Fuel efficiency

[McB]

Does anyone have any documented fuel efficiency numbers for Doug Hylan’s “Bowler”. I am looking to build a small river cruiser possible “Looper” “Inside Passage” boat. I am interested in comparing “Bowlers” fuel efficiency with something like Paul Gartsides #143 a 24” power cruiser. Paul is very good about having numbers to compare boats. I think the stretched “Bowler” with enclosed hard top to original top lines would be a good fit if it did not lose too much fuel efficiency with gas vs diesel. The “Bowler” would be a good fit for potential conversion to EV in the future.

Pat

[heimlaga]

Does EV means electric?

The Bowler and the Gartside 143 both look highly unsuitable for electric power with that deep and wide transom. You would essentially not be able to go further that the lenght of your extension cord. That type of barely planing or semi planing hulls generally use quite a bit of fuel. Which is all right in the world of today but may present a problem in the world of tomorrow.

[mcdenny]

How about 1400 miles with no fuel at all for efficiency?

https://www.passagemaker.com/lifesty...uise-to-alaska

David and Alex Borton are smart and adventurous and Sam Devlin knows a thing or two about boats.

[McB]

Yes I do mean possible conversion to electric, but that is just an afterthought. My main question is with fuel efficiency comparison. The Gartside #143 is a slightly longer version of his #74. These are full displacement designs. The #74 uses 2.5 liters at 6 knots and #143 should be similar. I just would like to know what the fuel efficiency of the bowler would be at sub 7 knot speeds. Obviously being gas and being a semi-displacement hull it will not be as good, but it is a much lighter boat. Having the ability to run at +15 knot speeds would have advantages if the loss of efficiency at lower speeds was not to bad.

[heimlaga]

2,5 liters per nautical mile at 6 knots is a gigantic fuel consumption for a boat of that size. A sleek displacement doubleender like for instance an old style Columbia river gillnetter or a scandinavan doubleender around 23 or 24 feet long with similar internal volume will use less than half a litre of fuel per nautical mile at 6 knots and be way more seaworthy.

That wide and deep transom on a dispacement boat completely disregards anything that has to do with fuel consumption. The philosophy being that the totally unnecsessary turbulence crerated by the transom can easily and cheaply be countered by an oversize engine.

[rbgarr]

From a video and review of one of Hylan's Bowlers on offcenterharbor.com:

Bagatelle is one of Doug Hylan's “Hat” series of designs that he named Bowler. She’s 26’6” long, 8’2” wide, and with the motor tipped up, draws only 16” or water. With her 60hp Evinrude E-tek outboard, she’ll top out at around 17 knots and burn about 6 gallons per hour. But at cruising speed or 12 knots, fuel consumption goes to half that and the noise diminishes to a conversational level. Bagatelle weighs only 3,680 lbs.

More here: https://weeklypacket.com/news/2014/j.../#.Y7xekOLMKA8

We own a near sistership to Gartside's design #143 (see photo in our profile) and cruised for a week in tandem with the owners of #143 ten years ago. The 33 hp diesel burns a half gallon per hour at 6-7 knots, the speed I'm comfortable with while avoiding the ubiquitous lobsterpot buoys on the Maine Coast. Nine knots is WOT but the boat just squats and is louder than necessary. Theirs was a 35hp Yanmar that burned only a bit more than us at 6-7 knots.

[McB]

Thank you rbgarr, that is very helpful.
Heimlaga, I have looked at Tad Roberts Gillnetter style boats but he is reporting about the same fuel consumption as the Gartside, 1.5 gl/hr in his 22’, much lighter boat at 6 knots. Where else might I find design like you are talking about?

[heimlaga]

Drawings.....that's the problem. I own one such boat and I have owned another and at the moment I am rebuilding a third for a customer but they were all built by eye without drawings. Theeese sleek clinker built doubleenders were plentiful all over the Nordic countries only a few decades ago and there were as many local varieties as there were villages along the coasts.

My old 22 footer used on average 7 litres of diesel in 3 1/2 hours at 5.5 knots to go 20 nautical miles (measured on the map as I owned no log). This was a sort of average. That makes 2 litres or 0.5 US gallons per hour or 0,35 litres per nautical mile.
The engine which I still own is a Bukh DV10. A 10 hp single cylinder diesel. It will be used in the 23 footer I bought. If I ever find the time to repair it and put it in the water that is.

Here is an article about one Norwegian variety of the same concept https://www.woodenboat.com/snekke

Tad Roberts Gillnetter style yahts are very beamy especially aft and therefore require large engines for a doubleender. I was thinking about the old sleek style which was rowed or powered by a small one cylinder engine a hundred years ago or so. I have seen photos of such boats. Some men from my area worked those boats and sent home photos. I don't remember where I saw them but somewhere local.

A Bush Island doubleender would maybe have roughly similar fuel consumption characteristics as the boats I know here in Finland. Some wooden boat school in San Francisco took the lines of one so there should be drawings.

[Breakaway]

It might surprise some that V-hulled planing boats make pretty good displacement boats.

Example, my 5000 pound 23 foot deep V with a single 250-hp V-8 outboard sips fuel at 5 knots. That's idling at 650 rpm. At that boat and engine speed, it burns 1.2 gph. or about 3.5 mpg.


You are talking about a much smaller outboard. You wont be burning much, if you operate in displacement mode.

Of course, what are your goals? Absolute best efficiency? How far apart are fuel stops? Most of the great loop isn't all that remote.

Is it financial? If we took my larger, heavier bigger powered boat we could, for example make 40-50 miles per eight-hour day for 8-9 gallons, or about $25 dollars a day in fuel. The smaller engine you'd use would burn and cost much less per day in fuel.

Diesel? Sure, you go further on a gallon, but it costs more. And the engine costs more to buy up front. Again, what are your goals? Do you need the range it affords? Will it enhance the vessel's resale? Etc.

Just food for your thoughts

Kevin

[rbgarr]

Just a thought. The Bowler design weighs in at 3700 ls. The Gartside comes in around 4800-5000 lbs. Boats cost by the pound.

[McB]

Rbgarr, one of the concerns of mine was weight but for opposite reason. In the OCH video on Bowler you can hear the water hitting the boat with a kind of hollow sound (granted there could be many reasons in the video) but my desire was for a heavier boat that would muffle that sound some. Were I live, in Walleye country there is not shortage of Aluminum and Fiberglass fishing boats. I have notices that there is a big difference in sound. Do you notice much sound when you are at anchor in calm conditions on you’re boat?

[rbgarr]

Do you notice much sound when you are at anchor in calm conditions on you’re boat?

In calm conditions things are fine but with both the Bowler and Gartside vee bottom boats they will slap from time to time when waves heel the boat enough to raise the chine. Sometimes it booms enough to make me jump.

My best college friend and his Army buddies reenacted the Huck Finn voyage down the Mississippi from Hannibal, MO to New Orleans in 1972, more than fifty years ago. They were competent and skilled enough to build a river-worthy raft-like object powered with an outboard. They encountered VERY heavy river traffic almost all the way. It's probably much worse now.