Does water really boil faster in a saucepan?

[fruitful]

See tip of the day - water boils faster in a saucepan than in a kettle. Does it really? Why? And why do we have kettles, in that case?

Waiting ages for the water to boil is one of things that really annoys me about camping. I've been looking into copper kettles with coil bottoms and all sorts of fancy stuff and now apparently I just need my saucepan?

What I really need is some way of persuading the flames to target the bottom of the kettle and not blow all over the place, but still.

Ah drat, should have read down first. I shall go and join the other thread!

Can't see the other thread.

I don't like using a cooking pan as the water always tasts of noodles or something. I use a whistling kettle, it takes a while but thats because I always fill it right up so I can use the water for other things.