How many engine hours do you average per year?

Wifey B: The issues of fuel costs have become front page now. I just thought it would be interesting to get a feeling for how many engine hours we each average per year. I know the last couple of years have been screwy so let's not go specific to one year, but take what you've averaged over time or feel you would average in a normal year.

Here's what we've done our last 3 seasons. 2019 was a short season for us, but included bringing the boat from CT to NY. I'm still waiting for the year we run more than 100 hours or put more than 1000nm under the keel (need to start keeping better track of that).

2019: 65 engine hours, not sure on the generator, total fuel burn ~900 gal
2020: 90 engine hours, 35 generator hours, total fuel burn ~1000 gal
2021: 82 engine hours, 21 generator hours, total fuel burn ~720 gal

rslifkin said:

Here's what we've done our last 3 seasons. 2019 was a short season for us, but included bringing the boat from CT to NY. I'm still waiting for the year we run more than 100 hours or put more than 1000nm under the keel (need to start keeping better track of that).

2019: 65 engine hours, not sure on the generator, total fuel burn ~900 gal
2020: 90 engine hours, 35 generator hours, total fuel burn ~1000 gal
2021: 82 engine hours, 21 generator hours, total fuel burn ~720 gal

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Wifey B: Then vote in the poll. It's easy. No ID required. No voter registration even. Just click on the less than 100 hours.

BandB said:

Wifey B: Then vote in the poll. It's easy. No ID required. No voter registration even. Just click on the less than 100 hours.

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Done! I didn't even see the poll when I first posted

rslifkin said:

Done! I didn't even see the poll when I first posted

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Wifey B: I was a teacher. Use to telling students to complete the back side as well or to answer all questions.

Thank you for participating.

I just voted with 100-200 hours.

That's a good historical average for us for the cruising we did prior to my retirement at the end of 2018. Before retirement, all our cruising had to be squeezed into 6-7 weeks of annual vacation time.

During the pandemic years, it was 0-50 hrs. In 2019, it was 225hrs over a six month trip. For 2022, we expect it to be about 250 hours over a 5 1/2 month trip. (Yes, we have lots of marina fees...)

But all the numbers above are "diesel hours". If I were to count the time we run on electric, I would add about another ~40% to the numbers. Unfortunately on my electric setup, there is no visible device counting the motor run-time. I have to rely on my log and guesstimates to determine electric run-time. I used to by obsessed with logging every change from diesel to electric and vice versa and how long on each. I am no longer so obsessed with this...

Leaving out 2020 as the lost Covid year, I'm in the 700+ club. Will cross 4,000 hours this spring in just over 6 years.

Ted

BandB said:

Wifey B: I was a teacher. Use to telling students to complete the back side as well or to answer all questions.

Thank you for participating.

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When I taught for the CG I always had to tell the students to RTFQ…. Surprising how many didn’t.

O C Diver said:

Leaving out 2020 as the lost Covid year, I'm in the 700+ club. Will cross 4,000 hours this spring in just over 6 years.

Ted

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Wifey B: We're such fanatics that we even hit high numbers in 2020 while cruising to nowhere. We'd get out on the water for the day or weekend, never dock anywhere, anchor, cook on board, then back home, repeat. On a Saturday and Sunday, we'd put on 15 hours and cover 300 nm. but go nowhere but out into the ocean. We'd sometimes cruise the ICW just to see what was going on or somethings just go see how many cruise ships anchored we could locate (I think our top count was 36 or so). Other times just a quick day run of 8 hours and 250 nm.

I think it's fair to say we needed those days more than anything that year as we were unretired, working 40 hour weeks, managing businesses and a school during the pandemic and zoom meetings every day. We'd averaged perhaps working less than 300 hours a year for 8 years and suddenly 2000 hours required the escape to the water even more.

We also built a bubble with a small group of people during that time. They were allowed on our property but never had contact with others anywhere else. All risk of contact was masked. If you left the bubble and had contact, then you had to quarantine. Food was all delivered by truck and no contact. Driver handled it and left without coming near any of us. We really modeled our bubble a bit like the NBA bubble, except theirs was at Disneyworld. We were very fortunate to have a large extended family willing to sacrifice a lot for the good of us all. So, then to get out on the water together was a very special pleasure. Fuel was by truck and masked and distance of at least 20' maintained.

