This past weekend I had the first overnight guest on the boat. Susan was off on a "girl's weekend" in South Carolina. There was a lot to do on the boat for the weekend and Jim Wilson was looking for an excuse to come see the boat anyway so he drove down to Kemah with me on Friday and stayed the weekend. If his review is to be believed, the aft cabin sleeps pretty well.
I said there was a lot to do but in reality it wasn't that there were a lot of things to do but rather at least one of them was a major undertaking, cleaning the fuel tank and polishing the fuel. Friday, before it got dark we were able to replace the two power plugs on the shore power cables. After completing that task, with a lot of help from Jim, I'm even more certain the problem we had was due to the guy that installed them. Right before the sea trial he replaced one that had gone bad. From our experience, there is no way one person could do that job correctly. It wasn't easy for Jim and me but we got it done before it got dark. This was a major win because it meant we had heat Friday night! It was both windy and chilly Friday and most of Saturday.
Saturday was reserved for addressing the issue we had the last time we went out, the fuel line to the engine being clogged.The previous weekend, Susan and I drove back from Atlanta with my truck looking like it was right out of "The Beverly Hillbillys". One of the many things in the back of my truck was a plastic 55 gallon barrel, empty for the most part. The barrel was an integral part of the plan for Saturday. Fortunately I also found that I had bought at some point a pump to suck oil out of an engine that is driven by an electric drill. All these things came in very handy. With the barrel on the dock, the pump hooked up to a long piece of tubing we bought we were able to suck almost all the fuel (about 40 gallons) out of the tank in 30 minutes or so. A combination of an old bath towel, paper towels (not as good an idea as you might think) and some hand towels fixed to the end of a sponge mop got the rest of the fuel sopped up.
Access to the inside of the fuel tank was through a 6" access port cut in the top of the tank. Eight bolts / nuts removed and we could get a long handled brush and my arm to pretty much every surface inside the tank. The scum / sludge / junk or whatever it is growing on the side of the tank was easy to brush off but not so easy to get out, most of it didn't stick to the brush. Luckily I have a pretty good wingspan. I was able to use the brush to get all the scum into a few small balls and position them directly under the access port. Standing on my head with my arm fully extended into the tank and my legs up in the air I was JUST able to touch the bottom of the tank. Fortunately the scum was solid enough I was able to pick it up with my finger tips. That and the small piece of paper towel that tore off inside (the reason I think paper towels aren't as good for this job as I thought they might be). When I first started the cleaning part I got a little too aggressive and ended up getting my head stuck down in the lazerette. I can't tell you how glad I was to have Jim there to pull me out. It would not have been pretty otherwise.
I wouldn't say the inside of the tank is spotless but I got it pretty dang clean, certainly the best I could do. While the access port was open I poured in the microbiocide to kill the little "things" that are the scum in the tank and then put the cover back on the access port. After, of course, dropping one of the nuts into the tank. Once more into the breach, or actually one more long stretch to pick the nut up with my fingertips.
Putting the fuel back in the tank was almost as easy as getting it out. The "polishing" part is running the fuel through a filter to remove any nasties that are in it, including water. Actually, water is heavier than diesel fuel so any that was sucked out of the tank and went into the barrel was at the bottom of the barrel. Pumping the fuel out of the barrel and back into the tank we went through a baja filter, a funnel with a 10 micron filter built into it. Rather than take a chance of putting any water back into the tank we left 5 gallons or so of fuel in the barrel and didn't pump from the bottom of the barrel. Anyone interested in 5 gallons of off road diesel with perhaps a bit of water in it?
The rest of the time was spent moving the rest of the Beverly Hillbilly's belongings to the boat from my truck. Now the boat looks like it belongs to the Beverly Hillbillys. Guess what will be a priority item for this coming weekend? Besides installing the new GPS receiver, we'll be trying to find a place to put all the stuff that is spread all over everywhere. Susan is great at organizing stuff like this, I have no doubt it'll be ship shape by the time we leave on Sunday.
That's it for now except for a huge thank you to Jim for all his help this past weekend and to Pam for letting me have him for the weekend. I might have been able to make some progress on the tasks by myself but I wouldn't not have come close to completing them. I couldn't have done it without you Jim. Thanks.
I'll sign off with what is on the back of the t-shirt I'm wearing at the moment. Money won't buy happiness but it'll get your ass on a boat and that's a start.
Brian
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