400 rpm about 1.5L an hour and 1600rpm about 2L an hour.

 

We travel at about 1250rpm maybe slower on really shallow sections, hence our average consumption of 1.2L an hour.

 

Going up the Severn recently at 2,000 rpm, fighting the flow, I could almost see the fuel gauge dropping.

 

As before: Depends on engine and the waters you are on though.

 

Aye - and our Beta 75 drinks a little more: 1,200 rpm is 2 lph, 1,400 rpm is 3 lph, and 1,600 rpm is 4.75 lph

 

(we haven't yet driven her against the flow on the Trent )

[comfortably numb]

As others have mentioned, it's virtually impossible to answer your question with any accuracy but as you said in the original question you just wanted an idea, so I don't think it was a daft question.

 

I would think the best way to estimate your fuel costs is to work out how many hours per day/week/month you think you will be cruising, how many hours you will need to run your engine for topping up batteries when you are moored for longer periods, and if your heating runs on diesel how much it will use (which is even harder to preedict given our wierd weather patterns).

 

Then of course there is the matter of consumption per hour which as we have seenm can vary so much. Our boat averages 1.6 litres per hour and that's at an average of about 1200 -1300 rpm, but the engine is well worn having done 16,000 hours so that makes a difference as well as older engines will often use more fuel.

 

One way to save fuel is to stay put in really windy weather. On a fortnights cruise last year our consumption was a massive 2.5 litres per hour due to very strong winds every day !!!

[MtB]

All my boats over the years have used an average of one litre an hour, across the board.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

Mike

[Gibbo]

My 4LW uses about 1.5 litres per hour. It makes no difference whatsoever whether it's on tickover doing nowt or steaming it's way up the Irish sea.

[bargemast]

My 4LW uses about 1.5 litres per hour. It makes no difference whatsoever whether it's on tickover doing nowt or steaming it's way up the Irish sea.

 

 

Hello Gibbo, your Gardner is a very good engine and a choice of engine many other boatowners would love to have, and maybe evenmore in 2 or 3 cylinder version, but your fuel consumption changes between tickover, doing nowt or steaming, as to run to the requirements of these 3 different demands, you don't ask your engine to deliver the same amount of Hp, and your fuel use is directly related to the amount of Hp your engine has to deliver.

 

As an example, a couple of years ago, I did a boat delivery of an ex-French lifeboat from near the French-Spanisch border to somewhere in the centre of France, she had 2 x 285Hp engines, and going up the Rhône in flooding conditions she used close to 40 liters per hour per engine, which indicated that only about 200 of the 285Hp available had to work.

 

Later on the canals were I was mainly running on only 1 engine at max fast idle, fuel consumption was limited to about 10 liters/h, so there she needed only about 50Hp.

 

This to say, and show that there is quite a difference between running on tickover and steaming.

 

Peter.

[Alf27]

fuel cost 21p/litre

 

Wow where do you get that price from ?

[Alan de Enfield]

It was a few years ago (probably 7 years) before this 'declaration' malarchy came into force.

[Peter-Bullfinch]

Our old Sabb 22hp engine in a 57 foot boat uses 1.1 litres an hour on average. It seems to make little difference whether its rivers, tidal stretches or simply the canals.