Maybe my fondest memory of the year was the orphanage at Christmas. We couldn't imagine missing a year, but didn't know how we could go there. Leave it to some creative kids. They built individual rolling plexiglass pods. Everyone masked and we rolled around among them and enjoyed it all. We went out to our van to eat meals while they ate inside.

What a crazy year and the trips to nowhere were an important part of maintaining what little sanity we have.

Between 350 and 500 hours for us

BandB said:

Wifey B: We're such fanatics that we even hit high numbers in 2020 while cruising to nowhere. We'd get out on the water for the day or weekend, never dock anywhere, anchor, cook on board, then back home, repeat. On a Saturday and Sunday, we'd put on 15 hours and cover 300 nm. but go nowhere but out into the ocean. We'd sometimes cruise the ICW just to see what was going on or somethings just go see how many cruise ships anchored we could locate (I think our top count was 36 or so). Other times just a quick day run of 8 hours and 250 nm.

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We didn't let COVID cost us any boat use either. We did more local boating than we otherwise would have and a bit less traveling. And we totally changed our original travel plans to ones unlikely to be impacted by COVID (and plans that gave us the option of avoiding contact with people almost completely).

Leaving out the 2020 covid year (272 hours), we averaged 770 hours in our NT37 over five summers.

In our 26-footer we averaged 380 over 17 summers.

In our 22-footer we averaged about 200 over 7 summers.

I like Poles...

I think I averaged close to 150 per year during the 30 years we boated out of a marina. Most of those years we worked, and we lived in CT so it's tough to do a lot of hours, even though we went out of the slip every weekend that we could.
When we couldn't take the big boat out, we would use the dinghy in the river. Probably have more dinghy hours than boat hours LOL
We did do some 200 and 300 plus hour seasons, but those were after we retired.

I'm averaging 250 since re-powering 9 years ago.

Covid had an impact - at times the Govt prohibited using boats for recreation. The were mostly trying to stop people with trailer boats moving around the community during lockdowns which limited how far you could be from home.

I'm not able to go out at present either. The Brisbane River is still closed by the Harbourmaster due to risk of debris from flooding 10 days ago. Up to $27,570 fine for breach or order. Runaway pontoons from up-river with 4" of concrete on top became torpedoes in the 15-20kn currents. A 60 ft yacht on the walkway upriver from me was sunk by one, a City Cat ferry was also sunk by one and lots of other damage.

But even without these things I'd be unlikely to get over 300 hours pa.

Migration from Gulf Coast to Bahamas for three months and back is about 350 hours for us. Now on fourth cruise. No Covid impact.

125 hours yearly.
It so happens to be same as Yanmar's recommendation for oil and filter changes: 125 so I get to do it once a year.
The canal boat, a 17' Cobia with a 90hp outboard gets another 125 hours annually.

With our Motorsailer we do over 200 engine hours during our 1500-2000 NM annual cruises.


This may well be reduced as I have just installed a lightweight Reacher sail for light winds.


Unless we had at least 12 knots true wind it was not worth hoising the sails for drive. The main was always hoisted, sheeted in hard as a roll damper.


With the new sail - almost doubling sail area - I hope to sail in light conditions. The conditions where the engine has previously been used.

This has really been interesting. I knew the average of all boats was under 100 hours a year, and I've heard the average recreational number as closer to 50 hours, a lot of weekend only use. However, I'm not sure I expected the numbers my wife has uncovered here. 64% of TF'ers running under 200 hours per year, with half those under 100 hours. From there up, it looks like I expected with 26% between 200 and 500 hours and 10% over 500.

In smaller boats, over the years, many have found they don't have time to use and enjoy boats and ownership makes no sense for them. A lot have turned to boat clubs and others have just gotten out of boating. Now, the pandemic reversed a lot of that as it freed up time from work and school and other duties. I wonder if there is a usage level for trawlers at which owners will think it doesn't justify ownership or is owning and working on the boat just as much a part of trawlering as it cruising?

