2012 09 27
Siracusa, Sicily, Italy
Greece is the only country in which we have sailed where there are virtually no fuel docks for boats. Here you have fuel delivered to a quay in a minitanker. There are many disadvantages: you have wait. To several hours for the truck to arrive, many fuel nozzles are doctored to ensure you cannot not shut them off, the trucker "forgets" to zero the meter and so on. Yesterday we added a big one.
Keeping close track of our fuel purchasees aboard Meredith: location of purchase, amount of fuel taken on, engine hours at time of purchase is as close to a religious observance as I am likely ever to come. Before our arrival in Greece our boat consumed two litres per hour. Reliably unalterably 2 litres per hour was our consumption between fillups.
In Greece our fuel consumption rose to 3 litres per hour. Between every fillup at every interval we began mysteriously to consumer 50% more fuel than we did when sailing non Greek waters. Make that before we began filling up at Greek minitankers.
Our boat has just crossed the Ionian Sea westbound moving from the Greek island of Paxos to the Italian Island of Sicily. We came into Siracusa on Sicily with tanks almost empty: only six litres of fuel in the tanks and our deck jugs empty. Our tanks on empty we had a good basis for comparison.
When we motored up to the fuel dock in Siracusa we took on 135 litres of fuel which worked out to, you guessed it: TWO LITRES PER HOUR.
So I am left wondering at what gives with the Greek litre.
Siracusa, Sicily, Italy
 |
| Connie at some greco italian ruins in the middle of Siracusa |
Greece is the only country in which we have sailed where there are virtually no fuel docks for boats. Here you have fuel delivered to a quay in a minitanker. There are many disadvantages: you have wait. To several hours for the truck to arrive, many fuel nozzles are doctored to ensure you cannot not shut them off, the trucker "forgets" to zero the meter and so on. Yesterday we added a big one.
Keeping close track of our fuel purchasees aboard Meredith: location of purchase, amount of fuel taken on, engine hours at time of purchase is as close to a religious observance as I am likely ever to come. Before our arrival in Greece our boat consumed two litres per hour. Reliably unalterably 2 litres per hour was our consumption between fillups.
In Greece our fuel consumption rose to 3 litres per hour. Between every fillup at every interval we began mysteriously to consumer 50% more fuel than we did when sailing non Greek waters. Make that before we began filling up at Greek minitankers.
Our boat has just crossed the Ionian Sea westbound moving from the Greek island of Paxos to the Italian Island of Sicily. We came into Siracusa on Sicily with tanks almost empty: only six litres of fuel in the tanks and our deck jugs empty. Our tanks on empty we had a good basis for comparison.
When we motored up to the fuel dock in Siracusa we took on 135 litres of fuel which worked out to, you guessed it: TWO LITRES PER HOUR.
So I am left wondering at what gives with the Greek litre.
No comments:
Post a Comment