10/27 - not a hero

[ktm_2000]

but a Zero....

The Ramp at the east end of the Cape Cod Canal was closed so they could pull boats so we had to launch on the west end, and that added 7 extra miles each way. At least the tide was going the right way in the AM and we ran through the canal at 30 kts boosted by the 4kt current. We headed over to P-town and got around the backside and found 2 boats working around a pod of whales feeding in 100' of water. We worked the area around the whales jigging for about an hour but were not marking any tuna under them and most drops came up with a mac. From there we worked east out to the shipping lanes stopping to check out the draggers, not finding life there we worked north almost up to Wildcat where we found lots of porpoises and put out the spread and started trolling. The porpoises came into the spread repeatedly and came up to the boat to check us out, we even had one jump less than 10' along side us. We trolled west up onto stellwagon, the life faded so we pulled the spread. We had reports that the Haddock were in 240' and there were a few draggers were working that area so we tried hi-lo rigs with sea clams. The wind was blowing pretty good and we were getting scoped out pretty fast and even with 16oz sinkers and we had to constantly let out line to hold bottom. No joy there other than more macs and a few sculpin like fish so we worked to the western edge of stellwagon where the GPS was showing a pair of whale watch boats. After finding the whale watch boats and we set up a makeshift ballon out of a water bottle and set out a livelined mac under and we started jigging. The macs were thick 50' down but again no tuna under them. We also tried a few spots on the deeper water on the western edge of stellwagon for haddock and again more macs and sculpin. Around 3:30 we started heading back and when Race point was on our port beam a few miles out we spotted a mele of birds crashing and what appeared to be fish jumping. Turning hard to the action we got ready for some surface action and when we got up close it was a large pod of porpoises. We thought some of the leaps were from tuna but no luck catching any. I had a popper and the porpoises would follow it back to the boat and come real close to us but again large schools of macs 30-40' down but no tuna under them. It is amazing how agile and curious the porpoises are with many of them coming up to the boat to check us out. More time there and no luck.

Finally we ran back to the canal, along the way the engine was dropping RPM intermittently and I slowed down and when we got to the canal I stopped at the gas dock at the east end marina and checked the fuel filter, I filled a empty water bottle with mostly water and got a bunch of crud out of the bowl. Thinking that we were good, we started to make the run back to the west end of the canal, this time at 22kts having to fight the current. Along the way the bowl filled up again with a bunch of ugly looking gas so I filled up another water bottle while at idle speed.

after the second bottle, the engine ran better and we had no issues the rest of the way home.

I had big plans, but was a big Zero....... It was fun anyways and got to see a lot of life out there, and it definitely beats working.

[John F.]

Sounds like a really fun day. Definitely not a zero. Very cool

[Carl]

That’s why it’s called fishing and not catching.


It’s nice to catch….ok, not true, it’s awesome to catch what you’re going out for, but just being out is really a huge part of it. Doing poorly in the catching aspect makes the good days even better. Again kind of a lie, it still hmmm, no Have to use it, it still sucks not catching but better then the alternative. The alternative is not going out.

Crazy when there is so much bait n life but no fish. Seems like the whole summer our bay was packed with bunker, huge pods everywhere and the only thing anyone, including me could catch were dogfish. No fluke, bass or bluefish…had to run offshore to catch. With no time I settled into dogfish for a bit. When god gives me lemons, I make dogfish francese.


Hey, why water in the bowls.? And why ugly looking? Great you were able to get it out but I’d be concerned why it was there in the first place. With ethanol in the fuel now it should be absorbing the water unless large amounts of it. And large amounts of water absorbed by the ethanol can have the ethanol fall out of phase with the Alcohol n water separating. High amounts of alcohol is not good for motor, lines n aluminum tank, also the gas that remains does not have the alcohol to give it the right octane rating, not great for the motor.

[lobsta1]

I am absolutely amazed you were able to run the canal at those speeds. Twice I've been pulled over by the canal police for exceeding 10 kts. I've seen many other people grabbed also. Your on camera the whole length of the canal.
I second what Carl said. If you have water then you have had phase separation in your tank. You will have to call someone to pump out that tank. It used to be $10 gal. but that was years ago. You do NOT want to be using it. The water/alcohol mix is very caustic. The remaining gas in the tank is very low octane & could still be holding more water. Check the O-ring in the cap. You're getting a lot of water from somewhere.
Al

[ktm_2000]

this morning I disconnected the fuel line coming out of the fuel filter and then ran it into another I/O sealed racor fuel filter and then to an electric automotive fuel pump then the output side of the pump went back into the tank. I ran it from 8am till 10am and in the mix emptied out the racors every 15 min or so. The first few times the gas wasn't great and when dumped into a water bottle and shaken up then allowed to sit the gas was cloudy, in the process I took out 4 16oz water bottles worth of the cloudy gas. As I kept going the water bottle test of shaking it up then letting it settle was showing me only clear clean gas. I took out 4 clean bottles in a row before I called it good enough and put my fuel system back to its original setup and then changed my racor filter. I had my boat jacked up as high as it could be in the bow and my fuel tank pickups are in the back so I am pretty sure I got most of it.

