When Shellerina got to Cleveland about a month ago, we met up with other Mainship 390 owners, as reported here, https://shellerina.com/2021/07/02/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame/

I learned that we were probably “pushing too much water,” going too fast = wasting fuel. Comparing notes with other types of trawlers aligned with this.

So, we decided to do an experiment: slow down to 1400 RPM and see how much we would save.

We took on fuel there, so we thought it would be the perfect time to experiment between two fuel stops.

Unfortunately, within days we were bucking the currents of the Detroit and St Clair Rivers between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. This would significantly skew our results. So we fueled up again in East Tapas, and decided to start over again.

Here are the results to compare after 17 days of cruising at 1400 RPM:

That is a HUGE difference… almost 50% savings each mile.

At $3.70 per gallon, a delta of 0.86 nmpg (savings) comes to $325 for those 17 days.

For the whole 6000 mile Loop, the savings for the year will extend out to be somewhere around $7,500 or more.

(The fuel use reported here includes some small amount of generator use while at anchor.)