Is this true? Time under sail vs motor in Caribbean

[LifeUnderway]

I'd love to get y'all's thoughts on a (scandalous?) quote I read yesterday when researching living aboard a sailboat versus motor boat:

But wait, I hear the sailors saying, “We sailboat cruisers don’t care about how fast we can go, or what our motoring speed is, we just capture the wind and go where it takes us.” To which my only reply is, “You must be new here.”

Are there exceptions to the rule—the rule that states that 90% of sailors will sail just 10% of the time? Sure. Every sailor thinks they are the exception, but experience, and truthfulness, will soon tell them otherwise. We’re all motorboaters in the end. (emphasis added.)

This is from the Bumfuzzle blog, and for context they have lived aboard a cat, a monohull, and now a trawler.

For a little context about us... we are currently full-time RVers, having reluctantly abandoned the full-time sailing dream several years ago. Now we're considering splitting time between the two. To say we are novices would be a grotesque overstatement of our experience. We would prefer to learn to sail, but given that we are not youngsters, I (less so my husband) feel we may need to be open to a trawler. We would be based in FL most likely, and would like to work our way up to winter trips to the Caribbean. We would of course get professional instruction but also are aware that there is no substitute for actual experience, of which we currently have next to none.

Our reason for preferring sail, is duh, sailing.... we don't want to listen to a diesel engine all the time or be constantly worried about whether we have enough fuel. So this "you'll be motoring 90% of the time" thing has me gobsmacked. What percentage of time would you, who have infinitely more sailing experience than we do, estimate you spend under sail vs motor in the areas we're talking about?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Mary

[C420sailor]

Can’t speak to the Carib, but I’d say the 90/10 rule applies to me.

There just isn’t good wind where I sail. Many days, it’s like a sheet of glass.

[bobnlesley]

By 'Caribbean' I'm assuming that you mean eastern-Carib (Windward & Leeward Islands)? The eastern Caribbean's a completely different ball game.
Based on our time there (3 years in two visits) we 'sailed' 75-80% of our mileage between and along the eastern (windward) sides the islands, but know/saw that the majority of boats motored more, some (specifically north American) motored MUCH more, even when they didn't need to? Along the west/leeward sides of the islands (and that's where you'll spend most of your time) I suspect that whilst our 'time' percentage under sail was still >60%, our distance percentage was probably nearer 20% - we like to sail, but would regularly spend 4 hours 'sailing' 7 or 8 miles, then either just stop at where we'd got to, or more often motor the remaining 10-12 miles in two hours; again, most yachts (Murican and European) would simply motor the whole way in 3-3.5 hours without ever opening the sail bag.

[BillKny]

It's sailing. The answer is always: It Depends

Just to give a bit of perspective, my boat has circumnavigated twice, and has a total of about 170,000 sea miles across three owners. It has 8000 hours on the engine.

Figure an average motoring speed of 6 knots. 8000 * 6 = 40,000 miles under engine.

So about 25% of her ocean miles have been power driven. For most long-range cruisers running good sailing monohulls, that seems pretty typical.

We find that sail vs motor is not a moral choice, or an esthetic one, but just practical. We prefer to sail, and enjoy it, but if we need to get somewhere upwind or avoid bad weather, we do not agonize about burning some dinosaur juice.

[Knotical]

We sailed over 60 days last season and used <5 gallons of diesel for probably <8 hrs of motoring, most of that was during a trip to NYC. We sail without a schedule and as long as the boat is moving I don’t turn on the engine, there was 1 trip out East where we were going at 1-1.5 kts, lasted the whole day. I sail on and off the mooring and only dock for pump out or to get water.

[mvweebles]

Mary - you picked an interesting example in Bumfuzzle. I believe they have a circumnavigation under their belt on an <40-foot Cat, a ton more miles on a 43-ish foot mono-hull. Either before or after (or both), they had a vintage VW camper van they went through Mexico; an old Airstream pulled by a vintage Travelall, and finally a 42-foot Grand Banks trawler a few years ago. They are serial adventurers raising a family and write a decent blog.

As a guy who went from Sail to Trawler, I share your thoughts, but must caveat it with the 15hp Universal Diesel in my old Newport 28 was a cranky, loud, cantankerous hunk of iron that bears no resemblance to the Perkins 4.236 75hp diesel in my trawler. Yes, you can hear it, but more of a hum or purr. The engine is well situated in a well-soundproofed engine room. As far as worrying about running out of fuel, I dare say I've seen more sailors worry about that than I do - with 450 gals aboard burning 1.25 gph @ 7kts, I have well over 1500 nms of range. At 6-kts, I could make 2400 nms - or to Hawaii.

My point is not to sway anyone to power (a personal decision) but merely to point out that sailboats frequently have poorly installed engines. If I had to tolerate the noise and vibration of many sailboats, I'd invest more in sail too.

Peter

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

My point is not to sway anyone to power (a personal decision) but merely to point out that sailboats frequently have poorly installed engines. If I had to tolerate the noise and vibration of many sailboats, I'd invest more in sail too.

