I can only speak for my vessel and my style of boating. I run at 7.4 knots at 1600 rpm depending on the load on board. As the weight decreases the speed picks up marginally. Light on water and fuel etc. 7.6 - 7.7 knots at 1600 rpm. My engine is a Cummins 210 hp in a single engine Grand Banks 36 (weight fully loaded in the area of 32,000 lbs). I burn on the average about 2.1 gal per hour. Last major trip 5500 nautical miles with a total fuel consumption as close as I can estimate of 2004 US gal., this includes about 5 months at anchor in the Bahamas with about 1 3 /4 hours of generator time a day. Also generator time when anchored on travels and lots of idle time when doing locks etc. (about 107 locks this trip). At an average of $1.10 US /gal. my costs are about $2.30 /hour for fuel. I don't even want to know what that is in Canadian $ at the moment. Cheers Al Binnington GB36 FALKOR

Sounds like you are doing great on fuel economy. My boat is a 46' Prairie with a pair of 200hp Perkins, 2-1/2 to 1 reduction and swinging 26x24" props. At 1450rpm I am cruising close to 9 knots and on a number of 2 month trips to the Bahamas our fuel consumption including the generator which ran about 3 hours per day averaged out to 3-3/4 gallons per hour. We buy our fuel off a truck and were paying about $.74 per gallon for an average hourly cost of approximately $2.75. We are now chaning the engines to Cummins 210's and from the fuel curve, we feel the fuel consumption will be approximately the same. Frugal Al you wrote: >I can only speak for my vessel and my style of boating. I run at 7.4 knots at >1600 rpm depending on the load on board. As the weight decreases the speed >picks up marginally. Light on water and fuel etc. 7.6 - 7.7 knots at 1600 >rpm. My engine is a Cummins 210 hp in a single engine Grand Banks 36 (weight >fully loaded in the area of 32,000 lbs). I burn on the average about 2.1 gal >per hour. Last major trip 5500 nautical miles with a total fuel consumption >as close as I can estimate of 2004 US gal., this includes about 5 months at >anchor in the Bahamas with about 1 3 /4 hours of generator time a day. Also >generator time when anchored on travels and lots of idle time when doing locks >etc. (about 107 locks this trip). > >At an average of $1.10 US /gal. my costs are about $2.30 /hour for fuel. I >don't even want to know what that is in Canadian $ at the moment. > >Cheers > >Al Binnington >GB36 FALKOR > > Captain Al Pilvinis M/V Driftwood--- Prairie 46 2630 N.E. 41st Street Lighthouse Point, Fl 33064-8064 954-941-2556 Fax 954-788-2666 Email - CaptainAl@Juno.com Check site for color photos and info. Website http://home.earthlink.net/~yourcaptain