T&T: (no subject)

[Rich Gano]

"BTW - my $.02, if you feel good about polishing, do it.  But not  everyone
needs it because of use/tank cleanliness/careful fuel purchases/return
flow/filter maintenance scheduling.  You do get bragging rights, though,
when with
other cruisers or at sell time.  Sometimes that's all people  really
want..."

I understand this approach and line of reasoning.  However, my boat is in a
very warm environment much of the year, favorable to "fuel gunk" growth, and
our boat usage is in a down cycle.

My own polisher eight years ago on my twin Lehman 120 boat was installed
before the current usage down-turn after I stuck a copper sampling tube into
the bottom of my fuel tanks (four of them) and came up with a quart of so of
opaque grape juice-looking stuff from each.  At the time, the tanks were in
their 28th year.  Since then I have installed the polisher and low-point
sample drain valves and remote vacuum gauges.  Regular use of the polisher
means the drains show very clear fuel nowadays, and the vacuum gages let me
know when it is time to change filters (much more infrequently than
pre-polisher years).

When I first bought the boat, I used to run until I started to notice fuel
starvation in an engine.  Then I figured that every 100 hours or
semi-annually was about right.  Now I have a reliable metric checked every
couple of weeks or so during our "maintenance" runs to inform me when it is
time.

On our forty-day run to Tennessee in 2006, I used the polisher to
consolidate the fuel load before refueling.  After fueling, we ran on the
"old" fuel until I had recirculated the "new" fuel through the polisher
before using it in my engines.

So there is a place in even high-usage cruising boats for a polisher,
assuming one has the flexibility to segregate fuel by age, or not.

Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42 #295)
Southport, FL