Hey everyone, Dave here again, back for part 2 of my posts covering statistics from our trip. Part 1 focused on how much distance we covered. This post will focus on how much we used our engine.
Total Engine Hours: 306.50
We started the trip with 509 engine hours and ended the trip with 815.5, putting a total of 306.5 hours on during the trip. The previous owners installed this engine brand new in 2009 and it had 390 hours on it when we bought it in September 2016. So, that's an average of around 55 hours per year for the 7 years before we owned this boat. In our first 19 months of ownership, we put another 119 hours on it, 65 of which was during our July 2017 trip to Nanaimo and Princess Louisa Inlet and back. That leaves 54 hours of various weekends throughout the rest of the year. Anyway, my point is we used our engine more in 3.5 months than the last 4 to 5 years combined! Having a reliable engine made this trip so much more enjoyable, especially because we depended on it so much.
Average Engine Hours per Day Underway: 3.98
Taking the 306.5 engine hours we used and dividing it by the 77 days underway (as discussed in part one) results in an average motoring time of about 4 hours every day. That's a lot of motoring. I didn't write down the engine hours every day, so I don't have a "top ten" list as I did in part one, but generally, most days involved at least a couple hours of motoring. There was generally close to an hour at the start of each day as we pulled up the anchor, secured the anchor, motored out of the anchorage, got the sails up, etc. Similarly, there was generally close to another hour at the end of each day as we dropped sails, motored into an anchorage, found a good spot to drop anchor, set the anchor on the sea floor (by motoring in reverse until the chain is tight), etc. In between, we often motored for a bit when the wind died.
Some days we used the engine relatively little, like during our first overnight passage when we went 146 miles from Sitka to Bob's Bay and we used only 2.9 hours. This was mainly due to the attitude that we didn't have a specific destination we had to get to, we just wanted to see how far south we could make it in one overnight. On the other end of the spectrum, our second overnight (162 miles from Sgaang Gwaay to the northern tip of Vancouver Island) included 22.2 hours of motoring. This was because we got excited at the idea that we could do the passage in one overnight instead of two after the first evening when we had pretty good winds, so we motored all night in order to keep the pace high after the wind died. We've found how much we motor is really often about attitude and expectation of how fast and far we want to go that day.
Total Fuel Consumed: 98.49 US Gallons
We carried 5 jerry cans of diesel to supplement our fuel tank (a 6 gallon can, a 5.3 gallon can, and three 5 gallon cans). We theoretically have a 40 gallon fuel tank based on this boat's specifications and measuring the outside dimensions of it, but when our fuel gauge says our tank is half full (or is it half empty?) and we refuel we can usually fit around 10 gallons in there, so that would suggest we have a 20 gallon tank. I don't know if our gauge is inaccurate (on the cautious side), or our tank has thick walls or something, but my point is our tank is somewhere between 20-40 gallons. During our trip, we found this was plenty of fuel to carry, and most sailors we talked to actually got by just fine with less. A 20-25 gallon tank with 2-3 jerry cans was pretty typical from the conversations I remember.
We refueled 8 times throughout the trip: Kingston (on our first day as we headed north), Port Hardy, Shearwater, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Juneau, Prince Rupert, and Winter Harbour (two jerry cans only). Every time we pulled up to the fuel dock, we still had at least one full jerry can and could usually only fit another 10 gallons or so into our tank. We didn't bother refueling at Prince Rupert on our way north since we knew fuel would be cheaper in Alaska. In hindsight, we probably could have made it from Port Hardy to Ketchikan without refueling in Shearwater. We topped off our tank with 4-5 gallons there for peace of mind, even though we still had 5 full jerry cans and that was the most expensive diesel we bought throughout our entire trip.
I can say with confidence that Washington State fuel docks in Seattle's suburbs (such as Kingston, Des Moines, Bremerton, Brownsville, Port Orchard, and Oak Harbor) are the cheapest places throughout the whole inside passage to refuel. We found fuel was over $4 per US gallon throughout B.C.; Shearwater was the most expensive at around $4.50 USD per US gallon. Alaska was typically $3 to $4 per gallon. Juneau, at $2.96 per gallon, was the only place outside Washington State where we found diesel for under $3 per gallon.
It was also interesting to see how each government dyed their diesel different colors. Marine diesel in Washington State is dyed pink; in B.C. it's dyed green, and in Alaska it's dyed blue. It made our racor glass interesting mixes of colors as I'd check it throughout our trip. Even right now, looking at my racor it's got a green tint to it and I have to remind myself that it's ok that it's not pink. Anyway... I digress...
