Progress on Starboard Fuel Tank

Being sick with a bad chest cold really slows things down.  Finally got back to work yesterday after two weeks fighting it. I was able to work on the design for the fuel managment system and fresh water system. I will leave those for another post.


I was able to glass the bottom edge of the tank side in and put 2 coat of vinylester resin over the glass work on the inside of the side wall. I had to sand it today AGAIN and will have to put one more coat on tomorrow. I also have to glass in the outside of the top to hull joint and the other 3 outside edges of the side wall. Last job of the day was to get all those edges ground and prepped for glassing tomorrow or the next day. Have help coming tomorrow so I think we will concentrate on removing the salon floor on the port side which will make the removing and replacing the port side tank a lot easier.

Here are the fuel accesses for the aft tank. There are 3 fittings with valves and 1 (behind) for the vent which needs no valve. The other 3 do need valves due to the fact that the piping will run to filters and fittings that are below the level of the tank and could cause a siphon leak. The fitting at the rear is covered with black tape to keep dust out.

View of the lift tubes extending into the tank. The one on the right is the draw for the fuel polishing system. It will draw fuel and dirt from the lowest point in the tank. I have set it right to the bottom so that any water or dirt will be picked up right away.
The one in the middle is the draw for the engine and generator. It extends down to about an 1-1/2" off the bottom, low enough to nearly completely drain the tank but not low enough to pick up water. That's the idea anyway.....
The last one is the fuel return from the engines and it is bent to direct the returning fuel away from the fuel draw. The returning fuel is hot and if you recirculate that hot fuel it will only get hotter to the point of creating a problem. This way the returning fule is mixed into the existing fuel.

I had made and attached the handles to the inspection port covers before I got sick. The covers are mounted from the inside of the tank so the handles are needed.