OK.. 1 day before “the beast” hit.. I had the fuel in the boat “polished”.. mainly to get rid of the rust that I knew was in the bottom of the tanks.
It was a bit costly.. and took 6 hours to do (as we have two tanks), but was well worth it as it was a fraction of the cost of possible repairs to the engine seeing what came out.
In total.. 25 litres of WATER was mixed in with the diesel and removed, and there was a bad growth of diesel bug in there, which if we had got to the Thames and started hitting choppy water, would have mixed in and possibly stopped the engine, damaging the diesel pump and injectors.. so this was something I was wanting to get done before we set off on the summer cruise.
The fuel samples speak for themselves really.. from left to right.. first two are tank 1 and tank 2 before “polishing”.. the next 2.. after it was complete.
The tanks now have a water extractor bag in each.. and I have a bottle of Marine16 fuel additive to use to help keep it clean – just in case on our travels we end up filling up from somewhere that dishes out bad fuel..