The wonderful past

[Obi]

Hi there Wansworth, do not worry so much about the diesel bug. I had it in a 400 lt tank through to a Sabre marinised Perkins. I lost engine several times on my first passage from Chichester to Portsmouth on route to a new berth at Gosport. I arrived to meet a nice S.African chap who had been listening on his VHF to my approach and discussion with the harbour authorities. Straigh away he said "Ah boy, you got that there diesel bug in yer tanks". I thought he was pulling my leg, but he offered to sort it out for me, or to lend me the gear needed to do it.
So, I borrowed the gear, which consisted of a pump, a filter, a pressure nozzle and lots of jerry cans. The idea was to extract fuel, through the filter into the cans, then reverse the process using the pressured nozzle as a jet wash into the tanks. Then repeat a few times.

More important for you: I cleaned out the filters and added some of the readily available treatment. I covered many thousands of miles solo in that yacht and the fear of engine failure never left me, especially when Biscay was getting stormy. However, the engine never did let me down again.

Moral of the story: In hindsight I wish I had worried less about the diesel bug. Buy the boat

 

[newtothis]

Not just molluscs; fish and higher animals changing sex or worse! If the stuff had got into the human food chain, it could have had pretty nasty consequences. Basically, TBT was discontinued because of the likely effect on fisheries.

When people talk about the "Good Old Days", I give the following example. When my mother and father were little, measles was endemic and there was no effective treatment, so a proportion of children died of it and a rather larger proportion were damaged in life-changing ways. When I was little (1950s), measles was endemic but antibiotics meant it could be treated effectively. Nearly everyone got it, and though most survived (I did!) a proportion were damaged - brain, eyes or elsewhere. When my children were little, there was an effective measles vaccine, and so few people get measles that an outbreak of a few hundred mild cases is regarded as an epidemic! In two generations measles has gone from being a top childhood killer to being a minor nuisance.

Science vs nostalgia. So very Britain, 2022.