By GINNY SKALSKI
gskalski@islandpacket.com
When Phil Smith began skippering for a North Carolina family about 10 years ago, it cost 89 cents a gallon to pump diesel fuel into their 43-foot Tiara fishing boat.

“When I handed (the owner) the bill, he said, ‘If I ever have to start asking what the fuel bill is, you better start looking for another job,’” Smith recalled.

Although fuel prices have since soared, especially in marinas, where fuel can cost a dollar more per gallon than at gas stations, Smith still is the family’s captain.

Only now he skippers the family’s 60-foot yacht, which sports a 1,700-gallon fuel tank and burns 100 gallons an hour.

“They haven’t cut down on any of the trips at all,” Smith said last week, while taking a break from hosing down the shiny white yacht named M’Lady Jayne.

Fuel hikes are having varying effects on boaters, Hilton Head area harbormasters say.

Transient boaters often steering luxury yachts seem to be docking at local marinas at about the same rate as last summer. Some local boaters, however, are looking for ways to conserve fuel.

“Not too many people complain about it,” said Josh Keating, who oversees the Skull Creek Marina. “Most people just swallow their pride and pay for it.”

Still, Keating said, local boaters are taking a little more time to plan their trips to sea, and some are splitting fuel bills with friends who climb aboard their boats.

“You think twice now about where you’re going to go when you’re paying $4 per gallon for gas,” Keating said.

Daufuskie Island residents Wendy and Turbo Campbell have been trying to limit their shopping trips and other appointments to Hilton Head Island, which they take on their 25-foot fishing boat, Daufuskie Gal.

“When we go, we stock up,” Wendy Campbell said last week as she swept pine needles from the boat’s deck while docked at Palmetto Bay Marina.

Lately, the Campbells have been paying about $380 to fill their boat every 10 days or so. To conserve fuel, Wendy Campbell has slowed the boat down, adding about five minutes to the normal 30-minute cruise between the islands.

But fuel isn’t a consideration for all pleasure cruisers. It costs Texas resident John Lamar just $300 to buy diesel to steer his 57-foot Bristol Ketch sailboat from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to the Harbour Town Yacht Basin.

He needs fuel for his double-masted sailboat only when heading in and out of the marina or when he wants to run the generator to crank the air conditioning or cool down the refrigerator.

“We bought the boat when fuel prices were a lot more reasonable,” Lamar said.

So far this summer, Keating has noticed fewer out-of-town boaters passing through the Skull Creek Marina, but he attributes it to rising boat insurance costs.

Traffic has remained steady at Harbour Town, said harbormaster Nancy Cappelman.

Some businesses have added a fuel surcharge for chartered trips, Cappelman said. Others increased prices for activities like fishing and parasailing, said Chris Wimmer, harbormaster at Palmetto Bay Marina.

Ginny Skalski is a reporter for the Island Packet, a McClatchy newspaper
