GL: Bunkered fuel

[LRZeitlin at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/23/08 12:00:49 AM, John writes:


> I  blew it last fall. We could have taken about 1400 gallons in Solomon's
> in 
> November but I chose to only take 500. Silly me. I didn't foresee the big 
> increase.
>
> Big  boats with big tanks rule. A friend has an 80-footer which used to
> bunker 10,000  gallons. He is lamenting the fact that the PO reduced that by
> 1500
> by installing  a black tank.
>

After WW2, a large number of Liberty ships were stored in Haverstraw Bay, up
the Hudson, about 50 miles north of New York City. To keep the tanks from
rusting, they were stored full of fuel. It was the cheapest way to preserve
them.

About half the fleet was removed during the Vietnam war but at least 100
remained until the 1970s. At that time the Navy determined that they were too
small and too slow to be used as cargo transport in any future war so they
were
either sold to small foreign ship owners or scrapped. This was the time of the
70s oil crisis. The bunkered fuel in the tanks was worth much more than the
entire value of the ship.

Moral: Fill your tanks at every opportunity. In the long run the cost of fuel
is bound to rise.

Larry Z


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