How Full Is The Fuel Tank?

[OldBerkshireBoy]

2 hours ago, Tobster said:

That will only work if the filler is directly above the tank, lots of modern boats have the fuel tank offset from the filler cap.

Hosepipe then.

[BroadAmbition]

I made one for ‘B.A’ it gets used now and again but mostly lives in t wetshed. We tend to use the fuel gauge. The Jewels from H.W’s  we hire don’t have them

Griff

[NorfolkNog]

I think hire yards these days tend to discourage mechanical interaction with hirers - the days of the daily oil and cooling water check have mostly disappeared, probably caused more problems then it solved. I can quite picture water tanks being dipped and filler caps dropped over board. 

[MauriceMynah]

1 hour ago, oldgregg said:

I think one of the main reasons is that hirers had a tendency to open the tank clearly marked 'Water' and put the fuel dipstick in there to see how much fuel they had left.....

I think that's rather harsh and  suggests a very low mentality of a few hirers, so I really must protest their innocence of such an allegation. 

I think it's hugely more likely that they used the fuel dipstick in the water tank to see how much WATER they had left .

:-) 

[ranworthbreeze]

16 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I think that's rather harsh and  suggests a very low mentality of a few hirers, so I really must protest their innocence of such an allegation. 

I think it's hugely more likely that they used the fuel dipstick in the water tank to see how much WATER they had left .

:-) 

Its not just hirers, a well known yard; one of their younger members of staff put diesel into the water tank a couple of years ago which caused delays at the fuel station for a few hours.

[Smoggy]

I've heard of people swapping diesel and pumpout badges during a spate of fuel thefts, help yourselves scroats.....

[ExSurveyor]

On 21/07/2020 at 16:21, Cheesey69 said:

Good point. What ever happened to the wooden dipstick?

 

I have one onboard, complete with a human dipstick to use it.

[Lulu]

We assume this is original to Luna 

 

[ExSurveyor]

Exactly the same as mine,

[Guest Jayfire]

We have a dipstick on Moonlight Shadow sometimes

And we also have a wooden one kept onboard too

[Oddfellow]

On 21/07/2020 at 16:46, oldgregg said:

The trouble with that is you never know how many engine hours she did the previous week. I think like me you tend to do a fair few miles in a week so don't tend to have battery issues, but it's always good to make sure.

I have had an issue (not on the Broads) with a boat that clearly hadn't done enough running the week before and it took a good couple of days of cruising to stop the fridge shutting off every night.

There's no way that a boat should be put on hire without fully charged batteries. We charge all our cruisers using mains chargers before every hire: we even invested in chargers for each vessel to make this easier for ourselves and give customers confidence. 

 

[Oddfellow]

On 22/07/2020 at 16:17, NorfolkNog said:

I think hire yards these days tend to discourage mechanical interaction with hirers - the days of the daily oil and cooling water check have mostly disappeared, probably caused more problems then it solved. I can quite picture water tanks being dipped and filler caps dropped over board. 

Modern engines are, perhaps, less expected to require oil top-ups. But overheating is still very much a problem so coolant checks ought to be periodic. Anybody running BMCs and Perkins 4108s etc should be checking daily and I would not dream of suggesting that hirers don't. 

Looking at wooden dip sticks. Lots of trouble with these other than the points mentioned. I had a private Alpha 29 some years back that would run nicely and then just die. a while later, you could start it up and it would be fine again for an indeterminate time and then die. Lots of head scratching and fault tracing later, we found that the fuel isolator was blocked; blocked with tiny wooden shavings from the dip stick that was getting thinner and thinner with each use as the neck of the fuel tank razored it off with each use...... 

[Davydine]

On 23/07/2020 at 11:42, Lulu said:

We assume this is original to Luna 

 

This is exactly what I remember from hiring boats from Brooms. The tank was filled before departure and then dipped at the end of the holiday when you got back to the yard.