real world performance report - 20 footer

[zach]

I figured I’d post this as I always enjoy reading about other’s performance.

A week and a half ago I ran from Fort Lauderdale to Key Largo for a weekend of diving. Left with freshly topped tank (70 gals). Load was 2 of us, 4 tanks, 2 sets of dive gear and enough food/ice/water for the fri/sat/sun we’d be there. Our load stayed fairly consistent except for a pair of additional tanks on Saturday. We had to idle our way through Miami but once we hit Biscayne Bay, we were running. On the way down we averaged a cruising speed of 27-30 kts per hour (as fast as the bay would let us go) and coming back we were between 35-37 kts per hour. It was a pretty rough weekend in the keys and the ocean only let us go between 24-30 kts. We were bayside a couple times where I opened her up to get a feel for the top speed loaded. 45.3 kts was the best I could do.

Just topped her off. According to my Garmin, we ran 229 nautical miles for the trip. Fuel came out to 56 gallons even. A hair above 4 nauts per gallon. I probably could have gotten another half naut had I not such a heavy hand, but its fun to let the opti run. Regardless, I was pretty happy about the performance.