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Old 09-14-2019, 07:57 PM
amizerin amizerin is offline
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Taking long passages with gas engine

Hello All!

I have Grampian 28 with Atomic 4 engine. So far I've been sailing mostly along the coast line and day time but as many I started thinking about to try something bigger. Specifically, I'm thinking to sail down to the South along the East Coast towards Caribbean. I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

My boat is in good shape. There is still work to do in order to prepare it for a long haul but it's manageable. My major concern is the engine, and specifically the fact that it's a gasoline engine. My tank is 76 liters (20 Gallons). I'm a bit hesitant to take gasoline with me in cans like people take diesel and store on the deck. What if I need motoring long distance to a marina or due to lack of wind? What if I need to run engine to charge my batteries to keep lights, bilge pump and navigation going? 20 gallons does not seem to be safe amount of fuel considering high fuel consumption of gas engine.

Does anybody have experience sailing long distances with Atomic 4?

Last edited by amizerin; 09-14-2019 at 10:40 PM.
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Old 09-14-2019, 10:13 PM
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Al Schober Al Schober is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by amizerin View Post

Does anybody have experience sailing long distances with Atomic 4?
Perhaps you meant 'motoring' long distances?
Fuel storage on deck doesn't bother me. I clamped a length of 2x3 to a pair of stanchions with stainless U-bolts, then lashed the jugs to that. Keep one side of the deck clear for rigging a jack line / going forward.
Longest I've run the A4 continuously is about 30 hours, just hard enough to keep boat speed up to 5 knots while motor sailing in light wind. Used only half of my 20 gallon tank!
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Old 09-15-2019, 10:12 AM
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Twice now, we've motored down the ICW from the Cheaspeakevto Florida, with an occasional 2day offshore leg. We have a 30 gal tank, and I carry 3 or 4 five gallon jugs Lashed on deck as described above.
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Old 09-15-2019, 10:59 AM
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I don't do long distances, maybe 40 - 50 miles, but I'll offer this anyway:
  • A modest 100W solar panel should be able to keep up with lighting (switch to LED wherever you can), instrumentation and bilge pump operation (should be minimal BP operation anyway).
  • I might be the only member here with two fuel tanks but there are advantages, particularly but not limited to all your eggs aren't in one basket. With one tank, fuel contamination leaves you dead in the water. A second tank provides an uncontaminated reserve you can switch to and carry on. Recent first hand experience on this one.
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Last edited by ndutton; 09-15-2019 at 12:41 PM. Reason: added drawing
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Old 09-15-2019, 11:38 AM
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I've been on multiple long passages. Granted, they were on diesel boats.
However, to be self-efficient fuel wise, we carried both diesel and gas on the deck lashed exactly as Al describes.
(Practically any long voyage cruiser carries extra fuel)

On one of the vessels we only had a 30 gal tank and on 2 or 3 occasions (overnight passages) we had to re-fuel while underway.
There are a lot of efficient and safe ways of doing this but on our vessel the skipper had a simple battery operated pump that made the transfer simple.
Neil's setup is the gold standard if you can adopt it.

A 20 gal tank should easily get you 15+ hours of running before adding fuel.
(As we say, YMMV)

My point is, you can make a passage with a 20 gal tank bringing along spare fuel.
As Ed said, he's done it twice and very safely.
One thing to maybe discuss, and Ed is our experience here, is oil usage/changing for a long voyage.
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Old 09-15-2019, 11:54 AM
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Important

One thing to keep well in mind is how the beastie is tuned. It isn't how much fuel you can carry it is how well your engine uses that finite fuel supply. I have been a good mechanic and carb specialist most all of my life so keeping the tune good was easy for me.
I had an E35MKII and I could cruise at 5~5 1/2 knts in light winds and chop using around .7 gallons and hour. The fuel per hour is your base for cruising at an economical speed. You should be able to do a bit better at perhaps a bit slower speed with a bit shorter water line. Find your sweet spot which is easy to do with a vacuum gage and some testing.
A poorly tuned engine may run just fine but use as much as double the fuel because of tune, hull cleanliness and the prop.
A good base for fuel consumption with gas is "2HP per pound" of fuel per hour or about 15HP per gallon. Your G28 should be using around 10~15 HP through the cruising range or less.
Your prop and RPM are a big influence too as it controls the load you put on the engine. And the carb settings determine how much is metered at what efficiency. Checking the plugs for color is a big help and some here have even used an O2 sensor for carb tuning.
Once you know your usage and how far you "may need to go" you can determine how much fuel you need, then add 10% for bad weather safety.
Once you are set you still need to have a way to transfer the fuel in a safe manner.

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Old 09-15-2019, 12:14 PM
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I too hold 20 gallons and we have done Maryland to New England and Maryland to Bermuda (750 miles, no stops).
20 gallons should last at least a month for generating electricity and potentially a lot longer if you are clever with LEDs and solar.
There was no expectation at all we could motor the entire way to Bermuda. Coming home - not racing - we would motor in calms but I had to save some gas for getting into port. We usually had 5 or 10 gallons in jugs coming home, none outbound. I have jugs on deck frequently for the dinghy anyway for local cruising or because it is easier to run over to the fuel dock for 5 gallons and bring it back then to up-anchor to get it.
Your trip has been done in all manner of craft including engineless ones, so keep that in mind. If you have the cash, a diesel swap will gain you a lot of range, but if you have that kind of money I would get a bigger boat
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