How to Calculate Yacht Fuel Cost – The Boat Fuel Cost Calculator

When you decide to enjoy a yacht charter, there are many things you have to consider, not only when, where, and with whom you wish to join the party. I’m talking about the costs and expenses you will have during this memorable holiday with your loved ones.

Depending on what type of vessel you are about, the rent, and the destination you will discover (as every place has its prices, pros, and cons), you will have a different bill at the end of your cruise. 

How much does it cost to charter a yacht?

The most common questions we receive from our customers before they embark aboard the selected yacht they booked with us for their charter are: 

• What does the price include?
• What is APA?
• What does APA stand for?
• What are the extras?
• How much is VAT? 
• Can I have an estimate of the extra costs and expenses?
• How much will I spend in terms of fuel?
• What does the fuel boat cost?
• How do you calculate fuel boat costs?
• What is the price of docking the yacht at the marina?
  

Our expert Charter Managers are glad to assist you with any questions, clarifications, thoughts, and doubts you may have, from the boat’s selection to your charter’s arrangements until you disembark. We always reserve transparent and clear 24/7 assistance for our new and repetitive clients without surprises. 

How do I calculate yacht fuel cost? 

When you charter a power yacht, the most critical cost to support is, for sure, fuel.

When you rent a sailboat or hire a catamaran, don’t forget about the fuel cost for generators and the dinghy’s outboard engine. It would be a different cost at the end (definitively lower than aboard a motor yacht), but pay attention to air conditioning, especially when you spend the night at anchor. 

Yacht fuel calculation: how it works

It’s time to take a map and mark all the spots and destinations you wish to reach! Remember that you can predict the weather conditions only 10 to 7 days before embarking.

Prepare your sailing itinerary.

Your sailing route will depend on many factors, such as the yacht’s engine power and cruising speed, weather conditions, and the nautical miles you intend to navigate. Naturally, you will have to be informed about the actual market price of the fuel in the destination you will sail to have the right or most approximate calculation of the boat fuel cost. 

Together with the assistance and suggestions of our sales department, our experienced technicians created an advanced, quick, and efficient tool for calculating yacht fuel that we call the “Boat fuel calculator.” This tool allows you to have a concrete and actual analysis of the yacht’s fuel consumption and price, starting with your itinerary plan on the map and ending with the final result. 

Let’s begin by selecting the point of embarkation of your charter on the map. Now, continue pinning all the beautiful spots you want to reach by boat during your yacht charter (as you can see, the calculator automatically updates the number of nautical miles) to disembark. You will obtain the total number of miles. 

Calculate the nautical miles.

Naturally, you can choose the unit of measure (nautical miles, miles, km): in this case, it would be nautical miles. Every time you pin a new destination on your map, from the embarkation to the disembark, the tool updates the total number of miles cruised. 

Now that we have the total number of miles, it is mandatory to calculate the boat fuel cost of our cruise. We need to know the yacht’s cruising speed, engine consumption, and the market price of diesel in our next sailing destination.

Engine power and consumption

Now that we have the nautical miles, we need to know the engines’ power (the hp) and the real engine consumption of the boat we rent to have the actual yacht fuel calculation. 

The last essential element we need to obtain the yacht fuel cost of our charter is the market price of gas in the destination we will sail. To learn about diesel’s merits, you can consult many updated webpages of marinas and fuel bunkers, which continuously report the existing fuel prices daily. (You can also check at https://www.marineyellowpages.com/)

The fuel consumption formula

What we are looking for is the expense of fuel we will have during our cruise.

Now that we have all the information we need for the yacht fuel calculation, and so:

• Total nautical miles;
• Engine consumption;
• Cruising speed;
• The market price of gas;

We can proceed with the actual boat fuel calculator using our formula. 

Firstly, we need to know our charter’s travel time, which is also known as the cruise duration. The formula for obtaining the cruise duration is determined by dividing the number of nautical miles by the number of knots (the boat’s cruising speed). 

For example, if the nautical miles we are planning to navigate are 150 nm and the cruising speed of our yacht is 18 knots:

150 nm / 18 kn = 8,333 hr 

So, if we want to cruise 150 nautical miles at 18 knots, it will take about 8,333 hours. You must always consider the sea and weather conditions that influence engine consumption.

Now that we have the “time,” what is the “duration” of our charter? How do we calculate the yacht fuel cost? 

If the engine of our boat consumes 250 lt/hr, we have to multiply the time of our cruise, so in this case, 8,333 hr by the boat fuel consumption, so by 250 lt/hr:

8,333 hr / 250 lt/hr = 2.082,50 lt

2.082,50 liters we consume while cruising for 8,333 hr, with an engine consumption of 250 lt/hr. Now we have to multiply the number of liters just obtained by the market price of fuel, which we can suppose at 1,50 Euro/lt:

2.082,50 lt x 1,50 Euro = 3.123,75 Euro

Let’s resume the “magic formula” for calculating yacht fuel. If your sailing itinerary contemplates 150 nautical miles at a constant cruising speed of 18 knots, 250 lt/hr consumption, and a marine diesel cost of 1,50 Euro/lt, at the end of our yacht charter, we will have a bill of 3.123,75 Euro.

The calculations of boat fuel costs are always approximate and depend on sea and weather conditions, atmospheric and natural events. 

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