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Going out tuna fishing off of Newport, OR in a Conquest 28 with twin 225 Verados.
Full fishing report and, more importantly, a fuel efficiency report.
The Whaler performance report on the Conquest 28 says 1.5 mpg in the 25-30 mph range. Ocean is supposed to be flat on 31st so we should be able to maintain 25 mph. Going about 40-50 miles out for 60 deg tuna water.
When i checked into my nice ocean front hotel room at Newport, OR and checked in with the crew, they wanted to know what the heck I was doing in Newport (the site of our last tuna trip) when we were going out of Astoria?
130 miles and 3 hours later, I checked into my nice Astoria, OR hotel room.
Second correction is the boat is a 26' Conquest not a 28'. Boat is about 10 years old. It came with twin 200's which the captain repowered with twin Verado 300's.
Great day, went out about 35 miles, got into the tuna right away, and hit them off and on for the rest of day for 26 fish total. Water was 3' at 7 seconds and wind was out of the W.NW at 4 knots. An easy ride out the Columbia Bar. It got flatter as day went on, headwinds and confused water as two freighters were a couple miles ahead of use out the bar.
The 28 Conquest was armed to the teeth (see the pix). Idea was to troll to get strikes, stop the boat and start working with jigs and livebait. Lots of fun getting 15-20 lb albacore on spinning gear. Made for hectic transition as the deal was get the jigs and live bait lines over first and then get the trolling lines in. No tangles and only a few lost fish so we did well.
The 300 Veradoes on the 26 Conquest. Brand new, 2nd day on the boat for electronics and engines. One problem was that the engines were reading speed from the pitot pressure sensor on the engines not a paddle wheel or the GPS. Pitot was off by 50% at trolling speed of 5-7 knots and off by about 15% when running at speed. Reading lower speed in all cases. This is what the mpg was being calculated from.
We saw 1 mpg going out at 24 miles per hour and we saw 1.1 mpg coming back at 35 mph on the gauges. I was calculating 1.15 mpg at the 24 miles an hour and 1.25 at 35 miles per hour. That sounds about right looking at the Whaler Performance for the larger Conquest 28 with 250 Veradoes which was showing 1.52 mpg at 34 mph. Bigger engines, even at same speed and and rpm will burn more fuel.
Boat was loaded, 150 gallons of fuel, 50 gallons of ice, 30 gallons of fresh water, 1,400 lb in crew and gear.
The engines were mounted all the way down and props were MiragePlus 19'(not sure on the pitch). The engines would push the transom down on start up and time to plane was about 8 seconds. Not far off the specs for the similar 28' Conquest but it didn't seem right. Seemed like the transom was down and the engines were pushing a snow plow with bow way wap. Talking to captain, told him about advice here on Whaler Central to mount engines higher and he was planning to do that and play with props.
