What Does a Pacific Northwest Boat Trip Actually Cost in Fuel?

"How much will this trip cost me?" is a fair question to ask before you leave

Fuel is one of the biggest variable costs of a boating trip, and it's also one of the easiest to estimate ahead of time if you know two things: how much fuel your boat actually burns at your cruise speed, and what you'll likely pay per gallon along your route. Most boaters know the first number roughly. Fewer think about the second one until they're at the dock with the nozzle in hand.

Marina fuel prices vary more than most boaters expect

Fuel prices around Puget Sound and the islands vary meaningfully from marina to marina, commonly by more than a dollar a gallon between the least and most expensive docks nearby. Remote-island marinas typically run higher, which makes sense once you think about what it actually costs a small marina to get fuel out there in the first place. Prices move with the market, so treat any specific number as a snapshot, not a fixed fact, but the gap between docks tends to hold up trip to trip even as the numbers themselves shift.

That gap matters more than it sounds like it should, because it applies to every gallon you burn on the trip, not just the last fill-up.

A real worked example

Here's what that looks like on an ordinary weekend loop through the islands, say 60 nautical miles round trip. Using the Pacific Northwest Fuel Mate calculator's own example boat, the M/V BROOKLYNN (an 18-knot cruise speed, 36 gallons per hour at that speed):

  • 60 nautical miles at 18 knots is about 3.3 hours underway.
  • 3.3 hours at 36 gallons per hour burns about 120 gallons for the whole round trip.

Now apply two illustrative prices, not live quotes, just round numbers to show the effect: at $4.50 a gallon that's $540 in fuel for the trip. At $5.50 a gallon, a gap well within what boaters actually see between nearby docks, that same 120 gallons costs $660. That's a $120 difference on one ordinary weekend, based entirely on which dock you chose, not how you drove the boat.

None of that means chase the cheapest fuel at the cost of a detour that burns more than it saves. It does mean the question is worth asking before you leave, not after you've already committed to a fuel dock out of convenience.

Know the number before you go, not after

This is exactly the estimate the free Trip Fuel Calculator gives you. Enter your boat's real numbers and the price at the dock you're planning to use, and you get an estimated fuel cost for the leg before you leave, the same way you'd already know your fuel range. Save your boat once, and every trip after that is a couple of numbers away from a real budget, not a guess.

Create your free account and plan your next cruise! Know what it'll actually cost in fuel before you leave the dock.

Get started at pnwfuelmate.com

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