Ahoy all.
The primary devil in the case of the shrimp boat was the continuation of a widespread design error - namely terminating the fuel tank suction pipe some distance from the bottom of the tank (my Detroit Diesel [or Northern Lights - I forget which it is] installation manual calls for this distance to be 10% of the height of the tank). This design assumes that someone will drain the glop/water from the tank periodically. In the era of day tanks and professional engineers aboard this worked perfectly, but now tanks are low and there are no drains, not to mention engineers, so the glop/water accumulates until it reaches the pipe, then it waits for some bumpy weather to get stirred up and disable your engine. The secondary problem was no electric (or manual) priming pump to move fuel around. Water in the fuel is a big problem. I have been aboard big ships with professional engineers and an engine room full of machinery and they still lost the plant due to water in the fuel. (Granted, it was an unusual case - the owners were milking the ship for "cash flow" and spending the minimum possible on repairs and upgrades). I know of one tanker that crashed ashore in the UK years ago due to water in the fuel. Some spare pipes lashed down on the stern deck broke loose and broke the tank vent goosenecks which allowed seawater splashing over the deck to go into the fuel tanks. Contaminated fuel problems are pandemic in the boating world and should, in my opinion, be eliminated by law at the factory just like the other Coast Guard new construction requirements such as lights and flame arrestors. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Julington Creek FL 30 23.8N 081 25.7W >>> Well, no. But the issue here isn't just the dead battery - it's the lack of a reliable power system on a boat 200 miles out to sea. _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
