Question for Cruising Trawlers

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

I can explain why MY Mainship is not in the Bahamas right now GA$$. At 2-3$/gal no problem, 4-5$ a gal, I can't afford to take it more than 100 miles from my dock. Some Texas to Florida trips were in my short term plans when gas was a little cheaper, now a Carribean trip,...No way.

Leave America and base yourself in South America like so many others are.

Top 10 countries with lowest petrol prices - China.org.cn

[SimonV]

We plan to move to a trawler when we become too old to sail.

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by BessLB

It's true, sailboats swing with current, and powerboats swing with wind, we already know that part

So, you don't believe this not-so-unusual motorboat-hull won't swing with the current?

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by SimonV

We plan to move to a trawler when we become too old to sail.

I'm there, but have retained vestigial sails.



(Adjusting mainsail's trim)

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

The pictures with 1-2 trawlers per 50-100 sailboats are a pretty good representation of the total cross section of boats out there. In our travels over a 7 month period in the western caribbean, we ran into no more than 6-8 power vessels vs. hundreds of sailboats.

Depends. Rodney Bay / St Lucia alone has currently maybe 15-20 power boats in the outer bay and many more in the marina.
Interestingly not only trawler types but also those 35-40ft "plastic express cruisers" that can be had very cheap in FL at the moment. Yes, fuel is more expensive than on a sailboat but it's an easy way to get going. You don't have to go somewhere @35kn but it's nice that you can is need arises. And these little boats are so much cheaper than buying a trawler.

Beside that sailbaots also burn a lot of fuel just for anchor up / down, getting out of the calm lee of the islands, saving a tack or two, and of course making electricity, running the watermaker, waterheater, freezer, dive compressor, etc, etc.

And they need new sails & rigs every now and then. All this makes power cruising not my current choice but also not a ridiculous idea.

[SimonV]

Originally Posted by rabbi

Beside that sailbaots also burn a lot of fuel just for anchor up / down, getting out of the calm lee of the islands, saving a tack or two, and of course making electricity, running the watermaker, waterheater, freezer, dive compressor, etc, etc.

And they need new sails & rigs every now and then. All this makes power cruising not my current choice but also not a ridiculous idea.

I don't know how you use your Sailboat, but in the last 4 years We have
traveled more than 30,000NM with a grand total of 1200 liters of diesel. Sail repairs total $700 Au. But then I don't have a dive compressor like all the other sailboats.

[rabbi]

For making passages to some nice place a sailboat is to me the only choice but for cruising there it doesn't make much of a difference.

On the passages from the Canaries to the caribbean we had a fuel efficiency of roughly 5600nm per gallon as we used the motor only two hours on the 2800nm.



Here in the caribbean we get far less sailing for each hour of running the motor, as we are constantly in the lee of islands and can only sail in the open water between the islands (open water, ha, that's mostly just two or three hours) . Like South of Martinique to Dominica to Iles Saintes: About 60nm of motoring in the lee of the islands and 35nm of sailing. That is with stopping at each nice spot on the way of course, which makes finding wind and raising sails pretty useless. Even worse at the Grenadines where you are motoring out an anchorage and maybe around some reefs and then can sail for twenty minutes to the next anchorage.
Plus we need to run the genset for making water and filling dive tanks which we did not have to do on our passages.

In essence: long distances: sail, short distances: who cares

[BillAU]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

I can explain why MY Mainship is not in the Bahamas right now GA$$. At 2-3$/gal no problem, 4-5$ a gal, I can't afford to take it more than 100 miles from my dock. Some Texas to Florida trips were in my short term plans when gas was a little cheaper, now a Carribean trip,...No way.

I'm still planning to go, but it will be in a sailboat.

Think you're hard done by on diesel prices We Aussies are paying over six bucks for a gallon of diesel (one Imperial gallon = 4.54609188 litres @ 152.7cents per Letre WEEKLY DIESEL PRICES REPORT) and we don't have any Venezuela close by to move to

[Amapola]

We've made numerous trips to the Bahamas (in fact, we're just returning at this moment). We travel in a slow moving 48' trawler and find mostly sailboats in the Bahamas. We don't have a problem with this as we are former sailors and have met lots of friendly sailors in the Bahamas. There are plenty of anchorages and places to wait out storms. Like others, we don't have the herding mentality and prefer to anchor with plenty of open space around us.

[Sabbatical II]

Originally Posted by BillAU

Think you're hard done by on diesel prices We Aussies are paying over six bucks for a gallon of diesel (one Imperial gallon = 4.54609188 litres @ 152.7cents per Letre WEEKLY DIESEL PRICES REPORT) and we don't have any Venezuela close by to move to

Eh Bill, that's just the "on-road" price at the service station. For marine useage there is no "road tax" so the marinas sell it for upwards of $2 per litre (approx $9 per gal). So figure that one out.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by rabbi

And they need new sails & rigs every now and then. All this makes power cruising not my current choice but also not a ridiculous idea.

can man do has all that rig cost vs fuel cost worked out. Maybe he will point to where it is. Very interesting.

[BillAU]

Originally Posted by Eleebana

Eh Bill, that's just the "on-road" price at the service station. For marine useage there is no "road tax" so the marinas sell it for upwards of $2 per litre (approx $9 per gal). So figure that one out.

G'day Greg,

Thanks for that heads-up mate, I didn't know Aussie powerboat cruisers were being screwed-over even more-so than on-road diesel users...That knowledge places a big slant on me thinking I should be looking at Power Cruisers (Trawler Type) for my next boat! Getting to be a bit long in the tooth gets you thinking that way
I guess I should be looking for a glass-on-ply Cat with petrol outboard/s that I can convert to run on methanol (wood alcohol) which I could brew onboard, or on some Island...Outside AU limits of-course But even for old glass on ply Cats here in AU, the sellers are asking, imho, to much cash but then...What do I know
I guess it's back to a big old Ferro Cement Sailboat for me for my home on the water. Perhaps I could convert a big old FC sailboat to electric power motor

Cheers Greg,

Bill
Australia

[Aruvqan]

Originally Posted by SimonV

except f%$*ing jet skis.

How about p-fired steam boats?

[BessLB]

Originally Posted by markpierce

So, you don't believe this not-so-unusual motorboat-hull won't swing with the current?

Ha! Skinny Dippin' has a full keel too! But we still swing more so with wind than current. Although usually we don't anchor where there is much current so not a whole lot of experience with that.

[Wittig]

HI:
I went from a Rag man to a Stink Pot at about 65. The few things that I note are different:
Trawlers are NOT as safe at deep sea as a well designed off shore sailboat (for the same length).
When we were sailing, we would leave an anchorage in 10 -12' seas if it was a broad reach and deep water; with my 43 Defever and NIAD's, 6-8 is my max with 4-6 being "somewhat" comfortable.

We are in Puerto Rico now with our trawler. I agree with the 20:1 or so guess - Sail to Power. As with all boats, some are NOT really designed to be off shore passagemakers, some are. As a general rule the inexpensive boats are NOT.

Anchoring is a skill that most have a problem with. READ, READ, practice, talk to experienced BLUE WATER sailor's (yes even Trawler Captains).

Regards,
Capt. Rich Wittig
M/V Moonshine
43 DeFever