View Single Post
Old 10-25-2010, 01:24 PM   #52
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Operating a twin on one engine and fuel economy

Having run our boat on one engine (both port and starboard) and with the prop both locked and freewheeling due to precautionary engine shutdowns I can tell you that, fuel savings or not, it's not a pleasant way to run the boat. The non-powered prop puts out a lot of turbulence that buffets the rudder behind it which, depending on your steering system you may nor may not feel in the wheel. This same turbulence makes steering a rather jerky and non-precise affair, again depending on the kind of steering your boat has. We have cable-chain so whatever happens at the rudder is transmitted to the wheel.

Given that fuel is still one of the smallest percentages of the total cost of boat ownership it doesn't make any sense to me to try to eke out a few dollars in fuel savings by runing the boat in an unbalanced manner. If one was doing a long distance cruise where fuel use was really critical-- like the guy who did the GB stunt from Hawaii to California--- then there may be some reason to do it. But to run on one on the typical coastal cruise doesn't seem at all productive to me in the overall scheme of things.

The fellow on*the*GB forum*who put together the fuel use*and speed chart I posted the link to*comparing running on both engines to running on the port or starboard engine did this because he was curious what the actual numbers would be (for his boat) vs. simply speculation.* But he said he never actually ran the boat this way.* He always ran Dreamer on two engines, be it long cruises down the coast*to Mexico or short ones around the San Juan Islands.


-- Edited by Marin on Monday 25th of October 2010 03:04:55 PM
Marin is offline   Reply With Quote