Unexpected shutdown

[ndutton]

All my water-in-fuel issues vanished when I got a new O-ring for the tank cap

Yep, exactly what happened here. I also do not use fuel dock gas. I was somewhat P.O.'ed at myself for not having spare O rings on hand. To remedy that I have:

1. Measured and purchased replacements from McMaster-Carr, minimum bag amount is 100. That ought to last a while. They're stored in a sealed zip-loc baggie.
2. Purchased and will install next week a replacement fuel fill plate for the offending main tank, an exact match to the plate I installed for my spare tank many years ago so I only have to stock one O ring size. The only difference between the two fill plates is the screw-in plugs are different colors, one black and the other red.

[nyvoyager]

Neil how much total fuel do you carry and where?
A 2nd tank is an interesting idea.
Are you concerned about the additional weight?

[ndutton]

Neil how much total fuel do you carry and where?
A 2nd tank is an interesting idea.
Are you concerned about the additional weight?

Both tanks combined I have a 37 gallon capacity, one 12 gallon and one 25 gallon tank. My usual practice however is to carry 10 to 12 gallons in the main 12 gallon tank under the quarter berth and leave the bigger, secondary tank located in the bottom half of the cavernous port sail bin empty. For this trip I topped off the 12 gallon tank and put 5 gallons in the secondary tank as a reserve. Good thing I did too, that secondary tank came in pretty handy. If I were headed, say, to Ensenada, I'd fill both tanks so I had ample reserves no matter what. I guess the answer is, "It depends on where I'm going."

As for weight, I don't really care. I'm not a racer so an extra 1/10th of a knot is not significant to me. Besides, for Catalina trips I'm towing a 14' inflatable that costs me a full knot anyway. Hey, it's sailing. I'll get there when I get there. Good thing my slip is in the closest marina to Two Harbors at Catalina. We may not be the first to get there but we'll sure have a lot of fun on the way.

Another comment on weight, just this month I made the final touch to my all chain anchor rode: painting the waterline a little higher.

[nyvoyager]

This may just be the thing to do with the enormous space aft of the quarter berth partition. I plan on adding an additional battery to starboard so it should roughly balance out. I'm also 25 gallons - another 50% would make a big difference!

[ndutton]

Time for an update

Well, I could have simply replaced the deck plate O ring, extracted the fuel from the tank and called it good but I think we all know I can turn something simple into a three month project. And I did.

As previously mentioned, I replaced the 42 year old factory original fuel fill deck plate with an exact match to the plate I installed with my secondary tank for uniformity of O rings and appearance. Sounds simple enough but I had built in a problem accomplishing this when I installed the secondary tank 15 years ago. The tank prevented me from crawling into the space to access the fuel fill hose clamps, under deck mounting nuts and ground wire. There is a cockpit seat hatch right there but no one has arms long enough for the necessary reach. The left picture shows the old fill plate in the center of three, the right picture shows its replacement.

Out came the Sawzall and an access hole was cut in the coaming/cockpit seat back. It worked great, access was excellent. When finished I filled the hole with a coaming compartment and a matching one on the opposite side. Prior to their installation I disassembled the compartments and painted them with the same paint I used on the deck to ward off the typical UV yellowing plastics go through.


Today I did the final fuel polishing through a new filter. I replaced it when done and brought it home to inspect the contents. All good.

[Marian Claire]

And you tastefully included the beer pic. Cheers.
Dan
S/V Marian Claire

[ndutton]

And you tastefully included the beer pic. Cheers.
Dan
S/V Marian Claire

Yep, a guaranty of authenticity.

I should have mentioned yet again, I LOVE my electric fuel pump and bypass operation switch. It makes easy work out of transferring fuel from one tank to the other, polishing fuel through the filter, pumping a tank into jerry cans and purging the air out of a new filter cartridge. Turn a valve, flip a switch, it's that easy.

[Administrator]

Pics of the preferred beer in the image....

It's not a bug. It's a feature!

Bill

[roadnsky]

In my business, we that an "Authenticator"
Su-weeet job Neil!

[Aj@yknot]

Quick question Ndutton:

Can I assume that the cube on the port side of your wheel is the EWDS? Is that pod something you finagled or is it something you bought?

[ndutton]

You are referring to the Edson instrument pods. The stbd side pod holds the auto pilot control/display, the port side has the depth display.

There is a little back story to the pedestal steering on my boat. It came off of a sunken Catalina 30 in Alabama, a victim of Hurricane Charley (Cat4, landfall 15 years ago today). I was fortunate to connect with an enterprising guy who bought a bunch of boats from the insurance companies and parted them out. He didn't spend the time to un-bolt anything, it arrived still mounted to a section of deck he cut out. It was shipped across the country duct taped exactly as you see it to a plywood board and tossed on a Greyhound bus. Pretty cool.

The self tailing sheet winches seen in the previous picture came off the same boat.