I think with many trawler owners that it's about time with the boat, time working getting it ready, time anchored or docked, and not as much about time actually moving on the water. There's nothing wrong with that. It's like the homeowners along the ICW and canals who must be waterfront, but don't boat at all. We all enjoy the sport differently.

I know we have threads about the impact of fuel prices. I do think these numbers show why the TF world will not be as impacted as others might think. If you're only using the boat 100 hours a year and running slow, then the increase in fuel won't impact significantly. Those at the other end, over 700 hours, are just not likely to slow down even with the added cost. They may adjust by 100 fewer hours moving and 100 more sitting at anchor, but many won't change at all.

BandB said:

I wonder if there is a usage level for trawlers at which owners will think it doesn't justify ownership or is owning and working on the boat just as much a part of trawlering as it cruising?

I think with many trawler owners that it's about time with the boat, time working getting it ready, time anchored or docked, and not as much about time actually moving on the water. There's nothing wrong with that. It's like the homeowners along the ICW and canals who must be waterfront, but don't boat at all. We all enjoy the sport differently.

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I think as you look at bigger boats, the formula is a little different. There's more you can do while not moving, so low engine hours doesn't necessarily equate to a lack of use. With small boats, you're less likely to spend time on the boat the dock, or overnight at anchor somewhere, etc. so engine hours are likely a tighter relationship to boat usage.

average per 300-350 year up until last fall when injuries got the best of me.

Over the last 9 years 6k on the inboards and 1.5k on the outboards.

Have you thought of polling those who do not live aboard for time spent on boat covering ALL activities including underway, anchored, maintenance, etc, etc.? I know that my engine hours do not begin to reflect the time I spend "messing about."

I am a bachelor and single hand most of the time, living aboard for pretty much all of the summer months here in South Central Alaska. I average 500-700 hours a year between mid May and the end of September, and troll the Seward Silver Salmon derby for a week in August 15-16 hours a day.

I lost about 100 hours last season on someone else's boat bringing it up fro Juneau to Whittier. Averaged over the long term I burn about .42 GPH, with a high of 1 GPH at 7 knots crossing the Gulf and transiting point to point. The low is trolling, no real way to calculate that, but it's my lowest harmonic idle speed on the engine (about 2 knots).

Fuel prices will be uncomfortable, but not a major issue in operating my boat. When on board, I run my boat daily to travel, fish, sight see, and keep my batteries charged up. With no generator I can only sit stationary for about three days before my batteries are pulled down as far as I am willing to let them be.

I considered a generator, but they burn more fuel than my engine does so I opt to run the engine instead.

Depends when you ask. Mine is 60,000hrs over 50yrs so let's say 1200 average. However, many of those were 24hr days for years on end as a commercial vessel. Now the vessel has moved about 50ft in the last year while under refit.

rgano said:

Have you thought of polling those who do not live aboard for time spent on boat covering ALL activities including underway, anchored, maintenance, etc, etc.? I know that my engine hours do not begin to reflect the time I spend "messing about."

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I'm at about 150 for the last 3 years. Batflu and a minor but extended refit ate into run time. And, as rgano said, at this stage of my life I find "messing about" (not underway) with the old girl quite rewarding and enjoyable in itself.

We hope to substantially up the underway hours this year.

Little over 300 hrs first year with Broadbill

Just over 100 for me.

We are full time cruisers. Olympia WA, to Juneau AK. That equates to the mid 400 hour range.

Winter thoughts in anticipation of spring commissioning: Some interesting metrics for 2022 might be.... How many minutes of exercise, especially walking, do we do per day on average during an extended cruise?... (correlates to trying to add more years of cruising!) How many new places do we go - towns and natural areas, per year? How many new people do we meet on the docks? How many safety drills do we practice every year? How long has it been since we replaced engine water hoses and clamps? How many breath-taking new sunsets and sunrises did we enjoy this year? How better prepared are we for safe, enjoyable cruises than when we started our trawler adventure years ago? Lastly, how many nights this year will we quietly play some music and slowdance on the flybridge?