How many hours do you have?

[soin2la]

Last night while we were trying to calculate how many gallons of beer we have consumed in our lives, we gave up and shifted to hours on the water.

So, just a fun question; how many hours do you guess you have under way?
If you want to break it down into commercial, naval and pleasure, that would be interesting.

On boats with hour meters, I can guess accumulated time at about 2,500 hours but that is probably only the half of it.

 

[GFC]

Good topic but a tough one to add up.

1. I got my first boat (row boat) at age 5 and probably spent 4 hours a day, all summer, for 2 years. 4hours x 6 days/week x 4 months of summer x 2 years = 192
2. At age 7 I got a motor. Same formula except 4 years = 384
3. At age 11 I got a Sailfish. Same formula as #2 = 384
4. In 1990 I got a 20' bow rider, 200 hours a year x 10 years = 2000
5. In 2000 I bought an express cruiser, 150 hours x 10 years = 1500
6. In 2010 we bought our current boat, 200 hours x 10 years = 2000
7. Concurrent with #4 and #5 above I chartered twice, 4/day x 7 days x 2 charters = 56.

Total = 4516 hours and that doesn't count countless hours in a canoe on the local rivers. Wow, that's 188 days, and that's just engine hours on the last 4 listed which doesn't count hours spent over nighting or anchored for a day.

Next.......

 

[SteveK]

well I remember........no I don't
This week 5 x 24 with one more day will be 144 hours
8 other 24 hr days this year 192
Winter months we use it as a floating condo at the dock
Hmm with 14 days this year, I guess I have reached the average for most boats in marinas I have been in.

 

[alormaria]

This is the hardest part of the OUPV qualification.

 

[Pete Meisinger]

For me, about the same as GFC except to add that in the 60's I was into waterskiing. Probably 10 hours a day, 3 months a year for about 7 or 8 years. Half skiing, half driving.

Lots of hours, lots of fun

pete

 

[BandB]

1983-87, 2300
1988-1992, 2100
1993-1998, 2500
1999-2006, 3300
2007-2012, 2500
2013-960
2014-980
2015-800
2016-800
2017-1000
2018-900
2019-800
2020-60

19,000

Wifey B: 19,000 - 8,000 =11,000

Estimated nautical miles 342,000 and 198,000

Today, projected 6 hours, 90-100 nm.

 

[BandB]

This is the hardest part of the OUPV qualification.

Only reason I was able to even estimate the hours was all the time I spent reconstructing sea time from the age of 16 to the age of 42, when I first realized I might want it, then maintaining since then. Easy to record as you do it, but going back 25 years was a major task. Only way I was able was my father made me record the fuel purchases so he could verify the credit card charges and then I started logging all expenditures when I started paying.

As a teenager, it was amazing how on a small lake I could fill up with gas 3 times in one day, 5 or 6 times from Friday afternoon through Sunday. Think my first boat used about 5 gph on average but only held 24 gallons.

 

[RCook]

About 11,000 engine hours so far on our own power boats. Another 10-12 weeks on chartered sail.

 

[Dougcole]

This is tough to answer. We lived on the water growing up, I helped my dad commercial grouper fish for 6 or 8 years. I shrimped a couple of winter breaks. I tarpon or snook or trout fished a couple of days most every week for most of my life. we had a laser and a Hobie 16 growing up. I worked at a beach sailboat rental place teaching sailing in summer when I was in high school. I was a tarpon guide for 13 years, fishing 70 days a year, 10 hours a day.

We have made 12 or 15 trips to the Bahamas, 2 to 4 weeks each. Four or five Caribbean bareboat charters two weeks each. Numerous trips around Florida on our current boat.

I was a partner in a houseboat we would take way out into the Louisiana Marsh for a couple of weeks each year duck hunting.

I don't even know how to guess. I'm 55. 35,000 hours?

 

[koliver]

50s: 40 (rowboat, rowing)
60s: 2410 (commercial fishing, water skiing, summer work)
70s: 1200 ( 15' speedboat, Star sailboat, first cruising sailboat)
80s: 2000 (30' cruising sailboat, not including maintenance time)
90s: 2000 (37' sailboat, 44' trawler)
00s: 2000 (trawler time)
10s: 2000 (trawler time)
total: 11650 within WAG accuracy

 

[O C Diver]

Don't have my records handy, but I need atleast 365 days every 5 years for captain's license renewal since 1984. Then there was 365 to get the first license. That's roughly 2,900 days. Assuming around 8 hours a day, that would be over 23,000 hours.

Then there are the recreational hours on 8 different power boats......

I tend to think of boat time in days going boating, probably over a decade of my life.

Ted

 

[wwestman]

I just count days, or weeks or months. Easier

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

At least 2000 hrs,I think. Maybe more..

 

[O C Diver]

At least 2000 hrs,I think. Maybe more..

