Engine Performance

Hi Guys, Took the boat out on Galway Bay for the first time on Sunday - many thanks to Peter Kinsella for his advise and help in getting the engine to agree to start - finicky these 2 strokes. I was really just interested in getting used to the boat so fishing was of secondary importance on the day. Anyway I was wondering what peoples experience is with performance and fuel usage. I've a Mercury 50HP and found that it used what seemed like a lot of fuel on the day. We ran at top speed for a while and then reduced to about half but found the fuel consumption very high. Any ideas why this might be or is the Mercury just a gas guzzler? How many hours/distance should 25 liters get you? Many Thanks. Steve.

the first shock half throttle my use more fuel per mile than full speed!
second shoch 2st outboards use large amounts of fuel at almost any speed, 1 gall per hour per 10 horse power is a good rule of thumb.
your out board should not be hard or even fiddly to start, it may not start first turn but should almost always start second turn over- if it doesnt, try a service or at least take a good look at the plugs.

Hi Ray, thanks for the input. If I calculate right, 4 hours motoring with a 50HP 2Stroke will cost me 20 gallons or about 90 litres? That would need 4 25 litre tanks. Did you mean litres in your message instead of gallons? I hope you did. :shock: :shock: :!:

Im afraid its Gallons......

Ok.... unless cousin Achmid kick's the barrel and leaves me an oilwell, I'll have to send the kids out to work... and spend the University Fund.

it is not as bad as it sounds (it is still bad though) the slowest speed that you can go while still "on the plane" is generally the most economical, so gun it get her up and gradually ease off. surely you dont intend spending 4hours at max speed any way - that would be a round trip of about 80 miles!
I can usually get away with using about 5-6gallons per trip (60hp) but then i tend not to go very far!

Thanks Ray, I'll try that next time out.