Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure

[Giles]

UPDATE (Fuck).....

The jury-rig fuel balancing system that was installed by the engineers is not balancing the fuel between the 2 tanks, as we were assured it would. Ho hum.
The starboard tank "percentage of full" is decreasing fast and the port is increasing at approx the same rate. We don't know why and we have no transfer pump to balance the tanks (well, if we had, we would not have had to do the jury rig in the first place).

Discretion being the better part of valour, we are heading for the nearest fuel depot, about 50 miles to our east. We won't get there before it shuts tonight, so we will have to overnight there, refuel as soon as they open, and try again

[goosehd]

@Giles Fuck is an understatement...glad you caught that one.

[Mr Eddy]

balls..

[goosehd]

@Giles Serious question: Can you realistically make the trip home in your current configuration with the fuel tank? Leap frogging between fuel depots will be a pain in the ass and would it be more prudent to have the techs out again for another possible solution?

[jordanscollected]

@Giles must be getting a bit embarrassing for the boat/motor company at this point. May as well just bring a repairman on as a crew member with all the tools or you'll never get home.

[ARNC]

@Giles you did say you wanted to be challenged! I guess this isn’t what you had in mind …

More seriously, I hope you make it back without too much additional excitement.

[Giles]

Oh, we'll get home......,

We think that the best thing to do is undo the jury rig and return it to it's previous config. We know the problem, so all we need to do is relieve the vacuum from the port tank. Even if we do not relieve that vacuum we can get 700 miles before we have issues. And only need to do 500 before Guernsey.....

[Twistlock]

So, are you getting the technicians back on board or will you undo on your own?
Guess you must be a bit p....?

[endo]

what ever you do, @Giles and @Madame-Buttonfly, just stay safe ... and enjoy ️

[Giles]

@Twistlock said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:

So, are you getting the technicians back on board or will you undo on your own?
Guess you must be a bit p....?

We'll undo it ourselves. It's a weekend tomorrow and the square root of fuck all Spanish Volvo Penta technicians work at weekends.....

Just in case this happened, we took photos of the original installation, so that we can backtrack. None of the original pipes were cut, so we should be good to go.

We decided not to tackle it tonight so we could see if 8 hours of resting would allow the tank levels to even up. Not that that will change our minds, but it will give us a greater understanding of what is going on.

The basic issue with the original set-up is that when the tanks are 30-40% full, the vacuum build-up in the port tank is stronger than the pump can pull, so we will just keep relieving the vacuum, but we should still get 700 or so miles on full tanks before the problem exhibits itself even if we don't get rid of the vacuum....

[Kasi]

Safe travel 🧭

[sabergirl]

What a headache this must be! I hope you both manage to keep in good spirits, and enjoy the ride along the way.

[ROman]

Safe travels....️

[Matt]

Now you’re traveling. I learned way more fixing that Airstream than I ever did reading the manuals.

Godspeed and have fun!

Don’t forget the pictures. What with all the downtime.

[Nik]

Adventure

[Giles]

We saw this trimaran at the fuelling dock in Cascais, she was heading south and east. A few days later, this happened to her....

[Giles]

And we are off (again)

[Twistlock]

[Mr Eddy]

@Giles buena suerte!!

[Giles]

You will probably be very pleased to know that will likely be my last post for a while.....