When one thinks of fuel consumption on a motorboat, the image of a very large motorboat, or even a mega-yacht with several thousand liters of fuel, immediately comes to mind. However, there are many small motorboats of less than 7 or 8 meters with small engines on the French coast. This is the largest category of pleasure boats. What can we do when the fuel budget that we spent last summer will more than double? How will the many boaters who go out for the day to catch three fish or raise two traps react? Will we continue to see them sail?
Too early in the season
It is still too early to know how boaters will react. Indeed, even if at the end of March 2022, there is a lot of excitement in the careening areas, if the preparation of the season is in full swing, the first pumping operations have not yet taken place. As for making prognoses on the course of the 2022 summer season, it is very difficult to bet on the price of a liter of fuel in 3 months: Return to a reasonable price? Doubled again?
A madness that favors alternatives
Let's hope that this madness will accelerate our way of practicing our passion. In the short term, we will have to find another attitude at sea, a way of sailing guided by different routes, different navigations in search of compromise.
But in the longer term, this quest for alternative solutions will undoubtedly also stimulate suppliers to increase the richness of their proposals. Solutions that could reduce our dependence on oil and guide us towards cleaner, more reasonable propulsion for all. Every crisis brings its share of surprises. No reason why this one shouldn't open up a better nautical world.
