I have known Steve and Linda Dashew for almost 40 years and have been aboard many of their boats. I have no doubt that the figures which they give are true. The numbers they give are real life usage, not sea trials or theoretical. I do agree that most "motor boat tests" are done with very light boats, clean bottoms and good conditions. Peter infers that a 6 year old editorial in Lat 38 refutes their figures. I don't agree. Steve related his own performance figures in Beowulf, and those were not disputed by the editor. What was refuted was that a Swan 65 could average 10 knots crossing the Atlantic. I have been on boats capable of the 10 knot average--but racing sail boats are built to rules--not necessarilly to be most effecient or even the fastest. If you go back and read the various postings on the Dashew Set sail web site about the Wind Horse's fuel consumption, you will see that the 1.7 miles a gallon is typical of real life cruisng that they do. In the first 3 months of cruising this boat they had averaged 1.83 miles a gallon, passagemaking, partly up wind, in the South Pacific averaging over 11 knots. >From the article on the Alaska trip by Steve Dashew: "All of which has led to a figure of about 1.76 nautical miles per gallon on average, for a range of 6300 miles at 11.3 knots (1900 RPM). This is an improvement of around 10% from what we tested during sea trials, indicating the new props are taking us in the right direction. It is also better than what we saw on our passage from New Zealand to Samoa. However, it is hard to compare the figures from that period, as they include a lot of miles with the wind and waves behind us, a few with wind and sea on the nose, and more air conditioning and stabilizer loads " I note that people get excited about 2 to 3 miles a gallon in a "trawler". Many sailboats/motorsailors average 5 to 6 miles a gallon on regular basis. Many of todays "Trawlers" are beamy, to cram as much into a shorter length. The Dashew's experiences, the Idlewild's figures and my own with long narrow sailboats (6 miles a gallon @ 6 knots over many thousands of miles) all confirm that the narrow hull gets much better fuel "mileage" than the average "Trawler". Perhaps in the days of increasing fuel prices, we will see more narrow boats, but perhaps not, because of the increasing difficulty of finding dockage and the increasing cost of dockage. Regards, Bob Austin

<<Perhaps in the days of increasing fuel prices, we will see more narrow boats, but perhaps not, because of the increasing difficulty of finding dockage and the increasing cost of dockage.>> Perhaps there is a market for narrow boats for those who own their own docks. Dockage expense has never been a concern of mine, since at first I cruised full time and anchored out, rarely setting foot on a marina dock. Two years ago, We bought a home on the Okeechobee Waterway canal with 98' of dockage, and now cruise half the year, using marina docks only about one day in 3 months. At 46' long and 15' beam, Pooh isn't particularly narrow, but his sailboat shape is sliprier than most trawler hulls at below hull speed; and having only 80 diesel HP for 16 tons of boat allows pretty good mileage. We typically burn 1.3-1.4 GPH with a cruise speed of 7-7.5 kts. (that's statute gallons and knotical knots) We should do better on the way home now, since it's all down hill from here. Mark Richter, m/v Winnie the Pooh, Ortona, FL presently at the free town dock in Mechanicville, NY