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A few years back I saw an article in Boating World (May 1995 - Hands-On column by Chris Caswell) concerning cutting fuel costs. The article had some good points and thought I'd pass along a few of the ideas given.
Be sure you are correctly propped. This will save fuel as well as save the engine from coming apart. Also make sure your prop is in good shape. Bent or broken blades need to be fixed. Leading edges need to be dressed.
Have the boat properly trimmed. Keeping the hull from plowing the water obviously reduces engine load. If you can't hold a proper plane with the motor you may need to add transom wedges (check with a boat dealer on this), add trim tabs to the hull or add a "fin" device to the gearcase.
Dump extra weight. If you don't need it in the boat don't leave it there. I've seen boats with three or four anchors, two years worth of kids toys (the boat doubles as a storage locker) and a dozen water logged life jackets (boat rated for five people). It takes extra power and gas to move this stuff down the lake. Also remember that water is heavy. Keep the bilge drained.
Balance the load. Putting all the gear into one area of the boat along with a full tank of gas and one or two people will put a strain on the boat's performance. On a smaller boat distribute the load evenly fore and aft. In a larger boat the heavier items need to be placed amidships.
If you don't need to idle, don't. It doesn't take too much gas to keep idling but you do tend to foul plugs and cause other minor problems which will eat extra gas.
Get a kicker motor. If you do a lot of slow speed boating (trolling, etc.) consider getting a small motor for this, gas or electric. Not only will it cost less to run a small motor it makes for a great paddle if you get into trouble with your main motor.
Keep the bottom clean. This is basic and obvious but I still see a lot of fouled hulls come into the shop. The problem will eat extra gas and power. Remove barnacles, slime, everything.
Make sure the engine is running at proper temperature. An engine that is too cold does not run efficiently and wastes gas. Don't throw away you thermostat, find the real problem and get it fixed. An over heating engine will waste gas as well. If there is a cooling system problem have it corrected.
Keep the motor serviced. On outboards make sure you have a good set of plugs installed. With IOs consider having the ignition system serviced every year or two depending on how much use it gets and have the oil and filter changed on a regular basis. Service the gear case and have things checked over and adjusted.
Learn your fuel consumption. This one is a bit ambitious and requires some work but it is probably a good idea for larger boats that make long runs. Creating a graph that shows gas use at different RPMs can give you an idea of how to save. If the graph shows that cutting the throttle 10% drops your gas consumption 30% and you only loose 15 minutes on an hour run it probably would be a good idea to cut back. If you don't have a fuel flow gauge you'll have to get creative on figuring gallons per hour but it could be done.
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