Best Fuel For Extended Trip

[Lopez Mike]

I don't have anywhere nearly the sort of data that you have. Or as consistent of a fuel. I store my wood in bags that held 40 pounds of sunflower seed (bird feeder!) and with them perhaps 3/4 full and not that tightly packed, there might be 25 pounds in one. The skipper isn't that tightly packed either. I'll go weigh some tomorrow. And the wood I burn varies from extremely hard and dense stuff to hunks that can only loosely be described as wood. Pound for pound there is likely more sow bugs, slugs and fungi than cellulose in some of it.

That said, I am guessing that at four and half knots I burn a bag every two or three miles. No more than that and likely quite a bit less. So taking the high consumption figures, I'm burning ten to fifteen pounds per mile. This seems high to me. Writing this down convinces me that it's time for a test and some more definitive measurements. I'm taking some steam nut friends out for a whirl tomorrow afternoon and I will keep better track of things. The variable wood quality I cannot do anything about but I will weigh the bags and make some longer runs at a constant speed.

Folly is a 24' fairly light hull with a 5 h.p. rated engine and a VFT at around 100 p.s.i.
There will be three adults aboard.

Perhaps you could leave some fuel stored along your route so as to not sink the boat at the beginning.

[DetroiTug]

"How does my fuel usage per mile sound compared to others on this site with a similar hull?"

200 pound per day with a sleek EB23 and Strath Warrago 3 x 4, sounds about right. With the heavy tug and 3 x 4 twin, I use close to 400 pounds per day, roughly half of a face cord.

Hull speed has a large effect on the amount of fuel used. As the speed goes up, the fuel consumption goes up exponentially. So running a nice cruising speed and making a smaller bow and stern wave can reduce fuel consumption over the same distance. I've noticed, If we are just poking along, we use very little fuel. If we are "racing" , a mile or two race puts a nice big dent in the bunker.



-Ron

[RGSP]

We recently did a 44 mile one day trip in a 23' fairly fine lined, but heavy, launch built in 1899, with a 3" + 5" x 3" twin (Leak design, more or less) compound working mostly at around 150 psi and 60% cut-off. Coal (best Welsh steam coal) consumption for the day was a bit over one 25kg bag, say 35kg, including lighting, and having 150 psi and a good fire on arrival.

John and Francoise Tilley have regularly taken their 21' Frolic to France for a week steaming mainly on carried coal, supplemented slightly by dead wood picked up along the banks. Use of a chainsaw along French canal and river banks would not go down well, or in England for that matter. Their trip journals are accessible via the SBA website, and are well worth reading for anyone contemplating a civilised moderate length trip.

[Mike Rometer]

"How does my fuel usage per mile sound compared to others on this site with a similar hull?"

200 pound per day with a sleek EB23 and Strath Warrago 3 x 4, sounds about right. With the heavy tug and 3 x 4 twin, I use close to 400 pounds per day, roughly half of a face cord.

Hull speed has a large effect on the amount of fuel used. As the speed goes up, the fuel consumption goes up exponentially. So running a nice cruising speed and making a smaller bow and stern wave can reduce fuel consumption over the same distance. I've noticed, If we are just poking along, we use very little fuel. If we are "racing" , a mile or two race puts a nice big dent in the bunker.

-Ron

Nice shot of the 'Chief' there Ron!

[Centurion]

"How does my fuel usage per mile sound compared to others on this site with a similar hull?"

200 pound per day with a sleek EB23 and Strath Warrago 3 x 4, sounds about right. With the heavy tug and 3 x 4 twin, I use close to 400 pounds per day, roughly half of a face cord.

Hull speed has a large effect on the amount of fuel used. As the speed goes up, the fuel consumption goes up exponentially. So running a nice cruising speed and making a smaller bow and stern wave can reduce fuel consumption over the same distance. I've noticed, If we are just poking along, we use very little fuel. If we are "racing" , a mile or two race puts a nice big dent in the bunker.



-Ron

Nice vessel, Ron. Thanks for your input.

[Centurion]

We recently did a 44 mile one day trip in a 23' fairly fine lined, but heavy, launch built in 1899, with a 3" + 5" x 3" twin (Leak design, more or less) compound working mostly at around 150 psi and 60% cut-off. Coal (best Welsh steam coal) consumption for the day was a bit over one 25kg bag, say 35kg, including lighting, and having 150 psi and a good fire on arrival.

