Get Fuel and Engine guages on your chartplotter

[Baerkanu]

Sailboats and airplanes are definitely competing mistresses - they both vie for a significant chunk of wallet!

I recently got back into sailing after 25+ years - my time since then has been spent flying, and making a living from big charterboats. Whenever I used to fly my Cherokee out into the Caribbean, I'd thank my lucky stars that I wasn't slogging it out at 10 kts on one of the boats, doing the same trip - burning 12-14 GPH at 130 kts was way better than burning 30 GPH at 9-10 kts, especially since the cost per gallon wasn't much more for avgas vs diesel.

But NOW we've got a sailboat and can go as far as we want for free (as long as the wind and weather hold and nothing breaks and we don't run out of water or food and we're not in a place that a 26M wasn't designed for - of course). Very cost-effective as long as I stay away from online shopping and don't break too much stuff or think "wouldn't it be nice if...." too often. Definitely more cost-effective than flying, on an hourly basis anyway - but there's only so much free time, and sometimes you have to get somewhere. And flying, like sailing, is just too cool. Plus it's a better way to get from Casper to Albuquerque.

One of the reasons we got a 26M is that free time is limited, and if the weather doesn't cooperate for sailing, we can at least meet a schedule if we need to and still enjoy boating. Consequently we use the motor more than I'd like, and in our case I can foresee some use in having fuel info/range available in case we need to get someplace fun to enjoy the sailing.

Anyway - musings /off -

- Clay

[Sea Wind]

Clay,
I would be very interested in your feedback with the cable. I have a very similar setup, a Garmin 541s and a DF90.