Can this forum decide ??

[Gordonmc]

Always remember the words of an old tank driver who used to berate British and American armoured vehicles because they used petrol. The Germans, meanwhile, fired up their panzers with deisel. The biggest danger on the allied side was a "brew up", not necessarily caused by enemy action.

That's an aside and I am sure with modern safety systems the risks can be reduced. The main attraction of deisel, however, is the 3p a litre levy on red (soon to be orange) deisel as opposed to 46p odd for petrol.

The only logic I can see of buying a petrol engined boat would be to convert to LPG... but that's a whole new set of issues.

 

[Guest]

Re: Sorry dont agree....

Take a small beans tin and pour into it a few cc's of diesel. Throw on to it a lighted match and see what happens. Now repeat the experiment, but with petrol and throw the match from a distance. Question answered? Diesel is an awful lot safer. Its fumes don't explode in your face, either!

 

[Guest]

Re: Can this forum decide ??: C/man938

Sorry, I can't answer your question. I just read it somewhere in a trade magazine, I think. Petrol/oil mix o/b's are banned in some Scandinavian countries I understand because of pollution from unburned lub oil falling into the water and at leats one of the Great Lakes demands only electric o/b's.

 

[ccscott49]

We can advise, YOU decide!

 

[Chris_Robb]

Take precautions

Yes your boss is right, however if you take precautions, and in particular use the engineroom ventilators for at least 5 minutes before firing up, you may have a long life.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Re: Take precautions

Having read davids posting - I think I would like to retract my advice of using sensible precautions!

 

[BarryH]

Re: Sorry dont agree....

I dont dispute that fact. But if we wat to split hairs once desiel is alight its alot harder to put out with your average extingusier carried on a boat. Have a go, you'll be suprised, i was.

I was looking at a web site from the marine accident people, cant find the wab addy at the mo, findings show that the split in boat fires is almost 50/50. Findings show most fire caused by leaky gas systems and/or dodgy wiring. It makes i nteresting reading and also makes you look at your own boat with a critical eye. We all think our boats are safe but an indepth prod and poke at wiring etc shows up some dodgy areas. They found that new factory built boats were the worst cases. So just cos a boat is shiny and new does'nt mean its ok.