M
y friend Alan and I have spent
some considerable time delivering
boats to various parts of the world
and along the way, we’ve learned
lots of lessons. We’ve come up
with many little phrases that
remind us of what to do to ensure a safe passage:
‘What don’t we like? Nasty surprises’; ‘there’s old
skippers and bold skippers but rarely any old bold
skippers’ and particularly, ‘wee when you can, eat
when you can, sleep when you can, fuel when you
can.’ You don’t know when you’ll get an opportunity.
Some years ago, I was delivering a 45ft sailing
boat from Southampton to Ipswich and, exactly
as the previous year on a similar boat, there wasn’t
a breath of wind. I had press-ganged my wife Shirley
to come as crew. We had to motor to Eastbourne
and then to Ramsgate. I knew from the previous
year that I’d used less than a tank of fuel for the trip.
We arrived in Ramsgate, moored up opposite the
fuel berth and had a welcome cuppa. I did my usual
checks around the boat, one being the fuel gauge;
a very sophisticated thing where you press a button,
a light comes on and the gauge rises slowly to (in
this instance) just under half a tank. ‘Brilliant, that’s
great,’ I think. No need to mess about with fuelling,
we’ve run for two days and only have a few hours
across the estuary to go: I didn’t follow my own rule.
We left the next morning to another lovely
windless day. I rechecked the fuel gauge – yep,
perfect! Past North Foreland, running at a steady
7 knots, something began to niggle at the back of
my mind. Little calculations ran unbidden through
my head about quantity and horsepower and
time. They kept going round and round, and then
I remembered how nice it had been last year when
we had sailed this particular bit in a nice breeze...
I went down to check the fuel gauge. We had been
running for two hours and were about to cross the
Sunk VTS TSS, the ship’s motorway into the Thames.
The gauge barely moved off its stop, deep in the
red. According to the gauge, the boat had used just
over half a tank in 22 hours and just under half a
tank in two hours. My stomach knotted, not because
we were in a dangerous situation – the water wasshallow, we could anchor and wait for breeze and
the tide to turn and, at the moment, the engine was
still running – but because running out of fuel would
look really silly on the part of a professional skipper!
The fuel tank was under the bunk in the starboard
cabin. Out came the cushions, out came the berth
top and I went to work with a screwdriver on the
sender unit. With the sender out, I could see the
problem. The tank tapered and the sender was
a swinging arm type, meaning that what the gauge
thought was half was 10% of the capacity! Great.
There was some diesel swilling about the floor
of the tank and, thankfully, some in a sump where
the pickup pipe draws from. We slowed the boat
to 4.5 knots to conserve what little fuel we had.
Then I saw them – fishing boats, lots of them.
And what do fishing boats have on board? Diesel!I took to motoring amongst the fishermen
shouting out, “Diesel... Do you have any spare
diesel?” My pride was stowed away and I was
humbled. At last I got the reply: “We’ve got 20
litres in a can, you can have that if you like!”
It was like being offered gold. We pulled alongside
and happily paid for the diesel, the can and a drink
for the crew. I poured the diesel directly in the tank
and miraculously, the gauge now read nearly half!
We motored on with grateful thanks to our fishing
friends. Number one rule... ‘Wee when you can,
eat when you can, sleep when you can, FUEL
WHEN YOU CAN.’ I’ve never broken it since.The boat had used half a tank in 22 hours and another half
a tank in two hours. The fuel gauge was deep in the redANGUS BELCHER: As a professional skipper, I have a set of rules I abide by to
keep cruising as breezy as possible. Breaking the rules taught me why I need themI ran out of fuel on the
approach to a TSS
I’LL NEVER FORGET THE DAY...
EMAIL US YOUR STORY. WE’LL PAY £100
FOR ANY WE USE! [email protected]COLUMNSCorina Daniela Obertas / AlamyRemember,
always fuel
when you can...