On Jan 2, 10:36 am, wrote:

One of my pet peeves is mankind's foolish infatuation with horsepower.
Our boat has a 135hp diesel, which theory suggests could burn about 12
gph. In practice, we generally burn between 1 and 1.5 gph at speeds
between 6 and 7.5 knots; that's between 1,000 and 1,600 RPM on an
engine that redlines at 2350. We've run it up to full throttle a
number of times and the boat seems to top out at about 8.5 knots,
which makes a heck of a lot of foam & splash & wake.... have no idea
what our fuel burn is at that throttle. But we could get along JUST
FINE with 75 or even 50 hp however nobody in his right mind is going
to market a boat like that... at least, not until fuel prices get a
heck of a lot higher. And most people think that 135 hp is kinda wimpy
for a 36' boat!


There's LOTS of cruising boats 30-40 ft with 30-40hp engines...
they're called sailboats

My 36ft originally had a 21hp that got me 6 knots on a Good Day,
cruise MAYBE 5. The new 26hp got me easy cruise at 6knots, over 7 WOT.
And 6 knots was about .8 USgph.

My new 28ft boat has a 10hp diesel, giving me 5 knots at (I'm told...)
about 0.4 USgph. I hope to repower to a 18hp which would give me 5.5 -
6 knots at .6 - .7 USgph. Then I might put the old 10hp in a 16-18ft
"launch" which I hope will do 6-8 knots...

So yeah... 135 hp IS kinda overkill...

druid
http://www.bcboatnet.org