On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 21:45:02 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:42:59 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

What kind of fuel consumption do you have at 70?

Not good. :)

Probably somewhere around 20 gallons pe hour.

Ouch, That is like throwing a quarter over the side every second.
It is about what I expected to hear tho.
I know my stucco contractor was crying that he just put $4000 in his
47 footer and he was probably going to need to fill up again before
they got back from the Keys. I had just given him $1600 cash and joked
that he could fill up his boat now.

To some of us, 20 gph is pretty damn good. I can't complain too much
though. The new old boat burns just about 24 gph at an easy cruise. I just
don't push it much beyond that required to get on plane and trim it out.
That's not bad for gas engines on a 40 foot boat.

I feel badly for a few friends running high powered sportsfish type boats
burning 40, 50 or more gph. One guy I know with a new, 50' Buddy Davis burns
upwards of 80 gph or more running out to the Canyons. Haven't seen him go
out much this year.

It's really interesting when I get to use different boats - I like to
play around and compare to my boat. What I have found out over the
eight years I've owned my 200 C Ranger it that it doesn't behave like
other boats when we're discussing things like GPH/MPG.

When I had the 200 FICHT (20" shaft/no jack plate/three blade prop) on
it, it had better performance figures than similar boats, but not
anywhere near significant - maybe .5/.75 gph better than the FICHTS on
my first Contender for instance. When I repowered with the ETEC 200
HO (25" shaft/jack plate/four blade prop) it became a whole different
ball game and there were significant performance gains ever over the
second Contender that had the same engines on it.

I can't honestly say exactly what the combination of engine and boat
is that makes it unique. It's about 1,200 lbs heavier than current
models of the same boat and it's hull configuration is slightly
different. Compared to other boats of it's style and configuration,
it outperforms in terms of speed and fuel efficiency by a pretty
significant amount.

I don't think I'll ever sell it - well unless somebody want to offer
me - say $60K or thereabouts. :)