Anyone Local to Nashville/Cumberland River?

[2kwik4u]

I'm working on a full write up........BIG story to come tonight I hope.

Here is the route we took on the lake Saturday. Looks like about 23 miles of travel or so. No wonder the low fuel light came on as we were putting on the trailer. With 50 miles round trip to Nashville we put about 72miles on this tank of fuel. FAR more than I anticipated!



I'm going to get the boat out and refill with ethanol free fuel later this week when it stops raining. I'll get an accurate fuel usage then. With the low fuel light on, I'm gonna guess around 25gals used. Anyone know how much is left in an AR190 when the light comes on? @swatski @Bruce Maybe you guys know from the bimini trips?

 

[swatski]

Anyone know how much is left in an AR190 when the light comes on? @swatski @Bruce Maybe you guys know from the bimini trips?

Well, it depends.
ON plane these boats' gauges tend to show about 5-10% more fuel than OFF plane.
In my boat I would estimate it is about 4-5 gal difference.
In other words, if my low fuel alarm starts going off when I'm OFF plane I still have somewhere above 5 gal of usable fuel.
However, if I get low fuel alarm while on plane, I know I'm running on fumes.
If my fuel gauge drops below 15-20% while on plane (and no low fuel alarm is going off), the low fuel alarm is sure going to go off - as soon as I come off the plane.

--

 

[2kwik4u]

Well, it depends.
ON plane these boats' gauges tend to show about 5-10% more fuel than OFF plane.
In my boat I would estimate it is about 4-5 gal difference.
In other words, if my low fuel alarm starts going off when I'm OFF plane I still have somewhere above 5 gal of usable fuel.
However, if I get low fuel alarm while on plane, I know I'm running on fumes.
If my fuel gauge drops below 15-20% while on plane (and no low fuel alarm is going off), the low fuel alarm is sure going to go off - as soon as I come off the plane.

--

Thanks for the info. I'm hoping to get it out Thursday night and refuel with Ethanol free fuel, and Stabil. I'll record the volume put back in. We started with a fillup on Saturday morning, so should be somewhat accurate measurement.

72miles usable range isn't as bad as I thought it was. I'm still a little shocked that we did 22 miles on the lake that quickly. Were on the water there maybe an hour or so, with lots of idling time. Between quick runs to here there or the other place as we were exploring.

I have to say it was interesting to set the cruise on an engine at 6,400rpm and then leave it there for an extended period of time. Just "feels" like a lot of revs. I think best economy was closer to about 5,800rpm, but we were only moving at like 24mph or something low like that. Felt too slow, but the tach was reading somewhere around 4.1mpg. 6,400 felt like a good compromise of speed vs fuel burn. 6,400 was getting us about 31-32mph and bouncing between 3.5 and 3.8mpg the whole way down and back.

The boat overall performed very well for us. Lots of high duration high rev use, then about 3hrs of idling and start/stop of the engine waiting for the locks to clear. I checked the water outlet while underway a few times, and the water was never hot to the touch, just warm. Biggest complaint is that it was loud while underway. We had enough stereo to not be bored, but we couldn't carry on a conversation easily. Wife also asked for a back rest a few times trying to set next to me in the cockpit. She eventually gave up and slid back and sat in the back using the seats like a chase lounge.

I will also say that after sitting in tail waters for 3 hours, I had plenty of time to practice getting the boat oriented the right direction, holding position, and maneuvering around in various light currents. Even perfected the "turn on axis" move, as well as the lateral "slide" move. It's really quite impressive how easy it is to orient and maneuver these once you get the hang of it.

 

[2kwik4u]

I'm clearly behind on getting a write-up done and posted. Here's a link to our pictures from the weekend.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/GMhuYFR3mRSCq4KT8