Having an alternative way to move Swallow around the Salish Sea is almost a necessity. Lin and Larry Pardey sailing around the world without a motor. I know many people that have no motor on their boat – but most of these boats are much much smaller and have significantly less displacement than Swallow!
As most I have a love/hate relationship with motors. As much as possible I attempt to not use dinosaur (ie, oil) based propulsion, though cruising the Salish Sea means the motor is used often.
A Honda 8HP outboard hangs from Swallow’s transom. In commissioning the boat I spent a few hundred dollars getting the motor checked and fixing a few times.
Thus far, knocking on all sorts of wood, the motor has performed well. I’m still figuring out fuel burn based on a cruising speed of about 5kts. Best guess right now is the motor is burning about 1/3 to 1/2 gallon/hour. If this is correct the eleven gallon fuel tank provides me with a range of about 22-33 hours (excluding current affects about 110-165 nautical miles).
I need to figure out how to perform an oil and oil filter change while the motor is hanging on the transom – the manual says this should be do every 100 hours.
S/V Swallow 