I think your short a couple of zeros if including work.

Ted

 

[alormaria]

Luckily none of the hours on a boat are counted against your lifespan.

 

[High Wire]

Anywhere between 100 and 250 hours a year since 1975. I never kept a detailed log until buying Irish Lady 6 years ago. That's also not counting being on others boats. Come to think about it the last 5 years have been closer to 400. 200-250 in FL in the winter plus another 150-200 in NJ in the summer. Retirement is a wonderful thing.

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

I think your short a couple of zeros if including work.

Ted

CG says I get 273.75 days of sea time per year.... Days,nor hours. soooo, times that by 40 plus years at sea and I think I exceed my 2000 hrs estimate by I few hundred hrs at least. Still chicken of the sea, and as TF get together types heard ,Mercenary of the sea.lol

 

[markpierce]

Are merit badges being awarded?

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

Are merit badges being awarded?

Not for me. Only battle scars. I've been accused of a lot of things, but never been accused of being a boy scout..
A little rough around the edges here...but still play nice with the other kids. Just ask the 2020 TF get together crew

 

[hollywood8118]

Somewhere between 15-18000 hrs
Wish more had been paid vs. paying for them
Everything for a 10' hydroplane to a 65' sailing cat to a 75' foil assisted passenger ferry..still looking to fly a hovercraft.

HOLLYWOOD

 

[Wayfarer]

I've only put about 600 hours on engines I've owned, between Wayfarer and Sylphide.

I'd have to add another 400 for boating as a kid, and maybe another hundred or two in canoes and kayaks over the years.

So, maybe 1200 hours moving through the water on a privately owned craft. And that's just moving. If I tally up time spent aboard boats whether they were moored or underway, that would multiply by about 10.

With work and school, I've spent about 60,000 hours aboard since 2002.

Oh, and another couple hundred on cruises. Does staying on the Queen Mary for three nights count? What about all the museum ships? Ferries? Crikey.

My answer to the original question is 'Yes.'

 

[markpierce]

Does spending time at anchor or docked count? Not in my mind.

 

[O C Diver]

CG says I get 273.75 days of sea time per year.... Days,nor hours. soooo, times that by 40 plus years at sea and I think I exceed my 2000 hrs estimate by I few hundred hrs at least. Still chicken of the sea, and as TF get together types heard ,Mercenary of the sea.lol

273 X 40 = 10,920 days.
10,290 ÷ 365 =28+ years
10,920 X 24 = 262,080 Hr.

You win.

Ted

 

[Ventana]

still looking to fly a hovercraft.

HOLLYWOOD

It’s pretty fun on the right day. As soon as the wind comes up the fun goes away.

 

[T210DRVR]

North of 700,000 NM and 6,000 hours flying a plane. Less than 500 engine hours running a boat.

 

[twistedtree]

I've never tracked hours, but can come up with a reasonable estimate since I do track days for licensing. I've got 1223 days, so if you figure 6hr ave per day that's about 7300 hrs. Actually, I do know how many hours I put on our last boat, as well as the number of days, and it comes out to 6.6hr ave per day, so that helps validate the 6hr/day assumption.

 

[BandB]

I've never tracked hours, but can come up with a reasonable estimate since I do track days for licensing. I've got 1223 days, so if you figure 6hr ave per day that's about 7300 hrs. Actually, I do know how many hours I put on our last boat, as well as the number of days, and it comes out to 6.6hr ave per day, so that helps validate the 6hr/day assumption.

I used 6 hours per day too in my calculation. Now, I know on some trips it's far more. You do 24 hours a couple of days and changes it, but I find 6 reasonable. On my early boats and sea time on them I actually had hours and made sure the days I used correlated on the basis of 6 hours to a day. I had all sorts of elaborate supporting documents in case my sea time documents were questioned. Never got a question. All they cared about was proof of ownership of boats. I am shocked that I still had that from over 25 years earlier.

 

[jleonard]

Actually piloting a "sleep aboard" boat:
About 4500 hours that I can easily justify by engine hours.
An easy 1500 in a dinghy.
Plus probably another 500 in a center console style.
So that's approx. 6500 hours actually running a boat.
If I counted time aboard while anchored (not at a marina or dock) probably another 30,000 hours maybe more.

I'm just a beginner.

 

[rgano]

Naval underway time would be hard to go back and retrieve, although I have the handwritten journals to do it. I spent 24 year in the canoe club and only five ashore.
However, warships do spend a fair amount of their lives in port. Pretty much same for my commercial time. And remember, unlike time underway on your personal vessel, you are not on the bridge most of the time underway, only during your watch. Now if you want to calculate hours afloat, not necessarily under way, well, about a third of my 72 years, and since time afloat is not deducted from your life span, I figure I am what, maybe 48?

 

[Lou_tribal]

I have around 394200 hours and still counting. Hopefully I will still count for quite some while.

L