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hire craft fuel


olddock61

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When people talk about fuel prices being different prices at different garages, I always make the same comment......

I fill my car up (and if it was a boat, the same would apply) at any garrage on my destinations route....

If I need fuel on the way to work, I fill up, if I need fuel on the way home from work I fill up, If we are at Morissons (other supermarkets are available) an I need fuel I fill up.

I would not, to save 5p or even 10p a litre, just get in the car (or boat, if I had one) to go and get fuel....

It would use more fuel doing that, than what I would save money buying it...

And, no matter what a garage/boatyard charges, you don't have to buy it.

:Stinky

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It is a good point, have often wondered why people are happy to sit in a que for 1/2 hour at one garage when the garage across the road is empty and 1p per litre more expensive.

Then I think if they don't who will have the desire to keep prices down so long may they que and I will continoue to watch as I fill up on the other side of the road safe in the knowledge that it is a competitive market.

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

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but 50 litres in a car at the garage across the road is 50p and you would use more than that in the que.

Have to admit there are only 2 places on the Broads that I would fill with fuel :grin:

Out at sea there is a huge difference in petrol prices so I will make sure I only fill up at the reasonable ones, even then it is as much a protest against the rip offs as it is about saving money but 60p a litre on 600 litres is a few beer vouchers.

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Most car journeys are driven by neccessity, therefore at some point you need to fill up or run out and you do it as you pass a garage on route. Being in a hurry or on the way to work will often lead you to the closest garage. With a boat where the tank will happily last for 2 or 3 weeks cruising (talking diesel river use) you can plan your route at leisure and then decide to fill up at the cheapest point along that route. No danger of running out and no major disruption to your plans.

Now if your hiring you have a set return point and need to make it with a full tank or pay the hireyard prices, hence captive audience. I have to say in my days of hiring I always refilled at the hireyard, now I have more choice and have occasionly filled up at hireyards when the differantial hasn't been that great.

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I suspect more than a few also don't know how much diesel they are likely to use, or what effect the tides and speed have on that usage. Being ever so slightly cynical, there is probably more than a little benefit to not stressing about speed too much, becuase the more they use, the more they pay. I heard a story of one hirer who took the boat turned the heating on, set the temp and left it on for the week!!!!! I note that some of the newer 44ft craft have two heaters.

I know on my boat that I can expect to get around 2.6 miles to the litre in Summer and as little as 1.8 miles to the litre in Winter. I also constantly use the tides on the South to help me and rarely go above 1200rpm, except on Breydon :naughty:

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And there's the rub, Keith..... on our recent trip around I asked literally dozens of hirers what they were being charged for their diesel............ not one of them knew... :cry:cry:cry

To be honest, I didn't know until a few years ago.

But when you pay for your holiday 6-8 weeks in advance, with the price including the fuel deposit (this year £130) you forget about it, and with use of tides when you can, a light hand on the thottle, I have always got enough back to treat us on our way home. This year I was down to my last £10.00 in my pocket when I got back to the yard, and got a refund on what I had not used of £59.16

:Stinky

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To be honest, I didn't know until a few years ago.

and with use of tides when you can, a light hand on the thottle, I have always got enough back to treat us on our way home. This year I was down to my last £10.00 in my pocket when I got back to the yard, and got a refund on what I had not used of £59.16

:Stinky

Yes Geoff, that's it in a nutshell!

Unfortunately you are one of the few (and I don't include NBN members!) who know sufficient to do just that! :clap:clap:clap

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Well, we tell all our customers to be light on the throttle or they'll get puniching fuel consumption and, if they're going south, travel with the tides rather than against.

I was in the recpetion of another boat yard the other day when a group of ladies asked whether their deposit would cover the fuel and the answer was, "most definately". That's a dangerous answer to give as if they travel flat out, there's a reasonable chance that it won't.

We have a section in the skippers handbook on Fuel Conservation and this is emailed to all customers with their booking forms.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just got back from a most enjoyable 2 weeks. We actually used 92 litres over that period and travelled all over the Broads, North and South. So I was quite happy with that.

I think most hire yards charge out at around the £1.40 mark however as has been discussed fuel can be bought at around £1.15. For example this is the amount that Horning Marina Services charge.

I had an interesting discussion about this at the yard and it would appear that a small premium on fuel is actually built into the cost model when calculating hire charges. This in effect means that if the fuel were cheaper you would pay more on the hire charge. So it’s swings and roundabouts. As I would regard myself as a reasonably frugal fuel user, I am quite happy with this arrangement! Let the full throttle merchants bear the cost! I think there is quite a nice irony in that!

cheersbar

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When I last hired in April, with Richardsons I forget how many litres was put back in, but the pump showed £99 and a few pennies.

Considering the amount of cruising done over 7 days I was expecting £100 -£110 so was close to the mark.

On a short break (3 night) usually seem to use about £40 of fuel and about £55 for a 4 night break. It depends too how much heating you use – a 3kw warm air heater can use ½ a litre an hour.

Engines however DO make all the difference.

