January 6, 2006 - Fueling Tales (Sometimes the Dragon Wins)
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

"The diesel fuel you took on in Saipan is contaminated with gasoline. Don't use your engine. Go into Guam and report to Mobil Oil." This message was relayed to us on a ham radio net that we frequented. We'd just left Tinian, sailing south down the Marianas island chain. Fortunately we'd scarcely had to use the Isuzu since leaving Saipan, just briefly to go into Tinian to check out the place from which the atomic bombs destined for Japan left on their deadly mission. Nevertheless, for the hour or less that we had powered, it had been on the very tank that we'd just topped up. Seems some pre-Christmas shenanigans had resulted in a mistaken storage tank fill ashore. Gasoline was pumped into the diesel instead of into the gasoline storage tank. We were just one of many recipients. Apparently many motors had been burned out - sport fishing launches, trucks and machinery mostly.

And so began several frustrating days of emptying the contaminated tank with our own pump into waiting barrels, and then, at the oil company's insistence and against our better judgment, emptying all our other fuel tanks (we have five of them including one in each keel). Next came the refueling, also from drums, and using our own pump. Our next mistake was not noticing that some of the fuel they'd brought was yellow with goodness knows what sludge. (We'd only tested the first drum.) All had to be emptied out, tanks flushed and refueling begun again. It was a hot and smelly two or three days. We were told to put in a claim, with hints that we should make it a massive one. My far too reasonable skipper husband asked for only a couple of thousand dollars. We received just half of that. (Apparently every one of us had our claims halved.) We watched the 75hp Isuzu engine for many weeks for signs of damage, but nothing ever showed up. If anything, it did it good, I told myself, as I ceased to dwell on the missed opportunity to swell the cruising kitty.

In Palmyra Island's lagoon a few years later, we found a derelict fish boat sitting on a coral bank. The boat had been stripped and emptied of anything worth taking over the months that it had been there. Still, the cagey dragon man thought he'd try pumping water into its fuel settling tank to see if he could float up any last remnants of fuel. We tied up alongside. Sure enough, the ploy worked. Using our water hoses and pumping through the fishing boat's own big filters, we transferred over a hundred gallons into our own running tank. It was a satisfying few hours' work. We were en route to North America from NZ, and a little extra diesel fuel would not come amiss.

Telling this story, we have received exclamations of disbelief from listeners who question our sanity. How have we avoided growth in our fuel tanks in all these many years, or water for that matter? It could be plain dumb luck. We have never used additives to stave off fungal growth or bacteria. Perhaps it is because we take fuel from the very bottom of our tanks, not a few inches up, so water from condensation cannot gather there, nor can sediment. We always try to keep some fuel in them to slosh about. The steel tanks are removable for outside painting, something we've done once over the many years of MAGIC DRAGON's long life. The breather vents are not above deck, but inside the hold just beneath deck level, which means they cannot take in seawater in rough seas.

One change we should have made from the start is to have larger fuel vents. We've had difficulty taking fuel at some commercial docks designed to fuel large vessels. One of our best bargains was fueling up in Manzanillo at the big ship dock at 9 cents US a gallon. Granted, that was a long time ago, but still the usual price was many times that, even then. It was worth the time-consuming procedure. To accommodate the 2-inch nozzle we used a 20-gallon pail as a transfer tank, filling the pail repeatedly, then siphoning it into our fill pipe. But although our vents are small, they lead in such a way as to prevent draining the tanks even in a 90-degree knockdown. Just recently friends of ours were caught for several hours in a 50-knot blow, losing most of their precious diesel fuel when it drained into the sea out of the fuel vent in the hull. It was a frustrating time for them, waiting out a prolonged period of utter calm following the storm.

I suppose that all too many of us have suffered accidental fuel dramas. At least we've never yet absentmindedly put water into the diesel tanks, as one friend did not long ago on his new-to-him vessel - nor have we pumped diesel into water tanks, about the most disastrous error that you can make if you love your cup of coffee or tea and have no water maker. We were told by someone of unknowingly drilling a hole through the hidden fuel fill pipe while drilling through foam insulation to install wiring for a new piece of equipment. When fueling up later, the tank did not seem to fill up. Charts, provisions, bunks were soaked. They hid in an anchorage to try to clean up the mess, but the smell stayed with them for the next passage.

As for us, when we set off on our very first offshore passage, we decided to top up the gravity tank for the diesel heater. We turned on the transfer pump and then forgot that we had done so. Over two gallons of diesel overflowed into the bilge. We pumped and sponged it out into buckets and filtered it before pouring it back into our tanks. But the damage had been done. Books, magazines, and life jackets drenched with diesel take a bit of drying out and getting used to. With the help of sunshine and the passage of time, the smell lessened and then disappeared completely.

Years later, the smell of raw diesel once again alerted us to something terribly wrong. It turned out to be a leak in a fuel line. Too late we learned the wisdom of replacing age-hardened hoses before trouble hits.

Our secret weapon for avoiding diesel smells when bleeding air out of the fuel system is our pulse pump. We turn on the pulse pump, then alternately open each of the filters in line, keeping an eye on the clear connecting hoses until bubbles no longer travel through. No drips. No smell. No muss. No fuss.

Just recently, an overflow plagued us briefly. As we were taking on diesel alongside a large sports fishing boat, we noticed their overflow vent in the hull was shooting a stream of diesel out onto the fuel dock and into the water. We yelled a warning as they idly quaffed their beers, whereupon they cast off their lines and departed the spill scene, leaving us to squirt the detergent. It was then that we discovered that a mild solution of dishwashing detergent and water works far better than straight detergent.

In New Zealand, not too many years back, at least half a dozen yachts were inadvertently supplied with contaminated duty-free fuel just before they left port for overseas destinations. Seems some new additive in the fuel destroyed seals, so that in some engines diesel got into the oil, and the oil pressure rose sky high - the diluted oil can be extremely destructive for motors. We never did find out how that was resolved, but we do know it caused grief and hardship to all those boats sooner or later. At least the local boats had damage paid for by the oil company.

We hear Americans complaining about the price of fuel in the US, yet the rest of the world has been paying many times the US price ever since we can remember. If it's sold in liters, the shock goes by semi-unnoticed. It only seems a quarter as bad. One of the advantages of a large fuel carrying capacity is that we usually manage to take on fuel where there is a big turnover, resulting in less likelihood of contamination from old fuel. Another is that occasionally we've been able to take on enough duty-free to last us for years. (We carry 2,000 miles' worth so don't have to fuel up often) Usually, when we do decide to take on fuel in any quantity, the price of diesel plummets soon after we've finished fueling - just as when we decide to take on shore water after a period of drought, the heavens open within a day or three.

We're beginning to feel All Powerful.