John and Francoise Tilley have regularly taken their 21' Frolic to France for a week steaming mainly on carried coal, supplemented slightly by dead wood picked up along the banks. Use of a chainsaw along French canal and river banks would not go down well, or in England for that matter. Their trip journals are accessible via the SBA website, and are well worth reading for anyone contemplating a civilised moderate length trip.

Incredible performance. You must have a very efficient system. Maybe I shouldn't waste time on other fuels and just plan on using our American version of Welsh coal which is Pocahontas #3. Just curious. I've notice much more ash build up with coal vs. wood. On your 44 mile trip, how often did you have to remove ash to maintain airflow?

[cyberbadger]

Use of a chainsaw along French canal and river banks would not go down well, or in England for that matter. Their trip journals are accessible via the SBA website, and are well worth reading for anyone contemplating a civilised moderate length trip.

I think checking with the local laws/convention is fine and a wise thing to do. But I think if a hatchet/hand saw or chain saw or is allowed it doesn't mean it's uncivilized to use it for fuel. One could argue environmentally using lying dead/drift wood is carbon neutral whereas coal is not and is therefore more civilized to use free wood than coal.

Eh they are all good(fuel) in my book for various reasons, but I will definitely have a hatchet and saw onboard and if a good opportunity presents itself I may indulge - in the USA there may be more opportunity/allowance for such things than Europe.

That being said, if it's a planned trip I will plan on fuel sources that are guaranteed available. Nyitra will burn wood or coal, and luckily I have a good and cheap local coal source (Both bituminous and anthracite) here in Akron, Ohio but I might not trailer along hundreds of pounds of coal to Lake Chautauqua in New York where Nyitra will probably visit next summer that is a 3 hour drive/trailering away.

-CB

[RGSP]

We recently did a 44 mile one day trip in a 23' fairly fine lined, but heavy, launch built in 1899, with a 3" + 5" x 3" twin (Leak design, more or less) compound working mostly at around 150 psi and 60% cut-off. Coal (best Welsh steam coal) consumption for the day was a bit over one 25kg bag, say 35kg, including lighting, and having 150 psi and a good fire on arrival.

John and Francoise Tilley have regularly taken their 21' Frolic to France for a week steaming mainly on carried coal, supplemented slightly by dead wood picked up along the banks. Use of a chainsaw along French canal and river banks would not go down well, or in England for that matter. Their trip journals are accessible via the SBA website, and are well worth reading for anyone contemplating a civilised moderate length trip.

Incredible performance. You must have a very efficient system. Maybe I shouldn't waste time on other fuels and just plan on using our American version of Welsh coal which is Pocahontas #3. Just curious. I've notice much more ash build up with coal vs. wood. On your 44 mile trip, how often did you have to remove ash to maintain airflow?

No ash removal, but the fire bed did get stirred twice - not really clinker, but bits of ash cohesive enough not to fall through the fire bars without a bit of help. It isn't my boat: I was just stoker for the day, but it is a nice efficient system - boiler, engine, prop, hull, etc. - you have to consider everything together. Her owner points out that the boat normally uses significantly less fuel than if she were powered by a standard gasoline outboard motor. Just because small steam plants are inefficient, doesn't mean that other power sources aren't just as inefficient or worse on occasion.

[DetroiTug]

"Her owner points out that the boat normally uses significantly less fuel than if she were powered by a standard gasoline outboard motor."

The fuel consumption of a 5 hp gasoline outboard motor uses a small percentage by comparison, probably around 5%.

I have a 2 cycle 5 hp Mercury on a 17foot Johnboat (pram) for fishing small inland lakes, which Michigan has around 10,000 of, and the fuel consumption is ridiculously low. I'd estimate it somewhere around 15-20 miles per gallon.

Small steam plants as much as we love them are horribly inefficient when compared to their Internal combustion counterparts. In the pic I posted above, take note of all the heat coming out of the stack, there's the loss.

Mike Rometer and Centurion, Thank you for the compliment.

-Ron

[barts]

Small steam plants as much as we love them are horribly inefficient when compared to their Internal combustion counterparts. In the pic I posted above, take note of all the heat coming out of the stack, there's the loss.
-Ron

Yup... although, the losses up the stack are perhaps 20% of the fuel we burn... we lose perhaps 70% in the condenser (or up the stack as vapor if non-condensing), and of the remains 10%, some is heat losses and some is mechanical power out. And 30% or more of that tiny fraction of the power we generate is lost as heat (fluid losses) by the prop....

- Bart