We just finished the first ever Tinny Rally and it was a great success.
Participants said the highlights were the remote Murray Sunset National Park, the Woolshed Brewery and the Historic Overland Corner Hotel.
Mish from Brisbane has done a great video showcasing the 7 days, watch it below.
We had teams come from as far away from Queensland (a husband and wife team in their 60s), a Sydney team of mates in their early 30s, a team fron Brisbane that got their boat license especially for the rally and had no boating experience and a heap of other fun characters.
Boat speed and fuel consumption was one area of learning for Participants though.
Most people had tested their speed and fuel consumption loaded up before the rally, however about 1/3 of the boats when the turned up on day one found themselves travelling slower than expected and using more fuel than expected.
They had underestimated the effect on their tinny of all the fuel required (to travel 190km between fuel stations), a full esky or two and all their beer and food. And struggled to get on the plane. They had tested it a little lighter than their eventual weight and the extra bit of weight made a big difference.
This meant they offloaded some weight, had longer days than planned and a few even ran out of fuel.
So for this rally, suggest you test with a bit more weight that you think you will end up with just to be on the safe side.
Suggested minimum speed is about 37kph. Slower than this your days on the water are a bit longer.
The consensus was a 25hp for one person (on a 3.7m-4m boat) and 40hp for two people on a 4.2m tinny was about the perfect boat.
But it really depends on the weight of the person in the boat, how much they bring, type of boat and motor etc. The only way to know for sure is to test.
We had a couple in a 40hp, 4.55m forward steer boat that were struggling to get on the plane. But the boat was rated to 70hp and they were carrying some heavy gear such as a camp oven.
My 3.7m with a 25hp did 37kph and used about 20L per 45km, and my 4.2m with a 50hp used about the same amount of fuel and it’s top speed was 45kph. (both two strokes). Some people with modern 4 strokes reported fuel consumption as low as 150km for 25L (one person).
There is no max size as such, just keep in mind there can be shallow sections (we have good water levels at the moment though) and smaller boats are a bit easier to handle.