Average Fuel Efficiency: 0.32 US gallons per hour
98.49 gallons used divided by 306.5 engine hours equals 0.32 gallons per hour. This statistic I'm actually a bit surprised by. I've found that we typically burn about 0.5 gallons per hour when cruising at full speed. I think this 0.32 gallons per hour accounts for a lot of time spent idling slowly as we look for a good spot to drop the anchor, set the anchor, pull up the anchor, go slowly through narrow anchorage entrances, etc.
Average Fuel Consumed per Day Underway: 1.28 US Gallons
Dividing our 98.49 gallons by our 77 days underway equates to an average of 1.28 gallons used per day underway. Looking at statistics like this is when I really start to appreciate having a sailboat. Sure, we may go half the speed of a motorboat, but I don't think there's a single motorboat out there that could get to Alaska and back burning less than 100 gallons and cover 30+ miles per day on under 2 gallons per day.
Miles per US gallon: 28.43
Dividing our 2800 miles traveled by the 98.49 gallons used results in a miles per gallon figure of 28.43. So, it's about the equivalent of a small car or a hybrid SUV. Not bad considering we're driving something more like the equivalent of an RV; well ok actually more like an old van that's been converted into a plug-in hybrid and has solar panels strapped to the roof. Sailors like us are basically the hippie van-dwellers of the sea when you think about it.
Estimated Percentage of Time Motoring: 44% - 49%
This statistic requires a bit more judgment. I didn't keep a strict log of time spent underway, but I estimate our velocity-made-good was around 4.5 knots generally. Taking our 2800 miles traveled divided by 4.5 equals 622.22, so we can estimate that we were underway for around 620 hours. This equals about 8 hours per day (620 / 77 = 8.05) which sounds about right. So, dividing the 306.5 engine hours by the estimated 620 hours underway gives a figure of 0.49435. Rounding that to 2 significant digits tells us that we motored 49% of the time. If I adjust my velocity-made-good estimate down to 4 knots, that'd mean we were underway 700 hours (9 hours a day on average) and thus motored 44% of the time. Regardless, it's safe to conclude that we motored just under half of the time we were underway.
This is much different than the typical wisdom tossed around the local cruising community that "if you do the inside passage, you'll have to motor 80% to 90% of the time." Often, that's followed by "so you might as well do it in a motorboat." That wisdom is often due to people trying to do this trip later in the summer when winds are lighter. It's also spoken mostly by motorboaters that purposely go later in the summer when the winds are lighter so the seas are flatter. We followed much of the advice that Marilyn Johnson gives in her book Taken By the Wind (which we only bought due to the recommendation of Patrick and Natalie of S/V Violet Hour at a cruiser's meeting in October 2017). It was really useful to have that book before and during the trip in order to try and align our schedule as much as possible to maximize the amount of sailing we did. She basically says to leave early in the spring because the best weather for sailing in Alaska is in May and June, and by July it's time to start heading south. By heading north in the spring, we were able to ride more wind than we would have if we left in the summer.
We could have gotten that motoring percentage down even further if we had been more religious about maximizing sailing and minimizing motoring time, but we tried to balance that with not basing our destinations only on which way the wind is blowing (or if it's blowing at all). Like I said earlier, how much a boat motors is really often about attitude and expectation of how fast and far they want to go that day. But overall, we think the typical wisdom that everyone has to motor 80% to 90% of the time is a huge exaggeration. It's definitely possible to sail most of the time with some reasonable effort.
Monday, October 15, 2018
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Trip Statistics! Distances Traveled
Hey everyone, Dave here. Now that the trip is behind us and we've settled back into the rat race, I've had some time to compile some trip statistics. This first post in (hopefully) a series will focus on the amount of distance we covered.
Total Distance Traveled: 2,800 nautical miles
This is not the actual distance that we traveled through the water, but rather the shortest distance required to get from point A to point B, according to Navionics web-based auto routing tool (which we found really helpful for route planning before the trip by the way). Our actual distance was actually much longer due to tacking and jibing, but I didn't have an accurate way to record that. For example, the blue line in the image below shows what Navionics determined is the shortest route to get from Port Hardy to Allison Harbour, and that route is 21.6 nautical miles. Our actual route was more like the longer black line, in order to sail given the wind conditions. We have an odometer on board that tracks distance using a little paddlewheel in the water, but I've found it's not accurate. Anyway, if you add up all these shortest possible point-to-point routes throughout our entire trip, the total comes to 2,800 nautical miles.
Total Distance Traveled: 2,800 nautical miles
This is not the actual distance that we traveled through the water, but rather the shortest distance required to get from point A to point B, according to Navionics web-based auto routing tool (which we found really helpful for route planning before the trip by the way). Our actual distance was actually much longer due to tacking and jibing, but I didn't have an accurate way to record that. For example, the blue line in the image below shows what Navionics determined is the shortest route to get from Port Hardy to Allison Harbour, and that route is 21.6 nautical miles. Our actual route was more like the longer black line, in order to sail given the wind conditions. We have an odometer on board that tracks distance using a little paddlewheel in the water, but I've found it's not accurate. Anyway, if you add up all these shortest possible point-to-point routes throughout our entire trip, the total comes to 2,800 nautical miles.