In October 2011 was on Commanding Light, that has an old Perkins 4.108 which smoked a lot and frankly was gutless. Now sure the boat is a 42' bit weighty - but was surprised to have used as much (and I take the point each yard has a different cost per litre and I should be quoting litres used not price charged) but it cost £126 for the week and we really did not do a great deal of cruising about.

Newer Nanni engines are based on a newer underlying engine design, so naturally are of course more fuel efficient.

Some of Faircraft Loynes new boats have older Perkins fitted - they are cheap to get hold of, but don't meat new EU emission rules so I believe once the boat has reached the end of their hire life can't be sold on with the engine fitted (not sure if that is to a private buyer or if going to a new hire yard) but anyway the point is it is not always about having a new build boat equals a new quiet engine.

While talking about fuel – I am surprised just how much boats use compared to the equivalent engine sized diesel car, but the sheer drag of the water and gear box ratio/prop mean they got to work hard to push the boat along.

I liked the fact Richardsons wrote to me saying before I took over the boat that the fuel deposit paid may not cover the cost of fuel used. Nice to be prepared, also nice once off boat they are ready and fuelling and you can see the pumps, you can see they truly do fill the tanks to the tops.

PS if you hire from Barnes Brinkcraft be sure to check they don’t round up the pence to the nearest full pound. It might only be 30p out of your pocket, (as I found) but if doing that for every hire of each of the boats those pennies soon add up and certainly are better off in the hirers pockets than the yards.

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Well I have done a weeks cruising in gliding light covering a fair few miles both north & south & due to a delay returning over breydon ( dog decided she wanted to follow a couple of ducks, lucky she had a life jacket on) we ended up crossing against the tide. I was very surprised to have only used £81 of fuel @ £1.40 per ltr. ( sorry hopeless @ maths ) I felt this was rather good considering siesta from richardsons last year cost just over £100 & she is a smaller craft

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Newer Nanni engines are based on a newer underlying engine design, so naturally are of course more fuel efficient.

.

If only that were true, the new engines meet emmissions regulations but are most efficient at high revs, they are much less economical than the old BMC and Perkins engines :o

on the plus side you can get spares for them and they are much quieter..

The Nanni engines are normally Kubota with the bigger ones being Toyota

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two gunstwo guns:norty::norty::wave HI ALL,

In reply to Clive's post ref NANNI fuel consumption i can agree totally!. Having quite a few of his bathtubs over the last few years starting in 2006 with MAGIC 4, fitted then i believe with a 1500cc BMC?. We had her for two weeks in the summer hol's, i seem to remember the fuel deposit then was £100, being new to hire boating we were not very clued up on tides and thing's so wherever we went and we done some mile's/hour's, was usually at high rev's, on return to the yard we had a refund of a massive 36 pence!! better than having to pay extra tho i thought.

Since then for some strange reason every boat we've had seem's to have a new NANNI fitted the week before :Stinky .

Me being a self employed diesel fitter i have a serious issue regarding fuel consumption and seeig a penny saved on fuel can be put towards the next richo's boat we hire!.

As clive said the NANNI love's to rev and is far more content and economical when it's shaking!, You can take this next quote how you wish! we had GOLD GEM 8 for a week in april 2012, on takeover it has a brand new NANNI with 16 hours on the clock, i treat it like a baby for the whole week and returned her with 66 hours on the clock, she drank 122 quid in fuel. 4 weeks later we had the same boat with 162 hour''s on the clock, again took it back a week later with +50 hours = 212 hour's on clock, having been slightly less gentle with the throttle and heater she used £68 in fuel. Yes she will have been slightly more run in so not as tight but all northern side cruising so no major tide's to run against.

Moral of this story being that the KUBOTA NANNI is the way forward for the Broads boat's of today, the BMC is fuel efficient also but noisey and smokey when well used and in my opinion the PERKINS is just plain planet destroying junk with more issue's than i care to type!!.

Keep up the good work clive

Best regards

Barry

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Hi Barry,

welcome to the forum!

your post sums it up really, it is a shame that the newer diesels do not offer economy as the price per litre also increases but there are ways of saving fuel

and hopefully if people are worried about the cost then they will take note of the tides and also not travel too fast on the rivers.

I am glad you are enjoying the Gold gems, they have had plenty of work carried out this winter (it was needed though!)

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Thanks HA and CLIVE,

for the welcome, i hadn't realised this was my first post on here as we've been members for quite some time now.

We seem to be working our way through clive's fleet pretty quickly having had holiday's on magic gem, clear gem, finesse, supreme, concerto and more recently gold gem, most more than once as we seem to find a boat we like and stick with it until it's not available when we want it!, back to the subject of fuel costs i'm afraid we only have the idiot's that we voted for to blame for the hike in duty on almost everything enjoyable in britain, on the plus side once our fuel deposit is paid the pain seem's to fade.

Get on with enjoying the broads while we can!!, any return of fuel deposit almost always goes to the burger van in potter on the way home anyway.

I'm very drunk rite now so hope the above makes even a bit of sense..

Barry

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