No Direction

No Direction is our 70ft Narrowboat which is now home to my wife Jayne and myself, it was launched on 4th February 2008.

We spend the Winters in a Marina and cruise in the warmer weather.

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Keeping the Tanks Full.

One of the most important jobs that Narrowboat owners need to do in the winter is keep the fuel tanks full, the reason is condensation forming on the steel walls of the tank above the Diesel
which then runs down and into the fuel, if the tank is full there is no exposed steel.
If water is allowed to stay in the fuel then it can develop into something called "Diesel Bug",
adding a fuel additive such as Marine 16 which is designed to keep things under control is a wise precaution.

A Diesel Bug coming to a tank near you ?.

From January fuel that is supplied to Narrowboats on Inland waterways is going to change, following a EEC Directive we will now be supplied with low sulphur Diesel probably road Diesel (EN590) with a red dye, road Diesel can contain up to 7% bio fuel which encourages water so we will have to keep a close eye on our fuel systems.


We see a lot of hot air balloons coming over Kings Bromley Marina when the weather is calm, they take off from Shugborough Hall and Trentham Gardens navigating their way around Rugeley Power Station and all the Pylons around here.

Their not really that close.

I'll stick to boats, if I fall off a boat I can swim if I fall out of that basket, thud.

Things thawed a bit at the weekend and we were able to fill the water tank, it's going to get cold again though.

2 comments:

Naughty-Cal said...

The biggest single surface on a fuel tank is the top and bottom surface. To wipe out condensation in your fuel tank you would have to keep it brimmed constantly. Not something that is easy to do with a boat.

There is a lot of rumour going around about the new diesel we will get for marine use, most of which is utter nonsense. We have used a mixture of road diesel and red diesel in our boat for two years and have not noted any ill effects nor excess water in the filters. We dont use fuel additives either and have no signs of fuel bug.

No Direction said...

Thanks for commenting. You must have a very different shaped tank to ours, the total side surface area on our tanks is 2.28 sq mtrs, the top is .28 sq mtrs, we have tall thin tanks so it is worth keeping them full.
I agree there is a lot of hysterical rubbish on the internet regarding the use of road fuel,(hence the cartoon) we also have put a few cans of "White" in to see if we noticed any difference, none at all, however we do have a modern Beta engine which the Beta engineers tell me will run ok on almost anything, I know one boater who uses Kerosene with no problem. We had never used a fuel additive until last week when we topped up our heating tank and decided to buy some, we have never had a hint of Diesel Bug but I have seen it and its awful stuff so better safe than sorry.