Not only WAFI's are inconsiderate

NoviceRod

NoviceRod

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Got to Brixham to refuel this morning to find one boat ahead of me and a big Sunseeker filling up. He took almost an hour to load ~1900L while I and the other guy got lots of practice holding station, and dodging various craft leaving the marina and harbour.

He doesn't rush to pay or get going, then leaves with no acknowledgement or apology. Seems like WAFI behaviour.:mad:

Still if you can afford to fill that one up, you must be arrogant.

Rant over!
 
NoviceRod said:
Got to Brixham to refuel this morning to find one boat ahead of me and a big Sunseeker filling up. He took almost an hour to load ~1900L while I and the other guy got lots of practice holding station, and dodging various craft leaving the marina and harbour.

He doesn't rush to pay or get going, then leaves with no acknowledgement or apology. Seems like WAFI behaviour.:mad:

Still if you can afford to fill that one up, you must be arrogant.

Rant over!
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It's tricky. 1900 litres is nowt. I have very reluctnatly taken 5000 litres/2 hours with a queue of 30 boats building up behind me. Sure i then rush to pay and clear the dock but other than a wave (which isn't always taken in good humour i can tell you) there isn't much you can do as an apology etc. (I think - I am open to suggestions though!)

This is why I went to a lot of trouble to get a long range on my boat. I can refuel on my home berth using a road tanker so no-one is inconvenienced, but when cruising it has to be a fuel berth. I do nearly all the crusing I want without refueling during the cruise. Sunseekers alas generally have pretty small range, often only 200nm or so, so they have to fill up mid cruise

You can also blame the fuel berths because the fuel pumps are often painfully slow. Where fuel suppliers have made the investment, eg the new fuel berth in Palma, you get huge pumps that can do several thousand litres per hour

BTW, your 4th and 5th sentences are both pretty rude
 
jfm I suspect OP was expecting Mr. Sunseeker to pay for his fuel top-up after inconveniencing him... maybe it was costing OP by the second to be on-board his boat? :D
 
I know what you mean, this chap spent a couple of hours totally hogging the diesel pump on the Itchen !

IMG_3275_zps183cf597.jpg
 
jfm said:
It's tricky. 1900 litres is nowt. I have very reluctnatly taken 5000 litres/2 hours with a queue of 30 boats building up behind me. Sure i then rush to pay and clear the dock but other than a wave (which isn't always taken in good humour i can tell you) there isn't much you can do as an apology etc. (I think - I am open to suggestions though!)

This is why I went to a lot of trouble to get a long range on my boat. I can refuel on my home berth using a road tanker so no-one is inconvenienced, but when cruising it has to be a fuel berth. I do nearly all the crusing I want without refueling during the cruise. Sunseekers alas generally have pretty small range, often only 200nm or so, so they have to fill up mid cruise

You can also blame the fuel berths because the fuel pumps are often painfully slow. Where fuel suppliers have made the investment, eg the new fuel berth in Palma, you get huge pumps that can do several thousand litres per hour

BTW, your 4th and 5th sentences are both pretty rude
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In that Nordy I brought up to Antibes, we needed to take fuel on in sicily, all very silly because we were in Malta for a week and could have had a tanker but anyway.....

The promised fuel station was a roadside petrol station with a plastic floating pontoon down to a double plastic bit with 2 pumps on (1 petrol, 1 diesel). Very popular with the RIBs and Jetskis. I only took on 5000 of the 9000 I could have but that was a queue..........

And Rod's a nice guy he must have been very cross indeed!
 
Brixham's difficult because there isn't really anywhere to wait/queue - the fuel being on the end of one of the pontoons. Waiting a few hours must be quite irritating, but I think I'd have inquired as to likely time and then (knowing it was hours) tied up on the visitors pontoon and gone into town for a walk or dropped anchor around the corner for an hour or two! It's hardly the owner's fault he has bigger tanks and the pumps are slow!

They could really do with better fuel facilities at Brixham and inclusion of petrol, but apparently the harbour authorities aren't keen on the idea of MDL towing a barge with 11,000L of petrol from the fish quay across to the marina! If the Northern Arm of the breakwater ever goes ahead then things might change with marina expansion, but don't hold your breath... I think that idea has been mooted for a long time and local wheels move slowly - the Kingskerswell Bypass has only taken 60 years... :rolleyes:
 
NoviceRod said:
Got to Brixham to refuel this morning to find one boat ahead of me and a big Sunseeker filling up. He took almost an hour to load ~1900L while I and the other guy got lots of practice holding station, and dodging various craft leaving the marina and harbour.

