Stupid human trick...

[Chris Foster]

So, my honey was coming up for a couple of days, and I was making certain that everything was running well (enough) on the boat for a day or two cruise.* Took the boat out for several short runs, & all was working well.

I use the forward fuel tank as a day tank, since it has a sight guage and I can get a pretty good feel for fuel burn.* It had been down about a third from full, but I noticed that it was full again.* Ooops - left the fuel valve open from one of the aft tanks - not a problem, just turn off the valve and we'll go cruise with a full forward tank.*

In my cleverness, however, I apparently turned off the forward tank, too.

Fired up "the girls" on the appointed morning for a cruise around Fidalgo Island (through Swinomish channel & Deception Pass).* Got out of the marina and into open water when the stbd engine started to surge.* It carried on like that for about a minute, and then went silent.

I went below to try to restart it (figuring on some air in*the system).* Got it to light off briefly, then stall again, and then the port engine started surging...

As expected, it went TU about a minute later.* So there we are drifting silently.* My bride was NOT amused.* I figured that at the very least I'd get some value out of the BoatUS towing policy.

Pulled up the engine hatches so that I could turn on the electric fuel pump that's installed to prime the fuel filters.* Glanced at the vacuum guages on the fuel filters ... about 25"!!!* Holy crap - both fuel filters are totally clogged on ten minutes of running???!?!?!

Wait a minute... check the forward tank fuel valve. It's OFF!!* I do NOT remember doing that, but apparently must have done so when I discovered the full forward tank.* I subsequently turned off the aft tank, too.

A few seconds of cranking at WOT, and the girls are both rumbling happily again.* Very thankful that I had put in the vacuum guages on the Racor 1000s, as I don't know how long it would have taken to have checked the valves - my first instinct would be "no way we could have run for that long with the valves closed, so no need to check."

And thankfully, that was the only "aw****" moment of the day!

D'oh!

 

[Keith]

Count me in for the same performance. One tip... open the tops of your Racors and make sure the gaskets are properly in place. Mine actually got sucked down into the housing and was allowing air into the fuel lines, even after I opened the tank valve up again.

 

[Chris Foster]

Good idea.

I'm was real impressed how much vacuum the Perkins mechanical fuel pumps were able to pull.

 

[Phil Fill]

Being able to draw and return from either of 3 tanks, I seem to get things mixed up. The fist time out this year fuel was drawn from the starboard tank and returned to the port tank.* After about 2 hours, 100 gallons, the boat started to list.*

*
I remember the first day we got the boat I sat in the engine room looking at all the stuff, wondering if I would ever figure it out.* 11 years and still screw it up.

 

[gns]

Like Keith....ditto for me. I "winterized" the boat the first year I had it, which included shutting off all the fuel valves (which are not located in the ER on my boat). The next spring I was eagerly prepping her for the first trip and started the engines and let them run up to operating temps just to get them going again. All of a sudden they coughed and quit...within a few minutes of each other.

Luckily I was still tied to the dock, but I am not going to go into how much time, effort, and money it took before I "remembered" I had shut the fuel valves off the previous fall.

Gary

 

[Marin]

We hang "Remove before flight" tags on valves that we close that should normally be open or on the shifters or throttles to remind us to return the valves to their normal position (the tags don't actually say "Remove before flight" but you get the idea). We also hang a zinc on a heavy cable from the aft end of the boat when we're in our slip, so my wife made a big red and white "Stop-Zinc" stop sign that we hang on the shifters when the zinc is down.

We run our engines off the 60 gallon day tank in the bilge and periodically refill this tank from the four gravity-feed saddle tanks. We cycle through the saddle tanks, using first the forward pair, then the aft pair and refill the forward pair and so on. We made large red and green plastic tags that hang on the valves at the bottom of the tanks to remind us which pair we're drawing from.

We leave the seacock for the generator raw water intake closed unless we're going to use the generator.* To prevent inadvertently starting the generator with the seacock closed I installed one of those red, spring-loaded toggle switch covers over the (toggle) starter switch on the AC panel and wrote "Seacock" on it.* If the cover is closed, so is the seacock.* When we open the seacock we flip the switch cover up and leave it up until we close the seacock again.

-- Edited by Marin at 11:38, 2008-08-01

 

[Chris Foster]

I've taken to leaving the engine keys hung on the seacock handle when I turn the cocks off.* Makes it pretty tough to ignore.

When I've turned off the generator seacock, it's usually because I've been away from the boat for a while.* I do the first start of the gen with the seacock still off, as sometimes it's a little reluctant to start.* I don't want to fill up the muffler with seawater while cranking, with the possibility of belching it back into the engine.* As soon as it starts, I open the seacock.* Since the pump is still full of water, I can't see any way for damage to occur during the 30 seconds or so that it takes to get the cock open.

 

[sunchaser]

Yes, I too have my "valve in the wrong position story." My fancy fuel manifold and transfer pump requrie double and triple checking. I've had one engine shutdown in the middle of Georgia Strait on a blustery day. With twins I got to a quiet harbor to bleed the fuel system and restart. I also discovered my fuel transfer pump will tolerate NO mistakes with a closed valve on the discharge side. And a fried genset impeller as through hull off. Etc. Each a learning experience. Nothing beats though my brother's insurance man checking out his big yacht and leaving an engine oil drain line in open postion. Fried the engine but insurance paid!!!!!!!

 

[FF]

Living in CT with a short sailing season , or keeping a boat in Fl , but snow birding to escape the heat we use a check list.

I guess after 20,000++ in the aluminum overcast a checklist is part of my living.

Leaving do the checklist , outfitting , do the checklist.

Not hard ,

FF

 

[Marin]

*A simple checklist is as good idea.* We have them for "before we leave the dock" and "before we leave the boat."* The first ones I made up had way too much stuff on them so I've since pared them down to the essentials which makes them easier to use.* They have reminded us on several occasions to do something we otherwise would have forgotten.