BLUEFLOW helped me to choose the right propeller to run more fuel efficient with my new V8 engine

"I bought my Ockelbo DC21 last year. The boat was equipped with a VP AQ 260 with 280 drive which I thought worked very well but consumed too much fuel. As an old sailor, I am not used to worrying about fuel consumption but with a price of over $8 per gallon, consuming half a gallon on a nautical mile, I thought I really had to do something if I should be able to enjoy the boating season.

So last spring I installed a flow meter that measured my consumptions. I also installed a Pertronics electronic ignition system, but the engine started to stall from time to time and suddenly one day the engine wouldn't turn around at all. I had water in two cylinders! It turned out to be a crack in the engine block! I had been very thorough winterizing the engine, using antifreeze so the damage must have occurred earlier.

So me and couple buddies tore out the old engine and put in a new INDMAR 5.7 L Vortec V8 engine with 315 hp fitted to my 280 drive. Now the question was what propeller to use, the one I had was too small. Since my main goal was be as fuel efficient as possible, I wanted to see how much the engine consumed per nautical mile in real-time and not have to use the hourly consumption from my flow meter since that would result in a very inaccurate value.

I found an ad in a magazine presenting a new smart flow meter, BLUEFLOW, which was using Bluetooth technology and would work with my Ericsson K800i mobile. After trying the demo version of BLUEFLOW there was no doubt. I immediately removed and sold my old flow meter.

The installation of the BLUEFLOW system went very smooth and the people at BLUEFLOW were very helpful. Together with my two buddies, who helped replacing the engine, I now engaged in a fun test and evaluation phase in determine the best propeller to use. We created a spreadsheet containing columns over different propellers with different pitch and empty rows for RPM, Speed, consumption and so on. I drove the boat, reporting speed and RPM. One of my buddies reported the real-time fuel consumption on my cell phone using BLUEFLOW and my other buddy added the values into the spreadsheet.

The results spoke for themselves. I could clearly see how different pitch affected my fuel consumption at varying RPM and with or without trim tabs. As I mentioned earlier my fuel consumption is very important especially with this powerful engine that promotes high speeds. With BLUEFLOW I can now adapt my RPM to any given moment, headwinds, waves and son on and be sure to do it fuel efficient.

Now I feel safe and I can enjoy my powerful "RUBAN ROUGE" my 1997 Ockelbo DC21 with a roaring V8 from 2008. The investment will have paid for it self within a few seasons since I'm using the latest technology to help me drive economically and therefore also environmentally friendly!
 

Thank you BlueFlow"

Sten Siegbahn, Bromma. Kristineberg Boat Club.