Total Days Underway: 77
Our trip was 110 days long (nearly 16 weeks / 3.5 months) and we spent 77 of those days traveling to a new destination. That works out to 7 days underway for every 3 days not underway. We knew from our pre-trip route planning that we had lots of distance to cover, so we needed to either make progress on any given day or have a good reason to not make forward progress on a given day. Most of the 30% of days not underway was in a town buying groceries, doing laundry, doing chores/projects, hiking, or packing as much tourism into one day that we could. In hindsight, it made the trip feel rushed. I know 3.5 months sounds like a long time, but we wish we had more. Seattle to Alaska is a lot of distance to cover in a boat that travels at a jogger's pace. Our typical velocity-made-good was around 4-4.5 knots, or 12:00 minutes per mile. Our hull speed is 7.25 knots, or 7:12 minutes per mile. If we were to do it again (which we hope we do), ideally we'd find a way to get 6 months (April - September) to do this trip.
Average Miles Traveled per Day Underway: 36.36 / Median Miles per Day: 31
Simply taking the 2800 miles covered divided by the 77 days underway results in an average day of 36.36 miles. The median day was 31 miles. For reference, going from Shilshole to Port Townsend's Boat Haven Marina is 32 miles, Shilshole to Tacoma's Foss Waterway is 29 miles, and Shilshole to Blake Island is only 10 miles. So basically, our typical day all summer was the equivalent of going from Shilshole to Port Townsend. Some much shorter, but also some much longer.
Top Ten Longest Days:
We had to leave Culpepper Lagoon at the high-tide slack current (or else the entrance would have been too shallow). This happened to occur at 8:47 am on the day we wanted to leave, so we had to get our butts up and underway much earlier than we typically did. This meant we were on well on our way by 9 am, compared to our usual day when we'd still be sitting around enjoying coffee at that point. We figured we might as well keep going until the evening and cover lots of distance this day. We thought this would have been one of our longest days of the trip, but it turned out this was just barely long enough to make it in the top ten.
This was near the end of our trip when we needed to get home and just rushed past the West Coast of Vancouver Island trying to cover as much distance as possible. We left Bunsby Islands (just east of Brooks Peninsula) and found good winds coming from our back so we put out the sails and decided to see just how far we could make it that day. Our goal that morning was to make it to Port Landford, near the entrance to Esperanza Inlet, which would have been a solid 32-mile day. However, we found ourselves sailing by the entrance to Esperanza Inlet early in the afternoon and decided we had enough daylight to keep going. We ended up tucking into Friendly Cove, at the entrance to Nootka Sound, just before the sunset.
8) Tracy Arm Out & Back: Day 56 - June 22nd, 60 miles
8) Tracy Arm Out & Back: Day 56 - June 22nd, 60 miles
One feature of Tracy Arm is that the only place nearby to anchor is right at the entrance in a little nook known as Tracy Cove. So, if you want to see the glaciers at the head of Tracy Arm, you need to go out and back on the same day. This is no big deal for motor boats that can easily travel 10+ knots; but for us sailboats that cruise at 4-7 knots, with a preference to sail quietly which tends to be at the slower end of that range, 60 miles is a long, intense day. Add the fact that this day was entirely in a narrow passage with little wind and more and more (and bigger and bigger) chunks of floating ice as you go deeper in, this was a pretty stressful day of mostly motoring. We did our best to sail as much as possible that day, but it ended up being around 1/3 of the time underway. The closer we got to the glaciers, the harder it was to sail and the more stressful it was to avoid chunks of ice. This stress combined with a tight schedule meant we basically got close enough to the glacier to get a picture then immediately turned around to get back to Tracy Cove at full speed. Our glacier experience anchoring in Thomas Bay and kayaking up to Baird Glacier was much more pleasant.
Like #9, this was during the "get home asap" phase at the end of the trip. We decided that Port San Juan was just barely close enough to Port Angeles that we could do it in one day (rather than stopping at Sooke along the way). So, we left early in the morning and went in a straight line to Port Angeles in order to ensure we got there in time to check in with US Customs before they closed at 8pm. We were lucky to see some orcas from the J-pod of southern resident orcas swim near us along the way. We realized it was them when we saw the plane that took this photo circle overhead.
