Surveys, advice please

[stokes]

Bought my first boat, thought (dreamed) about this for years and now join the ranks of the poor. Taking the advice posted on this forum, went for a full out of water survey .The in water part of the survey was done on the brokerage pontoon,oil and water checked and the boat motored to the hoist for the liftout, returned to the pontoon on completion. Due to low hose loops and the lack of anti syphon devices ,sea water had syphoned back into the engine. Sorted that after four oil changes, and ready to bring the boat to her new home, about 35 miles. Good forecast for to- day after a week of fog so went down to topup with diesel, (for the first time),yesterday afternoon . It took ages, the diesel foaming up to the top of the filler.Cutting a long story short the filler marked fuel was the water and water was the fuel,38 ltrs of diesel in the fresh water tank, which has now contaminated the whole system.While waiting in the river for entry to the marina a large tree branch got it self wedged between the prop and rudder, one hell of a job to extract. The question is does it get better, or is this just the start,and what do you think about the survey.

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[simonfraser]

stay at home, watch paint dry, much safer, you might get bored though!
does it get better, well that depends on how much common sense you have, check twice act once etc.

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[jonjo]

Re: Come on..

Even experts do the diesel in the water tank stunt occasionally, didn’t it happen to Colin Jones of PBO?

Apparently it’s a hell of a problem to resolve and it could be simpler to junk as much of the fresh water system as possible. For the first year following the incident the PBO columnist used an advanced final stage freshwater filter and this was still filtering out diesel up to a year following the incident.



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[jonjo]

This is quite serious, see my other post.

Have you considered making this an insurance job? To me it is financially equivalent to watching a brand new dinghy and outboard self destruct due to a mistake by the operator. I might sound melodramatic but a professional resolution of the problem would consume many hours of labour.

I suggest that you get some professional help with a purge or two of the fuel, then rig up a temporary water supply and make the most of the remainder of the season.

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[silverseal]

Citric acid, from the chemist will emulsify the diesel oils and help with the flushing process. I suggest you buy 250 grams, and chuck it into the water tank and leave it for a few days. Citric acid is a BP product is used in food, pharmaceuticals and soft drinks. After having flushed out the tank if it still tastes of lemon, then you need to keep flushing!

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[greatspirit]

Agree with Jonjo. Diesel is poisonous even in small quantities.However i never consume water from the tanks only use it for washing up etc Potable water I carry aboard fresh.
Surely the surveyor is at fault for not pointing out the mislabelling
You have my sympathy
Tim

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[bedouin]

Oh dear - you have my sympathy. You seem to have had a rough start to boat ownership.

I don't think you can blame the surveyor for not spotting that the diesel and water fillers were mislabelled. Unless you were specifically looking for it it would requlre a very detailed inspection to pick it up. The syphoning of water into the engine is a different matter - I would have hoped that a decent surveyor would have picked that up, unless he explicitly excluded the engine from his survey (as mine did when I bought Bedouin).

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