Motor yachts for long range cruising

[Bigslick75093]

General question. If I wanted a live aboard motor vessel that I also wanted to cruise the north and South American continents on Atlantic side, is a motor yacht such as a 55 ft hatteras even feasible, or do you really need a trawler?
Take a hatteras 55 MY with twin 650 hp diesels. Even if you get feathering props and only run 1 engine at a time and only cruise about 7 knots, are you going to have the range and economic ability to go long ranges? Seems like most listings have 800 gallons fuel at the most. I know if you run at listed cruising speeds like 18+ knots, you're probably going to burn 40-60 gals per hour.
So are MY's really just for living in 1 location and taking occasional day trips?

[Clipper4730]

A good friend of ours has a Hatteras 58' Yachtfish. They cruise at about 6 to 7kts and get about 1 mile per gallon, maybe a little less depending on wind current and or seas. So with an 800 gallon tank figure 600mile range with reserves. They repowered with Cummins diesels recently so not sure of the burn on the more common detroits.

Hope this helps

[maxingout]

I consider a catamaran to be one of the best motor yachts out there. I know of a person in Australia with a large sailing cat who just never installed a mast and he happily motored up and down the coast of OZ.

I do a lot of motoring in my catamaran, and I carry enough fuel to motor 1400 miles on a windless sea. When my speed drops below four knots sailing, I turn on one or two engines depending on how fast I want to go, and how much I want to conserve fuel.

That's one of the reasons I like a catamaran. Good sailing and good motoring.

[SecondBase]

If the constraint is fuel, strap 4 300 gallon fuel blivets on, leery of free surface effect, and off you go. That won't help with cost or carbon. If you add blivets and throttle down you might make Dave's 1400 NM. More than you need for any leg?

The stops along the way are half the fun of going.

[sailpower]

Hatteras never made a 55 MY.

Which model are you asking about?

[barnakiel]

I would get a power cat. Not just comfort underway and anchored but think fuel economy.

b.

[sailpower]

At one point in my career I sold new Hatteras Yachts so have been around a lot of them including many trips to the New Bern, NC factory.

Most of the old Hatteras MY’s are getting pretty long in the tooth and owners these days tend to run them at 10-12 knots, sometimes even less.

They were never meant to be offshore cruisers although some have done so. If you choose one of these make sure that they have stabilizers and the stabilizers are in good kit.

Hatteras did make a purpose built line of cruisers that they named Long Range Cruisers or LRC’s. These had different hulls and much smaller motors.. i.e. they were trawlers.

From the factory they were made as 42 LRC, 48 LRC, 58 LRC and 65 LRC. Within these models there were variations of interior layouts. They were all intended to be cruisers and the larger models are transatlantic capable although given their age, refits are most likely in order.

Over the years many of the MY’s and some of the LRC’s have been stretched in various ways, had cockpits added, etc. These conversions often left the props and rudders in the original location which can produce some handling challenges.

Hatteras also once wandered over to the sail side and built 3/4 Hatteras 65 twin engine Motor Sailors.

The below link is a site to the Sam’s Marine website and the Hatteras factory brochures of the many different models over the years. Anyone with an older Hatteras will find Sam’s Marine a terrific resource for parts, etc.

Model Brochures | Sam's Marine International

Enjoy.

[SecondBase]

1st post ever by OP.
Asking about high fuel burn.
On a boat length not manufactured?
Screen name "big slick".
Loaded question?

Things that make you go HMMMM.

I'm not going to raise the �� �� just yet ... (that's a unicorn alert).

I mean I do agree with the quote that "(f)or surveys involving sensitive questions, randomized response techniques (RRTs) and other indirect questions are helpful in obtaining survey responses while maintaining the privacy of the respondents.

[Pizzazz]

Not to turn this into a general discussion about motor vs. sail vs. size but my advice would be to think over again what range do you need and how often you would be at the extremes of this range.

Motoring around the ocean at 7 knots, in medium seas can get very boring very fast. The noise, the motion of the boat, the fuel consumption. You are much better off with a sailboat (mono or cat) that can both motor and sail, often motoring in excess of 5 mpg.

If you are set on a power boat though (the accommodations, for example) then there are three ways to go: trawler as you said (slow), a large ocean going motor yacht (multiple millions) or a smaller boat around 40-50 feet that you modify with extra tankage (expensive but cheaper than the second option).

I think power cats are great but you may have difficulty carrying enough fuel to make it truly long range (2,000 miles+).

