Planning A Boat Trip?
How To Calculate Fuel Consumption before you ever leave the dock!
Our last Carefree Boat Club training blog covered Packing A Safety Kit. As a follow up, this week’s #TrainingThursday will cover How To Calculate Fuel Consumption. We will cover 2 different methods for calculating fuel consumption when planning a boat trip.
Formulas
It’s important to keep in mind that driving at cruising speed and other variables may decrease or increase fuel consumption. The only true way to measure fuel consumption is to have a fuel meter installed on your watercraft. However, formulating your fuel consumption may not always be 100% accurate, but it’s a great place to start! Also, miles are hard to measure on the water so Gallons Per Hour (GPH) is used versus the standard MPH.
Majority of #CarefreeBoatClub’s marinas have fuel docks with Carefree dock hands on staff ready to assist. However, if you ever find yourself needing to calculate mileage or fuel consumption, here are two tried and true methods according to BoatingMag.com.
The following formulas are based on producing peak horsepower.
Simple Method
Total HP / 10 (For Gas engines)
Total HP / .06 (For Diesel Engines)
Pen and Paper Method
Directions: To apply these formulas to your boat, “…plug in its horsepower rating and multiply it by the specific fuel consumption average, then divide the product by the fuel specific weight.”*
Formula To Estimate Maximum Engine Fuel Consumption
Gallon Per Hour (GPH) = (specific fuel consumption x HP)/Fuel Specific Weight
Constants Gas Diesel
SFC .50 lb. per HP .40 lb. per HP
FSW 6.1 lb. per gal. 7.2 lb per gal.
300-hp Diesel Engine Example
GPH = (0.4 x 300)/ 7.2 = 105/7.2 = 16.6 GPH
300-hp Gasoline Engine Example
GPH = (0.50 x 300)/ 6.1 = 150/6.1 = 24.5 GPH
Other Related Resources:
[Training Article] Before Fueling Your Boat by Boat-ed.com [Video] How To Safely Fuel A Boat by Boat-ed.comTune in to our next training blog!
(Images and lessons sourced from *BoatingMag.com and https://www.boat-ed.com)
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