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A20 - is it good for cruising too? according to review 5 MPG!


TommyTuna

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Hi Folks - looking at a gently used A20 as our first surf boat. I'm impressed with the surf waves i've seen online but equally important for us is being able to cruise our multi lake chain somewhat efficiently.  How are you guys doing on cruising?

This particular review had the boat doing over 5MPG at cruise which is the best efficiency i've seen by far (my 18ft deckboat with 130 ETEC gets 3.8MPG at best).  I'm wondering if this is a typo in the article as any other review i've seen for a vdrive is well below 4 MPG at cruise.

I get that surfing it will guzzle but i'm ok with that as we will be cruising for 70% of the time.  30% surfing and tubing.

 

 

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4 hours ago, TommyTuna said:

Hi Folks - looking at a gently used A20 as our first surf boat. I'm impressed with the surf waves i've seen online but equally important for us is being able to cruise our multi lake chain somewhat efficiently.  How are you guys doing on cruising?

This particular review had the boat doing over 5MPG at cruise which is the best efficiency i've seen by far (my 18ft deckboat with 130 ETEC gets 3.8MPG at best).  I'm wondering if this is a typo in the article as any other review i've seen for a vdrive is well below 4 MPG at cruise.

I get that surfing it will guzzle but i'm ok with that as we will be cruising for 70% of the time.  30% surfing and tubing.

It is possible to optimize your prop choice for maximum MPG while cruising.  You can almost bet that it will be a poor choice for MPG while surfing, not to mention the ability to even get to surf speed with your particular load.  Unless you really want to change props when you change activities, it may be best to strike a balance somewhere in the middle.

We used to switch props on an outboard fairly regularly, but the ability to tilt the engine made it pretty easy to just stand in shallow water and do the job in a minute or so.  I have no doubt that I could change my prop inboard underwater and without a mask, etc.  That doesn't mean I really want to do it all that often.  Doing it on a lift or trailer would be pretty simple.

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21 hours ago, TommyTuna said:

Hi Folks - looking at a gently used A20 as our first surf boat. I'm impressed with the surf waves i've seen online but equally important for us is being able to cruise our multi lake chain somewhat efficiently.  How are you guys doing on cruising?

This particular review had the boat doing over 5MPG at cruise which is the best efficiency i've seen by far (my 18ft deckboat with 130 ETEC gets 3.8MPG at best).  I'm wondering if this is a typo in the article as any other review i've seen for a vdrive is well below 4 MPG at cruise.

I get that surfing it will guzzle but i'm ok with that as we will be cruising for 70% of the time.  30% surfing and tubing.

 

 

what year what driveline?

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22 hours ago, granddaddy55 said:

what year what driveline?

It appears the 5 MPG++ efficiency was from 2020 A20 review with Monsoon m5 - pretty incredible efficiency if true and a top speed for 44 mph to boot.

2020 Review: https://www.boatingmag.com/story/boats/axis-wake-research-a20-boat-test/

However - a review of 2018 A20 with different (bigger) engine yielded much much lower fuel eoncomy figures (3.5MPG) and top speed that was almost 10mph less!

2018 Review: https://www.boatingmag.com/axis-a20/

Are the new Monsoons really that much more efficient? I understand hull changes year over year and some tweaks/improvements but this is quite a jump. 


 

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a prop that gives you 44 top end is very likely stupid economical, thats like my 1235 on my 5.7 2014, it had that top end plus, it was very economical to surf (but inadequate to get to surf speed with a big crew), it was not economical for heavy wakeboarding nor could it get up on plane s big crew, snd cruising at reasonable speeds it was fantastic

on the other hand the 2315 was capable of heavy crew weight for surf speed but a little more thirsty, more economical for heavy wake , , top end of 42 but not so economical slow or fast cruising compared to 1235

long story but with right prop they are all economical but that prop wont perform at all levels

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Makes total sense - i had ton of fun getting prop dialed in on my outboard and the differences were huge. It's all a series of compromises!  Still even if you lower the effiency by 15-20% you're still north of 4 MPG on the A20 which is better then most smaller run abouts with a ~150 HP outboard.

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