Diesel tanks

[JonJon]

Right-just a gripe am turning into Victor Meldrew - This is an important bit of the kit. Needs cleaned - admittedly not during the guarantee period but peoples lives are at stake. This is not a toy - I cant imagine any other industry with such a flagrant disregard for safety than the yacht builders of the last 20 years.

What possible justification do manufacturers have for making it so difficult to achieve - we know the problems they are not new.
Somebody enlighten me????? And answer for an industry?

Its alright I feel better now I might just ring up AW Marine and ask how they are getting on with my sensor unit or see if the quote for heavy trucking my Ampair brushes has come down a tad.

 

[andy_wilson]

Thank you for putting your point so clearly. What I think you said was it is difficult or impossible to clean your diesel tank, and someone might die as a result.

Alternative strategy(s).
1. Buy diesel from a reputable source. Avoid transfer via diry jerry cans and funnels.
2. Draw off a sample from the bottom of the tank at least once per year. Vacuum extractors are 10-a-penny and it would be easy to hoover round all the corners with a probe if contamination was found.
3. Avoid putting yourself in a situation where dirty diesel, or the minimum 1000 other things that could go wrong on a yacht at sea, would lead to someone being mashed, crushed or drowned. You have 'almost' total redundancy of the engine if you add the combined uses of good judgement, sails and anchor.

 

[JonJon]

Many thanks Andy, the alternative strategies are fine - some depending on where you are in the world. Hoovering in all the corners through the 1" hole (created by removing the level gauge) provided by my manufacturer may be doable but how many baffles in the way. How do you know its clean? Whats wrong with a nice big inspection plate on top of the tank? In my case they have been provided on the water tanks!

My short term fix until I can get near a repair facility is to provide a small removeable day tank on top of the existing tank that I can assure is clean.

 

[touchwoodtoo]

My strategy was to cut a big hole in the side of the tank and fit an inspection cover. Not as easy as it sounds. it needs to be flanged and then you have to think carefully about sealing the cover plate. I did mine with an insertion rubber gasket and Dowty seals under the heads of the retaining bolts. This arrangement works well. I fitted a sedimentor immediately downstream of the outlet from the tank. My thinking here is that any debris or bacterial growth will be quickly observed. I am sceptical of day tanks. I cant see how this will deal with a bacteria problem. The bacteria has to be killed. I feel that if you can clean the tank and then regularly adminiser a bacteriacide, provided that you service your filters regularly, all will be well. The inspection hatch can be removed periodically to check the tank internally. No matter where you get your diesel from there is no guarantee that it will be clean. I am told that the biggest suppliers have problems with bacteria. I can see no engineeringly competent reason to increase the complexity, number of components and weight in your fuel supply arrangements by fitting a day tank.