Another red diesel safety issue

[Nick_H]

If (when?) diesel is a quid a litre, many boaters who regularly cross the channel will of course fill up in Channel Islands whenever possible. If the average cruiser gets say 300 miles on a full tank with a reserve, and Solent to Guernsey is 80 miles, you can fill up in Guernsey before you leave, cruise back to UK, do a handful of local cruises around the Solent, then plan another CI cruise in order to fill up again without ever purchasing fuel at silly prices in the UK.

That's fine, except it means people will be tempted to leave UK for CI's with only the bare minimum of fuel to get there if everything goes OK. Now most boaters are quite sensible, so I'm not suggesting dozens of boats will be running out of fuel in the middle of the channel, but it can't be as safe as leaving Blighty with a full tank of diesel to allow for any unforeseen circumstances.

 

[waterboy]

Hi Nick
You have a valid point. However your possible problem could be overcome by carrying a couple of 20 litre cans of the new duty paid diesel for emergency use only. So if you do misjudge the amount you need, there should be enough of the expensive stuff to get you out of trouble. If you had to divert to a French port 'cos of weather or whatever, you are not likely to upset the authorities either. As things stand, they don't mind red diesel in the main fuel tanks but they do apparently object to red in auxilary cans.

 

[gcwhite]

You have to leave your fuel tanks full which slightly impacts on the theory.

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