For all of you boat newbs out there, bigger party boats are NOT measured in "miles per gallon." I'm a paid charter/excursion captain for some of the 30 to 40 foot sailboats that tour the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior out of Bayfield Wisconsin. Trust me, we get the sails up on those bitches AS SOON AS we leave the harbor.

Your average 35 foot twin engine cabin cruiser gets MAYBE .6 (that's POINT SIX, as in 6/10) knautical miles per gallon of fuel. Usually, those boats have 300 gallon tanks. Your effective cruising range is less than 200 miles. My neighbor told me he'd be "doing a lot of drifting and anchoring this year."

When you consider that those boats cost somewhere in the $250,000 range (used), and another $1,000 to $2,000 per month to store it in a managed harbor or marina, then $1500 for gas to spend a day on the lake isn't too bad.

Unless you're Willmac... then all boat owners should sell their boats and pool the money into a fund that should feed more welfare babies and to give sterile needles to addicts, and to build more government to supervise such foolishness as "boating."