Carver Owners Forum

I am new to the forum and I just wanted to throw this out there for some feed back. I am very interested to find out what the typical fuel burn/speed over water ratio was for vessels similar to mine. Last year I took delivery of a 2006 Carver 44 CMY that is powered by twin Volvo Penta D6, 370 Hp. diesels. I went cruising on Georgian Bay for two weeks and I had an opportunity to run her on plane for hours on end, going from port to port. The maximum WOT for these engines is 3600 RPM's. I ran her on plane in the area of 3000 to 3100 RPM's. I found that I was averaging 20 miles an hour +-. I found that I had to trim the vessel "full bow down" to get to this speed and I felt that I would like to be able to bow down more as the aft seemed to be dragging to me. My fuel burn at this rate registered 30 GPH (American) on the EVC fuel flow meter.

When I left on the trip I was full of fuel both Port and Starboard, including the aux. tanks. I started burning the Aux. tanks first and at the above RPM I was getting 18.5 miles an hour. As the fuel burned and the weight became less, the vessel performed better, as expected. I have now decided to keep the Aux. tanks at 1/4 capacity to keep the weight down. I am interested to hear what other Carver 44 CMY, or similar, owners are experiencing under similar conditions. I have been told that these vessels are known to be heavy in the "aft" end, but I thought the extended hull under the cockpit would help get it out of the water. Thanks in advance. Looking forward to your responses.

Not the same boat but the same engines. My burn is slightly less which can be expected since the boat is smaller/lighter. I think all Carvers are ass heavy including mine which likes lots of tab up on plane. I have also found keeping the aux tanks low helps quite a bit. Sent you a PM re filters for your engines.

Thanks midnightsun. What RPM do you run at to get on plane and what would you SOW be?

Depending on winds and currents I normally cruise @ 3200 which gives me anywhere between 21 to 24 mph. Best I have done WOT is 31mph. She will hit 3600 rpm. 98% of the time we are at 1250 rpm sipping fuel and moving along at 7.5-8mph. Never really looked at SOW all my figures are GPS/SOG. As for burn, not really looking at it and have my EVC unit set to not show it. Life is too short to be worrying about fuel consumption. First year of ownership I knew the figures and was interested but lost interest as time went by and now I simply cannot remember what they were.

Its hard to believe how efficiently the diesels run. They certainly move a substantial amount of boat around at a very reasonable burn rate. But to quote Hans: ' Life is too short to be worrying about fuel consumption'. (until of course you look at the bill!)