6) Octopus Islands to Matilpi: Day 9 - May 6th, 63 miles
6) Octopus Islands to Matilpi: Day 9 - May 6th, 63 miles
This was a long day that we actually planned to be this long. During our pre-trip route planning, I realized that if we timed our exit of Octopus Islands to hit the 9:23 am slack through Okisollo Channel, then we could ride the favorable ebb current all the way through Johnstone Strait. This allowed us to cover lots of distance this day while also having time to attempt to sail in the light winds we had that day. One fun memory I have is drifting sideways through Current Passage in light winds and flat seas, getting pushed 3 knots by the current. We had to be sideways in order to keep the sails full, which gave us just enough speed in the right direction to keep us in the middle of the channel. There were a handful of motorboats going by that probably thought we were crazy. Thankfully I live in the modern age with good GPS telling me my actual course and speed over the ground in real-time. I don't think I'd have had the confidence to do stunts like that before GPS.
This was the shortest route we could find to get to Haida Gwaii without doing an overnight passage across Hecate Strait. We spent the previous day leaving Prince Rupert and staging ourselves at Larsen Harbour. We left early in the morning and got across the strait just in time to see the sunset from Queen Charlotte City. Good sailing too.
During this phase of the trip (after Sitka), we found ourselves behind our planned schedule so we were focused on catching back up so we'd have plenty of time to enjoy Haida Gwaii. This day was right after we did our first overnight (#2 below). Rather than doing two overnights in a row, we decided to pull into Bob's Bay and get a solid night of sleep. The next morning we went around the north end of Dall Island and had a lovely day of sailing southeast from Telvak Strait. We decided mid-day that we could make it all the way to Nichols Bay, which was a good staging point for getting to Prince Rupert. We barely made it, pulling into Nichols Bay after dark. It was one of only two times on the trip we found ourselves dropping anchor in the dark.
This was the next day underway after #4 above. We decided it wasn't worth spending an extra day heading further east along the Alaskan border to make the passage to Prince Rupert shorter, so we just went in a straight line from Nichols Bay (at the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island) to Russell Arm (a small anchorage just across the bay from Prince Rupert). We spent the entire day motoring because we couldn't afford to waste any time going slow sailing. This was the second of only two times when we anchored in the dark. We pulled into Price Rupert's customs dock at 11pm and woke up the Customs officer on the other end of the phone. He asked the least amount of questions we've ever experienced when checking in. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to go back to bed. Once done with Customs we went across the bay to Russell Arm to avoid paying for a marina that night.
We were already behind schedule when we were ready to leave Sitka, then some nasty weather forced us to stay an additional day. So, we decided to spend that bad weather day prepping easy meals so that we could do overnight shifts and make up some ground. We left Sitka with winds coming from the northwest so we headed due south. The image below is a good visualization of our route. The blue line represents the 146 miles it would have been if we motored directly there. We choose to sail downwind around 100 miles to the purple pin, at which point we found ourselves pretty far offshore and decided it'd be a good time to jibe back towards land. 70 miles of eastward sailing latter we found ourselves heading right towards Bob's Bay. It took us around 36 hours to cover this 146 miles due to our desire to go directly downwind, the slowest direction to sail (but much more pleasant than sailing upwind).
Combining #2-4, we covered 306 miles in 4 days, bringing us back from being behind schedule to one-day ahead of schedule.
The longest day of them all was one we were anticipating the entire trip: heading south from Haida Gwaii to the West Coast of Vancouver Island. We knew from the beginning of our route planning that there'd be no way to avoid doing an overnight passage here. Really our overnight passage from Sitka was just a practice run for this journey. We thought maybe this would require two nights since it took 36 hours to cover 146 miles south of Sitka. With that in mind, we decided to leave mid-day so that we'd arrive mid-day two days later. It also gave us lots of buffer time. If we were faster than expected, then we'd arrive in the morning. If we were slower than expected, then we'd arrive in the evening. So, we left our anchorage at Etches Point, spent the morning getting a tour of Sgaang Gwaay, and headed out around 2pm. Luckily, we had some good wind coming from just the right direction that afternoon and evening and realized if we kept up this pace we'd make it in one day. That was enough motivation for us to keep the pace up all night (which required motoring overnight). We arrived at North Harbour (an anchorage just outside of the small town of Winter Harbour) by the next evening and breathed a big sigh of relief that this tough passage was behind us.
Overall, we found that 50 miles per day was our comfort limit. Anything beyond that left us very drained at the end of the day and/or required us to motor a lot to keep the pace up. Ideally, we'd do 20-40 mile days, but there's no way we would have made it to the places we went in the 16 weeks we had.
Overall, we found that 50 miles per day was our comfort limit. Anything beyond that left us very drained at the end of the day and/or required us to motor a lot to keep the pace up. Ideally, we'd do 20-40 mile days, but there's no way we would have made it to the places we went in the 16 weeks we had.
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