He doesn't rush to pay or get going, then leaves with no acknowledgement or apology. Seems like WAFI behaviour.:mad:

Still if you can afford to fill that one up, you must be arrogant.

Rant over!
Click to expand...

No doubt he drives a BMW too
signed a wafi :p
 
I think occupying a fuel dock for an hour is a bit selfish so I have got to know which fuel stations have high capacity pumps in my cruising area and plan my cruising accordingly. In fact my favourite fuel dock (Lukoil in Sibenik in case anyone wants to know) has 6 high capacity pumps and the cheapest prices plus they sell booze so you can't ask for anything more. Generally though I avoid fuelling at other fuel docks on Fridays and Saturday mornings in order not to have to queue behind a bunch of charter yachts that haven't got a clue what they're doing
 
I guess I have had time to cool off now, and points above taken.

I did recognise the issue with slow pumps and a thirsty boat, but if it had been me, at least I would have looked more slick when finished, and called out 'Sorry to keep you waiting' when leaving.

From the subsequent conversation I had with the guy ahead of me in line, the acknowledgement would have made both of us feel better, and we considered that would have been common courtesy.
 
NoviceRod said:
I guess I have had time to cool off now, and points above taken.

I did recognise the issue with slow pumps and a thirsty boat, but if it had been me, at least I would have looked more slick when finished, and called out 'Sorry to keep you waiting' when leaving.

From the subsequent conversation I had with the guy ahead of me in line, the acknowledgement would have made both of us feel better, and we considered that would have been common courtesy.
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We had a bloke in Oostende 5 or 6 yrs ago with trouble with his computer controlled engines ( Stuart Turners i think). the engineers were running them all day with laptops in hand & we all got pissed off. eventually the owner said sorry but only after barracking from the whole pontoon.
 
How is that fuel being moved .......by the teaspoon . ? That fill rate seems incredibly slow.
Pilot boat which parks next to me can load 12,000L in about 30 mins flat and thats on reduced flow cos he has only got a "small" bunkering pipe.
Many cheap diesel transfer pumps can deliver 70 lpm. and could have pumped that thimbleful in about 30 mins.
 
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Why should he have to be sorry for keeping you waiting? I think you probably need to adjust your expectations - would you expect the driver in front of you at the garage who does their shopping whilst you're queueing to hurry out the way and apologise too? He was only using the fueling berth for fueling, just as you wanted to.
 
Unfortunately fuel berths are hardly the same as your standard motor vehicle forecourt with 10 fuel pumps! Most savvy motor boaters in the Med know that in the summer months, when it's busy, to plan their re-fuelling (early morning/late afternoon) to avoid the wait. Usually the large fuel capacity boats have guests onboard & rarely cast off before 10.00am, so plan it & get there before them. Ok a friendly wave is nice, but I don't see why it's necessary to apologise....
Pan
 
Maybe the answer at Brixham is to limit fuel intake to a certain number of litres if it's busy giving the larger boats the option to rejoin the queue once they've reached that limit to allow the smaller boats to get their fuel within a guaranteed period of time.
 
oGaryo said:
Maybe the answer at Brixham is to limit fuel intake to a certain number of litres if it's busy giving the larger boats the option to rejoin the queue once they've reached that limit to allow the smaller boats to get their fuel within a guaranteed period of time.
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Yup, though (a) the cut off will be a bit of a random number (b) the fuel seller makes more profit from the bigger boat so might not want to implement this plan and (c) the big boat going around to fill (say) three times burns up 3x worth of mooring/unmooring timewhich means the pumps are off for many more minutes of the day, which ultimately leads to longer queues

I think they need tickets like at the delicatesan counter. You leave your mobile number and you get a ticket saying which boat you are after in the queue, and how many litres that boat expects to take. Then you can moor while you're waiting, not hold station, and come to the fuel berth just before the guy in front has finished
 
On the bright side things must be looking up with people queing to buy diesel :cool:
Bit surprised there is any left in the west country with Henry flying around down there ;)
 
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