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On this page we will exchange information about where to
collect fuel, how much you will be expected to pay, accessibility to the
supply and all that kind of thing. The more information you supply, the
more others will be encouraged to supply theirs and we will, eventually,
be able to provide you with the information you need for the area you are
travelling to, which can be very helpful in making voyage plans.
On more
than one occasion we have filled up with fuel in one place, at vast
expense and inconvenience, only to discover that, had we left it
until our next port of call, we might have saved a small fortune. When
cruising on a budget, as the vast majority of us must, this can make the
difference between scraping round and having a great trip, so we feel it's
worthwhile collecting and sharing the knowledge.
Meanwhile...The Skipper has a tale to tell...
"Perhaps your experiences are
different to mine but, until some time eight to ten years back, I had never had reason to
really think about fuel. That is to say, I put diesel fuel into the main tank and put
petrol, or "gas" to our American friends, in a plastic drum and voilá! all set until next time.
Fuel filters that I changed seemed always to look as new as when I had first put them
on.
The big Racal water separators rarely needed bleeding, just the ounce or two that may have built up over the year
(we motor as little as possible)
would be drained out and all was well.
Over this last decade, however, we have had steadily increasing problems with both diesel and
petrol, in the form of water and debris in these fuels. Nowadays, when I change the fuel filters on the main
engines, they are invariably rust ridden around the perforated top and I find myself
having to check the Racals every time I run the engine. This applies, of
course, to our generator as well.
Naturally, when problems first arose, I checked our tank and duly sludged
(cleared the sediment from the bottom) and literally scrubbed it out. Still the problem
remained.
A header tank seemed to me the way to go and I installed
one. As I believe I have already mentioned, we motor very little, although
the boat was designed to permit non-stop motoring, judging by the capacity
of the original fuel tank and I found something better to do with the in-keel 2000 litre tank.
E.g turned it into a bilge! So, now we had a 20 gallon header tank the problem must,
surely, be solved. Not a bit of it!
The header tank is very easy to monitor, being
translucent, and after filling it in
Simpson bay, St.Maarten, in the Dutch Antilles, it was apparent that the fuel had both water
and soft sludge in it.
Maybe the fuel dock's tank was needing a steam clean, I thought. Upon my
enquiring, the fuel attendant pointed to a filter on the side of the tank and said
that all fuels were filtered before delivery into the tank. Well, I'm not
Einstein but from that I could only deduce that the clean fuel must be
being filtered before entering a dirty tank!
In Chaguaramas, Trinidad, in the West Indies, I filled up the outboard
motor tank with petrol and had got less than one hundred yards away when the motor spluttered to a
halt.
The fuel bowl in the pipeline was full of water, so clearly this problem is not confined to diesel.
Maybe in Europe we will find that these things do not happen. I certainly hope
so, one more pump-bleeding session in a crowded marina, drifting inexorably towards a seven million dollar yacht could tempt me to
change to electric motors!"
Have you any information or tales to tell? We'd like
to try and put together a simple form that readers can fill in it supply
provisioning information. Have you any suggestions for questions we might
usefully ask? We'd love to hear from you.
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