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170 litres… not a bad size tank right? I mean it’s only feeding an 150hp ETEC. Most trips out, I’m normally seeing 1.9 – 2 km/l on the gauges. So with solid reserves that’s 300 kms.
And you know I got myself into a little bit of deep water because I’m writing about it.
I’ve owned my boat for near on 20 years and on my recent trip to Morton Island I discovered I’d never really pushed the limits when it comes to range. Growing up in Sydney with the Hawkesbury River and Broken Bay (okay a long) stones throw away we were always a little spoilt for choice when it came to dropping a line.
And to be fair, most of the fishing we did wasn’t off shore and didn’t require any long runs.
The whole day had been fine. We’d belted out from Manly to Morton and then up the West side and out to Hutchison Shoal. I’d been watching the fuel gauge closer and closer, and we seemed to be using a bit more than I’d calculated we would. It wasn’t until we pulled up for the night I started getting pretty concerned. The needle was showing a quarter of a tank. Which at the rate we’d been burning fuel was barely enough to get us back to the ramp.
With my mate having about of sea sickness, we decided he’d hit the beach and I’d do a run back to fill the tank for the morning trip. No choice really – with all indications showing just enough fuel to get back to the ramp, it severely limited the following mornings options. And although we’d had a bit of fun putting a bunch of whiting on ice – we were hoping for something a little bigger.
With the boat back on the trailer (fuel station prices vs marina prices) the needle was bang on empty. With a 45 min run back across Morton Bay, I’d had a bit of time to think about likely causes. The boat is a pig of a thing to top off the tank on, and I’d suspected I’d under filled it by about 20 litres from full. But that still left a big question mark around where the rest of it went.
I pulled the bungs, and thankfully a bit of water came out. But no fuel. Right – it was time to pull the sender unit out and dip the tank to see how much fuel was actually in the tank. Which I did – and it was still 1/3 full. Which is a bit over 55 litres. And the culprit was found. The sender gauge hadn’t been setup properly and wasn’t registering the last 60 odd litres of fuel.
With the sender gauge back in place, and 106 litres in the tank from the bowser (and now I’m positive I under filled it by 20 litres) – it was a quick shot back across the bay to where I’d left ole mate lying on a beach.
And wouldn’t you know it… sometime between filling the tank and getting back to Morton Island, the fuel gauge stopped working. With a heap of fuel for then next day, it was a later problem to fix. (which turned out to be the positive wire on the back of the fuel gauge had come away).
Now I have the fuel data manager module on order from Lowrance so I’ll know exactly how much fuel I have burnt.
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