normal amount of engine hours

[seatotaler]

Now I know the most common reply to this post will be "depends". My gas 454 crusader engines have about 1900 hours on them and they are 1985 vintage. Would that be considered low or high or about right? Now I know it "depends" on the weather. I live in the pacific northwest so a number of boaters don't use their boats a lot here from about maybe October to maybe March or April. I know it could depend on if the boat has been used for daily cruising lasting 4 hours on a regular basis 6 months of the year or going on trips that last from a couple weeks to a month where the engines are running most of the time during sunlight hours. But for discussion purposes lets throw both of those scenarios out the porthole. I think maybe there has been 3 previous owners. But I don't have any of the previous log books.

[Stu Jackson]

1900 / 33 = less than 60 hours per year, right?


Most of the "what's the average number of hours per year for recreational boats?" posts on this and other boating forums end up at around 100 hours per year.


My boat is 32 years old with 3500 hours. More than yours.

[seatotaler]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Most of the "what's the average number of hours per year for recreational boats?" posts on this and other boating forums end up at around 100 hours per year.

Thanks Stu, that's a good benchmark to go by

[sailorboy1]

Wouldn't 2000 hours on a car be around 80k miles? If a 1985 car I would be more concerned it wasn't run enough.

[flyingfin]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Wouldn't 2000 hours on a car be around 80k miles? If a 1985 car I would be more concerned it wasn't run enough.

If you had a car and drove around town, 2000 hr at 35mph (in a boat this would be trolling speed) = 70.000 miles.

On the other hand, if you were getting your boat on plane with them big 454's meant they were running 3500 to 3900 rpm, in a car about 75mph,so 2000 hr x 75= 150,000 miles. Gas engines dont last as many hours as diesels, but then they are much cheaper to rebuild!

[Sailmonkey]

Ours has been 112 hours per year for the 16 years the engine has been in the boat.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Wouldn't 2000 hours on a car be around 80k miles? If a 1985 car I would be more concerned it wasn't run enough.

Our 2010 Prius is closing in on 250,00 miles.
It of course has done probably mostly highway miles to rack them up like that, one unusual thing about the Prius is it also for some reason computes and displays average speed.
It’s average speed is in the 20 ish MPH range. It seems that poking around town and sting at stoplights really kills your average speed.


In this case, if it makes it to 25,000 miles and has had an average speed of 25 mph, then of course it has been operated for 10,000 hours.
A quarter of a million miles is not uncommon for an automobile now, and that of course means that the engines are lasting around 10,000 hours.

[a64pilot]

My guess based on our use is that the average cruising boat that is actively cruised year round is run from 300 to 500 hours per year.
A lot depends on your style of cruising of course and whether your sitting a lot or nearly always moving.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

My guess based on our use is that the average cruising boat that is actively cruised year round is run from 300 to 500 hours per year.
A lot depends on your style of cruising of course and whether your sitting a lot or nearly always moving.

OK... we've owned this boat nearly 16 years now, full time cruising and not too shy about motoring when appropriate. Motor hours are now ~4900, so that's ~310 hrs/year for us. I haven't done the numbers in detail, but suspect that the earlier years were a bit lighter and the later a bit heavier on usage... getting old and lazy, we are!

Jim

PS One should note that the OP was considering a power vessel, and the use patterns are surely quite different than ours.
PPS We've logged a bit over 61,000 miles in that time. The engine hours include running at rest to charge batteries, which in winter in the past has meant nearly an hour a day, so I'd estimate around 250 hours/year for propulsion. Of those, perhaps 10% are idling around anchorages, etc, leaving around 225 hours/year actually making miles. Working out with our typical motoring speedof 5.5 kts shows that we have sailed just at 70 % of the miles we've covered in the boat. This number is greater in years with long ocean passages, lesser in years when we have been coastal cruising here in Oz where tides and bar crossing leads to trying to maintain a schedule.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

OK... we've owned this boat nearly 16 years now, full time cruising and not too shy about motoring when appropriate. Motor hours are now ~4900, so that's ~310 hrs/year for us. I haven't done the numbers in detail, but suspect that the earlier years were a bit lighter and the later a bit heavier on usage... getting old and lazy, we are!

Jim

PS One should note that the OP was considering a power vessel, and the use patterns are surely quite different than ours.

One more sailboat data point: 23 years, full time cruiser, 2 circumnavigations, 8000 hours.

[Mike Cero]

The January/February 2019 issue of PassageMaker's "Troubleshooter" article, How Long Will My Engine Last? by Steve Zimmerman explains this question very well in terms of fuel burn, usage, engine type and manufacturer categories.

[MJH]

Originally Posted by seatotaler

Now I know the most common reply to this post will be "depends". My gas 454 crusader engines have about 1900 hours on them and they are 1985 vintage. Would that be considered low or high or about right? Now I know it "depends" on the weather. I live in the pacific northwest so a number of boaters don't use their boats a lot here from about maybe October to maybe March or April. I know it could depend on if the boat has been used for daily cruising lasting 4 hours on a regular basis 6 months of the year or going on trips that last from a couple weeks to a month where the engines are running most of the time during sunlight hours. But for discussion purposes lets throw both of those scenarios out the porthole. I think maybe there has been 3 previous owners. But I don't have any of the previous log books.

For the past 12 years I've averaged 109 hours per year of engine time. This includes a trip across the Gulf of Mexico and a roundtrip to Hawaii from Washington. Not surprisingly, more average hours logged on coastal than offshore.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

. . . . one unusual thing about the Prius is it also for some reason computes and displays average speed.
It’s average speed is in the 20 ish MPH range. It seems that poking around town and sting at stoplights really kills your average speed.. . .

My Range Rover does the same thing, and lifetime average speed is about 25 -- km/h. Lots of traffic jams


People tend to greatly overestimate their average speeds. I think 20 mph is typical and so 1000 hours is something like 20 000 miles.


However boats get run a lot less per year, on average, than cars, and I think a good bit of the amortization of a boat engine is time based, not hours based.

[quandary]

The analogy of car engines is possibly not ideal. A car engine that has done 100,000 of city driving would have done millions more revs than a car doing the same distance of long distance trips. A boat engine tends to run at fairly consistent speed for long periods and is also not subjected to the shocks of gear changes. A few basic tests eg compression and oil analysis should give an idea of the state of the engine...more reliable than engine hours?

[Dooglas]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

However boats get run a lot less per year, on average, than cars, and I think a good bit of the amortization of a boat engine is time based, not hours based.

I agree!