Agreed. Some sailboats are pleasant enough to motor along for a while, but on others, you're really left thinking that the engine was installed as a complete afterthought with a minimal amount of poorly placed instrumentation, no sound insulation, hard to reach shifter and throttle, etc. Basically installed for getting in and out of a dock and beyond that, emergency use only.

[bobnlesley]

Originally Posted by BillKny

It's sailing. The answer is always: It Depends

...about 25% of her ocean miles have been power driven. For most long-range cruisers running good sailing monohulls, that seems pretty typical.

Having crossed oceans myself, I suspect that far more than 75% of her 'ocean miles' were sailed and that those engine hours were predominantly accumulated whilst burbling around on either side of the oceans.

We burned many gallons of diesel to drag ourselves east through the Mediterranean from Greece to Morocco, but having filled up in Rabat we barely re-fueled for almost a year (it was cheap in Trinidad) Crossing the Atlantic we ran the engine for <24 hours (and that included motoring all of the last twenty hours into French Guiana. Beaufort NC, to the US Virgin Islands we motored <12 hours - mainly an eight hour stint to reach/cross the gulf stream ahead of the weather and the last couple into St Thomas'. In the Pacific we did Ecuador to the Marquessa Islands (3500M) and motored <24 hours. Society Islands to Tonga (1300M <12 hours, Fiji to NZ (1100M) <24 hours. Provided that you aren't using your engine for electric/water production, then there's really not much need for it after your 24/48 hours out, until you're 24/48 hours from arrival, unless you're 'impatient', in which case you'd be better to get a motor boat or just fly.

[bobnlesley]

Originally Posted by Knotical

...1 trip out East where we were going at 1-1.5 kts, lasted the whole day...

I know that feeling well: Two days out of Fiji, bound for NZ the wind stopped, no steady easing just 16-20 knots down to <5 knots in 30 minutes, it was five days later when the wind crept up to 6-8 knots, by when we were 35M further away from NZ! No wind, no prospect of any wind until 5-600M to the south of us and not enough fuel to motor us to it anyway; an anticipated 10-12 day passage took us seventeen!.

[valhalla360]

I suspect in the Caribbean it might be a bit lower as they have pretty reliable trade winds to work with and relatively open water where you can do long tacks if you do need to get up wind.

In coastal waters, it's a different story. We did the Great Loop and 90% is very much in line with what we saw. On the rivers, canals and shallow bays, tacking upwind is a huge hassle as you are tacking every few minutes. In many cases, with contrary tides, it's just not practical.

Ocean crossing, is a different situation entirely.

[roverhi]

Really depends on the crew, location and season on how much you use your engine. If you are the type that turns on the engine if boat speed drops below 5 knots, you'll have a lot of engine time. If sailing the usual cruising routes, you can mostly get buy without an engine or electric propulsion. If you are a dedicated sailor who prefers canvas to the iron monster, you can sail almost all the time.

We prefer to sail and did the SD to French Polynesia and back with only one period of using the engine for a day to get through the doldrums and in and out of the harbor daysailing. After 10 years of ownership had less than a 1,000 hours on the diesel and we're talking a boat that is a notoriously poor light wind boat.

[wingssail]

We sail if we can. Upwind, downwind, strong wind, light wind. If the boat will go 3+ knots we'll sail (so that means about 8 knots of wind upwind, 10 downwind).

The motor has 6700 hours. The majority of those hours were for charging the batteries. When sailing or at anchor the engine is run about 1.5 hours per day to charge the batteries.

We have been cruising for 25 years. In those 25 years we've been sailing or at anchor approximately 3000 days, so engine hours for charging is about 4500hr, motoring the engine hours are about 2200 hours.

So we motor about 32% of the time. Most of our motoring is short trips to and from race venues.

We've traveled over 55,000 miles on ocean passages. At avg 5.5 knots that is 10,000 hours. But we've only motored for 2200 hours, so on passages we motor 22% of the time.

These are rough numbers, I could get it more precisely out of our of my log books but that's a big project, there are 1500 pages.

[thinwater]

With my current boat (F-24) I day sail, so the rule is 3/97, using just enough motor to get out there. If the wind stinks, I stay home. The boat is weatherly enough that up wind is fun.


When I was cruising my cat, often on a schedule, the rule was about 40/60. We'd sail if there was wind, but you don't get anywhere by drifting. I'm sure there are boats that are 90/10, but I don't see the point. There is more good wind than that. Many accept that their sailboat is a slow, stylish motor boat with a mast.


When we had a flexible itinerary, I would consider the wind forecast, adjust destinations, and push that to 20/80 or more.

[Chotu]

Depends heavily on what kind of sailing you’re doing.

Day sailing? 90-100% sailing

Crossing oceans? A lot like day sailing since you’re not motoring across

Coastal cruising? I’d say 60/40 or so for me. 60% motoring. There are a lot of rivers, waterways, days where the wind is on the nose, times you have to be somewhere, times you want to just get there before dark.

[NormanMartin]

A comfortable motor yacht and great sailing dinghy make a superb combination. More so once you get out of the Virgins.

In '04 I remember a few catamarans and maybe one motor yacht. Ten years later motor yachts and motor catamarans were appearing. Now, I hear they are common. Kinda says something about what works.