Just to give you an example of some calculations I have done for my (very small 31' sailboat), if I were to go Los Angeles to Seattle non stop, I should have enough fuel for 1,000 nm or 200 gallons. This weighs around 1,500 lb. which means the boat will submerge nearly 1.5". That probably could be done but is far from safe and not recommended. This is why I said you need a minimum of 40-50 ft hull to accommodate the fuel.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Bigslick75093

General question. If I wanted a live aboard motor vessel that I also wanted to cruise the north and South American continents on Atlantic side, is a motor yacht such as a 55 ft hatteras even feasible, or do you really need a trawler?
Take a hatteras 55 MY with twin 650 hp diesels. Even if you get feathering props and only run 1 engine at a time and only cruise about 7 knots, are you going to have the range and economic ability to go long ranges?

Yes, it's likely feasible. You can cruise from place to place fast, and burn more fuel.

Or you can cruise from place to place slow, and burn less fuel. No need to run on one engine or feather props, although you can maybe do that if you want to fool with it (and if the gear on the stopped engine is OK with a spinning prob and no lube... or if you want to lock that prop...). You might not achieve "trawler" economy, but you can maybe come close enough... especially after factoring in the possible cost of an older Hatt versus a newer "trawler" of some sort.

Don't know about South America, but you can't hardly be out of range of a fuel dock on the North American Atlantic Coast.

-Chris

[a64pilot]

Just know that boats meant and designed to go slow, do it better than boats meant and designed to go fast.
In a following sea, a go fast boat with its tiny rudders may not steer so well going slow. In those conditions you may need to bump the throttles up to get enough flow over the rudders to make them effective.
It’s doable, but not optimal.
Plus there is just this psychological desire to go faster. It’s like if your driving at 35 MPH on the highway to save fuel, it’s tough. Car can go much faster, you will get there earlier if you do. It’s hard to resist.

[lifemiles]

almost all sportfish roll pretty bad when in low speed. stabilizers definitely a must. best to look for LRC though.

[jmschmidt]

Check the performance charts for the Robertson & Caine Leopard 47 power cat with the 150hp Cummins or John Deere engines. Skip the ones (mostly owner's versions) with the Volvo engines. These boats are motored from the builder in Cape Town on their own bottoms to delivery locations all over the world. They will cruise in single-engine mode very efficiently and 7-9 knots. With 315 US gallons of fuel they will go close to 1,000 nautical miles with both engines operation. They will do 14 knots but who needs to go that fast. Another technique a friend used to move trawlers form Hawaii to Seattle was to remove one prop and go half way then go over the side with scuba gear and swap the prop to the other side. This nearly doubled his range as it does with the R&C power cats as well. Twice he was able to complete the trip without using any of his emergency fuel. Later he remarked that he considered this a safety factor a well after he observed all the junk floating around in the North Pacific gyre. Hit something with both engines under power and you will probably mess them both up. On one engine you may still have one good one operational if you tangle with debris. PM me if you want the performance charts.

[RTB]

We have a couple of these in our marina. They've been everywhere...but that's what they are designed to do. Welcome to Nordhavn.com - Power Thats Oceans Apart

[wayne.b]

Originally Posted by Bigslick75093

General question. If I wanted a live aboard motor vessel that I also wanted to cruise the north and South American continents on Atlantic side, is a motor yacht such as a 55 ft hatteras even feasible, or do you really need a trawler?
Take a hatteras 55 MY with twin 650 hp diesels. Even if you get feathering props and only run 1 engine at a time and only cruise about 7 knots, are you going to have the range and economic ability to go long ranges? Seems like most listings have 800 gallons fuel at the most. I know if you run at listed cruising speeds like 18+ knots, you're probably going to burn 40-60 gals per hour.
So are MY's really just for living in 1 location and taking occasional day trips?

===

If you want to do long range cruising with a Hatteras, probably your best bet is the 58 LRC. These boats are very capable but are getting old and will require maintenance and upgrades. They have also held their value well so do not expect any bargains if still in reasonable shape. For blue water operation you definitely need some type of stabilization, either active like Naiad, or passive paravanes like the commercial fishermen use. Be aware that active stabilizers require a fair amount of periodic maintenance.

All that said, my wife and I cruise a Grand Banks 49 which is now 36 years old. We have a usable fuel range of close to 1,000 nautical miles with 1,000 gallons of diesel capacity. Our speed averages a little over 8 knots. We've been everywhere from southern Grenada (about 70 miles from the South American coast) to northern Canada very close to Newfoundland and Labrador. The Grand Banks is not truly a blue water boat but given judicious selection of weather windows you can island hop down through the Bahamas and Caribbean, and make occasional runs of 500 to 600 nautical miles.