The curious case of the missing fuel in the marina.

Time is running out before we are off and running this year so we made the trip over to Dewsbury once more to resolve the issue of the heating and hot water. This time we weren't delayed by accidents on the M62 and arrived in good time. We had taken the opportunity to load up with more stuff that we will be taking away with us and was this had been transferred to the boat I went round and checked that the radiators were all bled, the expansion tank was topped up and the pipework into the Hurricane heater were full of water. I checked the three way valve in all positions to see if I could make more water fill up the system to dispel air pockets and all seemed well. I  set everything up electrical and set it  to fire up. It just went in to 'flame out' error. This indicates that there is air in the fuel line so I set to checking that out. In the small visual port in the line inside the heater cabinet it looked like fuel there and no air bubbles. I checked the in line fuel filter and that was as clean as a whistle and so I checked the fuel tank to make sure that there wasn't some how an air lock preventing the fuel passing through the pipework. I should have thought as the engine had started okay and it is from the same tank but a different supply line. Imagine my surprise when I looked in and saw that the level was well down! We had filled the tank right to the top on arriving at the marina to reduce the air space where where water could condensate out of over winter and now there was only about a third of a tank left. That meant that about 120 ltrs of diesel had disappeared.

It wasn't in the engine hole and I'm sure that somebody would have noticed if that had dropped into the dock as it  would have spread all over. The lock and padlock over the filler cap were in place and didn't appear to have been tampered with and the pipework to the tank didn't look as though it had been worked on either, so I am at a loss to explain it. But it had gone!!

The bar is double thickness on the left hand side so it wont pass through the bracket and with the padlock through the hole on the right I thought all would be secure.

When I dipped the tank I saw that the level of the fuel in the tank was below the level of the supply line to the heater. I thought that the pipe extended down to near the bottom of the tank but just to erase a possibility of fuel not being able to get to the Hurricane I filled up enough to cover the pipe and provide a small head and tried starting the heater. Still no good. I knew there was a reset button for overheat in the heater unit so I took off the panel and poked around trying to find it. This is all complicated by the fact that I could not peer into the space as there is no room above the unit. I was trying to see using a lit mirror on a stick. I then felt around with my fingers to see if I could find anything but still no luck. In the end I resorted to calling Calcutt Boats, the suppliers of the unit, and spoke to Chris there. He told me there were three aquastats but I could only find two. In the end I did find it and after resetting the button all was good and it started up no problem. They are always very helpful, and very patient with twits like me at Calcutt boats. I asked them what there call out fee was for future reference. I was told that it is £110 call out. For that you get 200 miles traveled (so 100' there and 100' back) and an hour's labour. Every extra mile would be at 65p. That would mean that it would have cost me £154 for them to come and press the button for me. I'm glad that I managed to find it and pressed it myself.

The corner of the Hurricane unit can just be seen near the brass stern gland greaser and the lagged exhaust at the top right of the picture. The corner of a silver box in a green tray.

Well I thought we had cracked it now as the Hurricane ran and the water got hot and the radiator got warm and all was looking good. I then turned it all off and started it again. The three way valve moved as it should and everything started up but once again I had become a hostage to my optimism and hadn't taken precautions on the water overflowing as previously, so of course that is what it did, again. I had now become a dab hand at cleaning up after  a spill. Once again I went right through the system eliminating air and set it to run. The  pump was making a funny noise so I stopped it straight away and so only managed to get a little liquid on the deck. I then took precautions and made sure that any over spill would not go every where. The noise sounded as though the pump circulating the water round the system was pumping air and not water. I took this as a good  sign as I had not heard that previously so the air must have come from somewhere. I once again went right through shaking hoses and banging pipes to dislodge any air and bleed radiators and the inlet and outlet to the heater unit and fired the system up again.. How I wished that I had taken precautions to stop the water coming out of the top of the expansion tank going everywhere because now I had it seemed to work fine. We left it running to it shut down on reaching temperature in the boat and the tank. I monitored the water level in the expansion tank and then started it all up again and left it running and again all went smoothly. I wish I had had taken precautions against spills at the beginning as I reckon it would have worked first time. Of course we will have to see if it is okay when we get back to the boat the next time.

I really hope I don't have to spend so much time peering into this cupboard for ages now. It did give me a chance to sort out and lose some stuff that we didn't need so all was not wasted.

There is still the loss of diesel to ponder. I did report it to the marina and they said that they had never had any problems like that previously. I have no idea where it has gone. I must have run the engine for about 6 hours over the winter and the heater (when it was working) for say another 6 hours. If you say that I used 2 litres per hour that is about 25 litres and I haven't used them for that long. It is nothing like the 120 that is no more. I wonder where it has disappeared to?