Temporary Fuel Tank & Thoughts on Range Under Power

I installed a temporary 23 gallon  fuel tank yesterday and added some fuel and primed the lines.  The motor started up fine and ran without a bump or stumble.

I drawn plans and have an estimate to build a permanent 110 gallon aluminum tank from a New Jersey fuel tank builder.  First, I'd like to make a mockup of the tank to be sure it fits, to locate flanges for mounting it, and also to be sure I can get it through the front hatch and hallway.  I will need three bilge pump bulkhead fittings  and one exhaust hose fittings to pass these hosed though the cofferdam I am building.

I hope to get the cofferdam installed next week. The marine plywood I ordered should be in on Monday.  Once that goes in I can build and test fit the fuel tank mockup and then order that tank. It will be close to 110 gallons and give me a range of around 660 miles at 3/4 throttle.  That is enough to motor to Halifax and almost as far as Bermuda.  These numbers are just estimate.  I'll have a better idea of how it does after I motor around an burn off a tank.

I still need to decide if I want to put two more fuel tanks in where the old tanks were.  That would give in an additional 60 gallons per side, for a total of 230 gallons and a serious range of about 1380 miles--enough to motor through the doldrums, and nearly enough to motor to the Caribbean.

I plan to be sailing not motoring, but if I find myself short handed, it would be nice to be able to motor to make better time. Fuel can be used to make power, fresh water, or heat as well as propulsion.

What to do about the 23 gallon temporary tank I just installed after the primary tank is installed?  I'm wondering if I can mount it in aft in the transom area to use as additional diesel storage for long trips and as a gasoline supply for an outboard when inshore.  23 gallons would last a long time if only used for an outboard.  For an ocean voyage, the extra 23 gallons if used for diesel would boost my range 136 miles up to a total range of 1518 miles.  Bermuda to the Azores is 1900 miles. The Azores to Lisbon is another 835 miles.  So an Atlantic crossing following this path is 3240 miles.  It starts to seem more interesting to have extra fuel when talking about very long passages.  Now consider going the rest of the way to Greece?  I'll guess that is another 2000 miles.  So round trip that would be well over 10,000 miles plus time spent sailing around the Greek Islands.  Yes, I want as much range as I can, and I'd like to be able to carry a bladder tank in the cockpit holding another 100 gallons and be able to carry 353 gallons.  Even that would only give me a range of 2118 miles.  It is much better to build this in easily than it is to hang a  dozen jerry cans off the back of the boat, like many cruisers do. 

Compare these numbers to the typical 40 gallons tank on a sailboat that has a range of 240 miles. If your boat never leaves home waters, you will top up once a year.  But if you plan on ocean voyaging and want to keep to a schedule and cover much longer distances with little or no wind, a big tank is a nice thing to have.  It means you can boost your speed by motor-sailing, and get ahead of a storm, or maneuver into the safe quadrant, or get out of the worse of it.  If dis-masted a boat with plenty of fuel could motor to the nearest port of continue on.  For a boat the size of ECHO, the extra weight in small compared to the size of the boat.  One ton, 2000 lbs will drop the waterline just under an inch.

Coffee Grinder Rebuild

My huge Barient two speed coffee grinder has been primed for some time.  I tasked Marco with disassembling it and gave him a bucket of diesel fuel to clean the chain gears and assorted parts.  He put much of it together today.  One of the bearing in the top part was frozen up.  I took this part to the parts store to order a pair of new bearings, races, and seals.  When I got back I took a close look at the bearing that Marco didn't pull and decided I did not like the way it looked, although it might hold together a while, the ball bearings looked pitted.  I don't think this is a high load bearing, but I'm going to replace it anyway.  A few  spots on the ring and pinion gears have chips missing on the edges, but nothing significant enough to warrant making new gears. 

Here are some pictures of the bottom part of the Coffee Grinder.  It cleaned up well and I'm especially pleased with how well the chain cleaned up.