The 80' Elco PT boat of WWII was powered with three Packard V-12 marine engines (NOT aircraft engines as many people believe) that developed 1350 hp each on a good day. That's a total of 4,050 hp, 750 less than the Viking. The boat weighed 102,000 lbs, 22,000 lbs more than the Viking. It was claimed that an 80' Elco PT could go 40 knots but that actually only happened when the boats were brand new on sea trials at the factory. Once they were on station with all the crap they got loaded down with and marine growth on them they were lucky to do 20 mph with all three engines running properly (which was also a somewhat rare occurance).
At maximum sustained speed of 2,000 rpm, each Packard 4M-2500 gas engine burned 97 gallons an hour. The boats carried 3,000 gallons of fuel, which gave them a theoretical endurance of 10 hours at 35 knots. In actuality both numbers were considerably less.
John's Viking is more impressive in power and speed although the PT boats burned more fuel. But fuel was dirt cheap in the early 1940s.......
-- Edited by Marin at 21:08, 2007-11-21
