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NOYB wrote:
I just sent the check to the surveyor yesterday. Survey is being done on
Friday. I'm looking at the boat on Saturday. The official survey won't
be
sent to me until Monday or Tuesday, but the surveyor said that he'd give
me
a verbal thumbs up or down by Saturday.

By Saturday at noon, I could be burning $350 worth of gas travelling on
the
boat en route to Naples from the seller's marina near Tampa.

I've been boating for over 20 years, buy have never owned a twin screw
boat
this size (31' LOA...10'7" beam). It should be a learning experience.


So what have you almost bought?

Grady White 30' Marlin



Did you choose gas because you got a huge discount compared to a diesel
boat, or do you actually prefer gas?


Twin Yamaha outboards. I need a shallow draft boat down here. They're
2-strokes because all of the four-stroke boats were too much money for my
budget.

But if you look at Yamaha performance specs for the 250 hp two-stroke vs.
the four-stroke, the two-stroke's fuel economy at cruise is not far off from
the four-stroke.

2-stroke: Almost 33 mph yielding a little over 1.4mpg
4-stroke: Approx. 30 mph yielding just under 1.6mpg

At trolling speed and WOT, there is a much bigger difference though with the
2-stroke.



If you have never operated a twin screw boat, it isn't that hard to
learn but you will want to stay mentally sharp- particularly at first.
I operate a single screw most of the time, so when I am called upon to
operate twins I wind up deliberately thinking my way through the
process- but running my single is almost "instinctive". If you have
operated smaller twin screws, the upsize to 31' won't be a huge issue-
and in many respects a larger boat can be a little easier to operate
(greater inertia) than a smaller one. You do have less room to recover
if you get into trouble with a larger boat, but if you stay out of
trouble in the first place you should be fine.