Outrageous Fuel Costs

[mbianka]

Originally Posted by virginia boy

I'd love, love, love, to go electric but it's just too damned expensive to convert. I'll wait until the prices drop.

Yeah, I'd never advocate pulling out a good working diesel or gas engine. But, if they ever die it's a good time to look at the possibilty of electric. That's what I did. My system came out to be a wash in costs with a new diesel. But, I have seen some systems way over priced and too complex for many sailboats. The technology will advance and you will be able to take advantage of those changes as well as price drops.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by bugmon

My 'work' boat is a 34' Novi lobster boat with a 6 cyl John Deere diesel . Last year I converted it to run on WVO ( waste vegetable oil ... french-fry grease) , and my fuel bill went from over 2k$ / year to alittle over 300$.
I get the grease for free and my only eggspenses are filters and my time ...and the little bit of diesel it takes to start and purge the engine before i shut her down.

Can you dig it ?

The reality is that you are getting the waste veggie oil from a fool. It is worth money and folks should be paying him at least $2/gallons as is, where is. At least that is what larger generators are paid in the cites.

Common sense is that cooking oil is worth far more than diesel oil, and waste oil is very recyclable into animal feed and soaps. Fuel is not it's highest value, and that is the primary reason larger efforts along these lines have failed.

But enjoy the deal while it lasts.

[bugmon]

Originally Posted by thinwater

The reality is that you are getting the waste veggie oil from a fool. It is worth money and folks should be paying him at least $2/gallons as is, where is. At least that is what larger generators are paid in the cites.

Common sense is that cooking oil is worth far more than diesel oil, and waste oil is very recyclable into animal feed and soaps. Fuel is not it's highest value, and that is the primary reason larger efforts along these lines have failed.

But enjoy the deal while it lasts.

In a city perhaps it would be worth as much as $2.00 / gal . But I live on an island where there are quite a few restaurants . They pay $1.00 / gal to a trucker who collects it every couple weeks and takes it off-island to feed his pigs.
It works well for my two restaurants as they are saving money as am I at the pump. I realize my situation is somewhat unique , and I am enjoying it .

[u4ea32]

Originally Posted by Unicorn Dreams

That's what I like about sail.

$4200 worth of sails good for over 30,000 NM.

I think you are low by 10-20x on that cost estimate.

[zeehag]

sails do not have to be extremely pricey. they can be gotten newly used from sail lofts of from minneys or bacons or other sources. many buying new boats change sails out to get kevlar or mylar and their old ones are essentially unused. so, why do sails HAVE to be 15000 dollars each?? no reason.......

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by u4ea32

I think you are low by 10-20x on that cost estimate.

Please explain your math here, mate... 40,000+ dollars worth of sails???
Not on my boat.

Jim

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by zeehag

sails do not have to be extremely pricey. they can be gotten newly used from sail lofts of from minneys or bacons or other sources. many buying new boats change sails out to get kevlar or mylar and their old ones are essentially unused. so, why do sails HAVE to be 15000 dollars each?? no reason.......

probably doesnt matter much on a mono that only does 4-6 knots on a good day but on a performance boat and especially a multi, poor sails make a vast difference to sailing ability.

It's like buying a Porsche and then refusing to get the motor serviced and tuned, leaving it to run rough and insisting that worn out tyres or retreads are good enough.
It just aint going to be running anywhere near its potential.

Plus, its easy to get second hand sails for mono's as there are so many of them out there
Try getting them in any sort of usable condition to suit a multi

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Please explain your math here, mate... 40,000+ dollars worth of sails???
Not on my boat.

Jim

Maybe rig and sails?

[u4ea32]

Jim, you have a 46 footer and your sail budget is less than $40K to go 30K NM? How did you do that!?!?! Genius!

[u4ea32]

Hmm, this is interesting:

Squeteague Sailmakers - Sail Price Calculator

They assume mains cost only $7.20 per square foot, foresails are $6.35 and chutes only $3.25.

Those are about the prices I paid for small boat (Santa Cruz 27) sails 30 years ago, and Maxi IOR yacht sails 35 years ago.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by u4ea32

Jim, you have a 46 footer and your sail budget is less than $40K to go 30K NM? How did you do that!?!?! Genius!

NOt really...

Main: 4700 AUD
Genoa: 4000 AUD
Stays'l: 1800 AUD
Storm Jib: old/used unknown cost came with boat
Spinnaker: Used, repaired, total 800AUD.

The Main has something over 35000 miles and 8 years on it. It has had one repair to the leach tabling, and will likely be replaced next year or so.

The genoa is only 4 years old and has ~ 20,000 miles on it. Still in excellent shape.

The staysail is about 6 years old and has about 32,000 miles (not used continuously, of course).

The storm jib sits in its bag...

The spinnaker was measured (IOR) in 1983, has had one major repair, and I have no idea how many miles it has flown, but has been on the boat for 8 years.

The main, genoa, staysail and spinnaker rebuild were all done by Allwood Sails in Queensland... an independent but quality loft. The main and genoa are radial Dacron, the staysail is cross-cut dacron, the kite is 1 1/2 Oznylon.

In general, I think that I am more picky about sails than many cruisers due to years of racing before going cruising.

So, you see that it doesn't take any genius to greatly undercut your proposed budget for sails.

Cheers,

Jim

[Amapola]

Originally Posted by cat man do

Does that compensate for return fuel?

No, it's relative assuming that the more fuel you burn, the more it returns in a linear manner. In my case, 50% of the fuel measured returns to the tank. With my twin Ford Lehman 120's, one monitor predicts mileage and fuel burned according to RPM.

For example, my consumption at 1800 RPM was 1.5 MPG. after trying various speeds, I found that 1400 RPM gave me maximum economy of 2.8 MPG. I verified this when I refueled and found that the Garmin data was within 1.3% of fuel consumed.

[u4ea32]

Jim, thanks for the reality check. I haven't personally bought a sail for two decades since switching to power, and its interesting to see that price per square foot has actually fallen since then, back to prices realistic in the 70s. The discounted race boat prices I've seen (sails bought by owners of boats I race on) are FOUR TIMES what you are paying.

[deckofficer]

With the cost of sails and diesel, I have to wonder why more folks that are only interested in cruising the Caribbean don't just go with the large tankage trawler type cruiser and fill in Venezuela at $0.18 a gallon for diesel? Am I missing something here like that government subsidized fuel cost is only for citizens of Venezuela? I would think that 40'~60' used trawlers going for less than $80K, would be the cheapest ticket to cruising the Caribbean by burning that $0.18 a gallon diesel?

[u4ea32]

A year ago I was in Antigua and was talking to a crew that went to Venezuela to fill up. While the supposed fuel cost was something crazy cheap like $0.18, the fees (bribes) required to actually get in, fuel, and out safely again drove the cost up to about $2 a gallon. And since they had to drive all the way there and back, that drove the effective price up to about $3 a gallon, and wasted a lot of time (of people and engines and all the other wear and tear). This was an 80 footer, and they bought several thousand gallons.

Two blogs I've read pointed out that they went there for cheap fuel, but the risk of piracy made the adventure one to be missed, not taken. Sounded scary to me! Fuel is a lot less valuable than your life.

There are a lot of people who do this sort of thing -- buy where its cheap -- and so it can be an effective strategy. I'm just pointing out its not as wonderful a situation as it sounds. And you really can't get the fuel anywhere near as cheap as "they say."