This morning we waited at the mooring for our appointment with St Ives Engine Services Ltd. Worried about detritus from the bottom of our diesel tank getting stirred up should we have any bouncing around on the Wash next month and subsequent fuel line blockage I had requested a tank purge. Sid Fisher, himself a ship's pilot, arrived promptly and set about setting up his kit. He explained that the tank would be pumped out through a set of 2 micron filters, the fuel then pumped back to stir up the contents and then filtered again before finally restoring it, now cleaned and adding some serious biocide. I was amazed at the amount of black gooey rubbish that was sucked out of the tank including a screw!
Part of the harvest from the diesel tank
So bad was it that the whole pump got stuffed with the black stodge requiring a disassembly of the filter system to clean it all out before the tank could be fully emptied. All this inspite of using the fuel additives recommended in the narrowboat press and by the River Canal Rescue people. Whether the bio-fuel component of DERV fuel is to blame I don't know. To what extent Considering that I had thought the process to have been a good insurance policy whether or not anything was found, I feel that this was money well spent. The whole process took about 2 1/2 hours.
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