Beating the diesel bug at Seawork
The DFS Cart is easily transportable on the quayside and even on board ships.
Brian Raine of Tides Marine told MJ at Seawork, “The people who have shown most interest in our fuel polishing systems are the ones that have seen how devastating fuel can be.”
“Stored diesel fuel is generally considered to be out of specification in less than six months and will start to create problems”, he added.
Since exhibiting at Seawork, Tides Marine has seen a lot of interest for the Reverso diesel-polishing fuel unit, the DFS Cart. Mr Raine explained that this has been mostly from marine engineers.
“Typically it is those who have had experience of what bad, dirty fuel can do, either themselves or through a customer”, he said.
“It’s a valuable service the unit can offer, because the system is easy to use. You just wheel it to the side of the boat and plug in, and it will do the fuel polishing while you are doing a maintenance service.”
The compact cart can be manoeuvred and operated by one person and wheels easily up to a fuel tank or vessel and will go up and down stairs courtesy of its built-in skids.
It is also effective. Mr Raine explained that with a 100 gallon tank the diesel would probably cycle through five or six times. Because the fuel is getting turned over, the polishing will achieve 99.9% water separation and 99% particulate removal from the tank and fuel.
While the problem of bad fuel doesn’t cause so much of an issue for boats that are going through a tank every week or two, it does affect those boats with lower fuel usage or vessels used intermittently. Mr Raine said that it is the latter category of most likely to encounter problems because of the rising proportion of biodiesel in the available fuel and the fact that it is much more hydroscopic than petroleum derivatives.
“The moisture and sediment collects at the bottom of the tank, he says, “where the fuel pick-ups are. This means the main engine filters will clog up sooner, and microbes start to develop, so you are not only getting water, you are getting diesel bugs.”
He went on to explain that since the cetane rating of stored diesel reduces, it doesn’t combust as efficiently, which in turn causes smoking and eventually damage to the injectors and fuel pump. Also, the latest electronic engine management systems are finely tuned and a reduction in the cetane rating or the quality of the fuel means the engine power will be reduced, which could put the craft in danger. How much a particular vessel will suffer also depends on the quality of the fuel put in with to start. Filling up at a busy marina with a high diesel turnover is likely to be safe but a smaller, less used supplier may have had the fuel sitting around for a while and thus more likely to contain bugs.
Mr Raine concluded that for those with the need, Tides Marine can also supply permanently built in units to polish the fuel regularly on an autotimer.
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