The Fuel Issue

The Fuel Issue

We seem to have a lot of issues, don't we? I mean, we have had numerous electrical problems, including the alternator, the other alternator, the inverter, and the transformer. We have had other problems too, such as the sail, a recent problem with the upper starboard spreader, and a lot of outboard engine trouble. This latest fuel issue started when we replaced the fuel filters a few days ago. When we tried to bleed the fuel lines by starting the engine, it repeatedly slowed down and rattled violently before stopping entirely. We soon found that it only did this when the fuel was coming from the starboard fuel tank. We decided that the intake tube must be blocked somehow, and thought it might be a glove that we had previously accidentally dropped into the tank. We took the access port off the tank and removed several objects, one of which might have been a glove, but the engine persisted in its strange behavior. Today we temporarily solved the problem by using the dinghy pump to blow the blockage back into the tank. For now it seems to have worked, the engine runs normally off the starboard tank, but this is a temporary fix, there is a good chance that it will simply happen all over again.
--Orion Date
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