Saturday 5/15/11

Saturday 5/14/11

I only have one work day this weekend. There are two projects. The first is finish empting the aft fuel tank. The fuel will be pumped into the aft starboard tank. It will take most of the morning, but fuel was all moved. The second project was to finish removing the fuel lines so the covers can be removed from the aft fuel tank. There are two lines to go. Of course, they are the biggest lines. One goes from the starboard engine return line across the front of the engines and then back past the engines to the middle of the aft fuel tank. This line is about 8’ by 10’. The lines are copper and if I want to put them back they need to come out and not get bent in the process. The hatch is only about 2 ½’ square. So a lot of twisting and tweaking and flipping and the line comes out. It took about ten minutes of maneuvering. The other line to be removed is the starboard forward return line. So it goes forward from the aft port line, across the whole width of the boat and then forward to the front of the starboard tank. Again, this line is 8’ x 10’ and more bends than the last line. Same problem of maneuvering and another ten minutes and this line is out. Both are clean and can be put back in later.

Here is the shot of the port engine blower. I actually did not realize that the blower sucked air directly out of the enclosure around the fuel tanks. That is a great way to directly remove any fuel vapors. Also visible are the two vent lines for this aft tank. I think that two lines are used because these are 1” lines and the fill is 2”. Also, with two lines, in case one gets plugged up, there is still the other one.