Higher Oil Prices Coming

Fuel Saving Suggestions

Hey ya'll,
Any good advice on how to save fuel on our boats? Share some good tips on how to conserve fuel since we can't do anything to change the oil price other than voting right for those of us that can. What and how much it saves, if you have any detailed results. Any wacky ideas to save fuel?

I leave my canvas enclosures around my hardtop at home and it sure helps with drift fishing. Hard to tell how much it saves, but I have less windage to go slower and less repositioning my drift. The recent bottom paint job seems to save my fuel. I get almost 1.8 MPG instead of 1.6 MPG on a tankful of gas(150 gallon). Unscientific data, but it seems that way.

 

Deploy a sea drogue, sea anchor, parachute in the water, call it what you want to.
Keeps your wind drift to minimum.
Use a trolling motor for such low speed work as cruising back upwind to start drifting again.
You could fish BOTH directions.

If your engine is gasoline, a spoonful or two of acetone, per tank full of gas, improves mileage. Test it on family car first so you KNOW it works.

 

Yeah, I use sea anchors, two at a time, but sometimes it still drifts too fast with a hardtop for a white sea bass fishing. To catch a white sea bass, you need to drift with the current in direction of the current. Rock cods and striped bass we can do both directions, but salmons and white sea bass are only one direction drifting. My cars are hybrid and diesel. My boat has 150 gallon fuel tank. Do you still recommend 1-2 spoonful of acetone? What does it do? It's a strong solvent. Clean out all gummy gooks? Dissolve plastic and rubber fittings? I will try it on a small generator first. Thanks

 

I was thinking about attaching a trolling motor on bow like a bass boat. No room on transom with twin motors on floating motor bracket, swim deck and ladder. Bow is too high (4+ feet from water line) for any bow mounted trolling motors. Electric or ICE.

 

So mount the trolling motors on the cavitation plate of your outboards.
Minnkota makes engine mount singles and doubles in various thrust ratings.
a double pictured. Search EM trolling motors.
One money saving tactic is buy the highest thrust EM motor available.
The cost difference between weakest and strongest is minimal. Couple $100. With the PWM controller, running at low speed and higher voltage is more economical power use than high speed at low voltage. Better motor life too.

http://www.trollingmotors.net/engine-mount-trolling-motor-guide

 

I am not so sure how this will work. My boat is 27' at 9000# towed weight with twin motors. I think that motor mounted trolling motors are too much drag in planing speed and not enough speed and not enough control with electric only. Do you have an experience on planing boat?

 

No experience with smaller planning boats, but with boats 100 ft plus on plane. They don't use trolling motors. I have run every type of oilfield boat. Companies expect versatility in captains. See 30 knot aluminum crewboat picture below.

These You tubes below show how the EM trolling motors are out of the water on plane. A second showing homemade electric outboard. A third showing EM motors at 3/4 power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNZy23R8fik


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXerCUD0nUo&list=TLxJhLksH7o3wJo8nLg1PFUNqbuNg94WhO&index=3


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Rd3uh-nf0&index=2&list=TLxJhLksH7o3wJo8nLg1PFUNqbuNg94WhO

The 4 inch pitch OEM props are changeable for better speed higher pitch after market props, like the 3 blade Kipawa. Two blade large diameter, high pitch model airplane props also give better performance.

http://www.kipawapropellers.com/


Your boat may or may not work with the EM motor.
Specifications for Minn Kota’s saltwater Engine Mount motors:


Model/Motor Config/Max Thrust/Volts/Max. Amp Draw/Recommended Boat LOA/MSRP


RT202/EM Dual 202 36/98 22' – 26' $1499.99
RT160/EM Dual 160 24/116 20' – 24' $999.99
RT101/EM Single 101 36/49 18' – 22' $899.99
RT80/EM Single 80 24/58 16' – 20' $799.99
RT55/EM Single 55 12/50 14' – 18' $599.99


For more information contact Minn Kota Motors, P.O. Box 4008, Mankota, MN 56002, 800-227-6433.

At 27 ft you are 1 ft too long, but with twin outboards, you could put an EM motor on each. 404 lbs OEM thrust, or more with better props.

Need lots of batteries or a genset with this setup.