Kevin,
Re motoring vs sailing or motorsailing. The answer on that one depends hugely on the captain of the boat and the weather windows you pick. My husband Dave would truthfully rather pick a weather window that had very light wind, and motor or motorsail. If the speed dropped below about 3.5 knots, vrooooom, here we go with the engine. We have friends who would sit for a day ghosting along at 1 knot waiting for more wind. So, the patience, and the sailing skills, of the captain make a huge difference. Dave put in an additional fuel tank (custom made, behind the back of the settee) to add range, plus we carried fuel jugs on deck. He was always making sure we had fuel to motor 1,000 miles if we had to.
Another factor is where you are sailing. If you are sailing in the tradewinds, with pretty consistent winds, it's a lot easier to sail than in the equatorial belt we've been in for the last 6 years.
Our average speed, over a long period time doing our Pacific (mostly) downwind passages was 5.7 knots. Dave is really conservative, and with a tall rig and a roachy main (set up for light air Keys/Bahamas conditions), if the wind was 15 knots or more, we'd start out with a reef in the main. If we had any heel at all Dave would start talking about reefing. And at night, we'd always drop in another reef. We're retired, not in a hurry, and want our comfort more than speed.
Both us and Tackless II blogged our Pacific crossings, so if you haven't found those websites, here they are:
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.comhttp://thetwocaptains.com
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