How often do you motor ??

[Jim Cate]

Copied from the "Engine hours" thread:

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.

Jim

[psk125]

Originally Posted by canyonbat

Yea, us too unfortunately. Our Alaska trip last summer, from Anacortes, was almost all under motor.

My brother took his boat from Seattle to Juneau and had to motor most of the way due to lack of wind. Glad I wasn't aboard!