I hadn't filled up after yesterday's trip so I went to a different gas station and filled the tank with premium gas and then took a ride with the wife and kids. We headed out on buzzards bay and the wind was blowing with the nice tight 2-3' chop and headed across the bay and tried to catch some black sea bass and tautog. The place we tried had a line of boats anchored up and I had no crabs so I drifted through a few times jigging with an epoxy minnow jig. The sounder was showing a fair amount of fish on the bottom and I got a bunch of black sea bass, nothing huge and 3 tautog which were not keeper size. During my drifts I checked the fuel filter a few more times after getting bounced around a bit going across the bay and I pulled out 2 more 16oz bottles worth of cloudy gas then after that all the gas was clear. We were on the water from 11am till 3pm and the last sample I pulled was waiting for my turn at the ramp and that was after the run back across the bay and that gas was clear. I put 4hrs on the engine today and it ran flawless.

I may put the filter setup back on and let it filter the tank for a few more hours and although I agree with your opinons about getting the gas out of there, I don't think I want to waste 140 gallons. I think what I have done has taken the worst out of it and my theory to ensuring that is based upon the crap gas going to the bottom of the tank, if I burn as much of it as possible and make sure when I finally quit for the season, the gas coming out of the racor is clear, I should be good to go. I dont want to go into the off season with any of the bad gas inside the engine.

[ktm_2000]

One of my friends Fontaine was with me on the trip friday and took some photos and shared them with me today.

Dragger
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3yZzJNhoqGZFMwT37

Gunnel view
https://photos.app.goo.gl/PdtuZ5iCZXd3UQJH8

Porpoises cominng to check us out
https://photos.app.goo.gl/b1ADyfBTqMtAVUiv5

[Carl]

So you think the water was acquired from a gas station? I’d guess that is the lesser of all evils. Easier to avoid a bad station then figure out n fix a problem with boats fuel system.

[ktm_2000]

Carl,

I am not sure what happened here and have 3 theories.

1. I didn't fill my tank after my 2 previous trips and was roughly 70 gallons down and the temps have been up and down a lot as well as raining very frequently. Condensation could have caused it.

2. I filled up thursday and put in 62 gallons in and that didn't completely fill as I gave a guess number of $225 to the gas station and it didn't completely fill and when I tried a 2nd time my credit card wouldn't let me do a 2nd swipe. The gas station could have had some bad gas.

3. Fill or vent on boat leaking in water, I did check the O-ring on the fill and it was intact and the vent does have roughly 12" of rise after the pickup. The vent is angled back and I have not noticed water getting up to that level that far back. I am sure it does but think the rise of hose inside should take care of any water that could get in


During my trip When I pulled water out the first 16oz bottle was 2 fills from the fuel bowl. The first had about 4oz of water/ 4oz of cloudy mix. The 2nd 16oz bottle was cloudy mix. The next day I took out 4 more bottles of cloudy mix before adding premium to increase the octane and during that trip 2 more cloudy. All together I pulled less than 2 gallons of phase separated fuel out of the boat.

I think that since I probably burnt 45 gallons on my trip friday and with the pickups low in the back of the tank, I probably burnt most of the bad gas on my trip before I actually stopped to take any water out of the filter.

I am trying to figure out how much water got in... I do not know how much water it would take to phase separate 2 gallons of gas nor do I know of a how much I would have ran through the engine before it started sputtering. I only ran the boat 15-20 min from the first sputter till we got to the canal marina. I don't think the bad fuel I ran through the engine Friday is that much, I would have to guess at least the same amount as I pulled out saturday so roughly 4 gallons of phase separated gas overall.

With that I am guessing theory #1 and I shot myself in the foot for not filling up between each trip.

I am thinking of that since the fuel filters have 4 ports, 2 in, 2 out, I could add a quick disconnect fitting on the 2nd out fitting and use my racor and electric fuel pump more easily and test more frequently.

[ktm_2000]

did some googling

https://www.daybreakfishing.com/boating/ethanol-fuel/

says 4 teaspoons of water per gallon before it phase separates. So 130 gallons x 4 teaspoons = 520 teaspoons or roughly 2 gallons. Thats if all the gas was completely separated.

[Carl]

Seems like an awful lot of water to be had by condensation.

Getting bad gas is possible, especially from mom-and-pop places. That would be the easiest fix of all.

[ktm_2000]

I am not thinking right, basic math and units of measure count, 16oz bottles are 8 to a gallon so I only took out a gallon of cloudy gas which would be in line with condensation building up in the tank prior to my thursday fill-up. I had only tested the drain on the fuel filter at the 20 hr service and now have 82hrs on so condensation had some time to build up. I think I have to drain and test the fuel bowl more frequently.

Fun stuff- -
Here's a pic I took of my spread - the light rods near the engine are shimano trevala with avet HXW raptors. I bought them to jig for tuna but ended up getting about 700yds of 80# hollow core braid on them, then spliced in 25' of 80# jinkai mono. The reels are supposedly good for 50# drag and the rods reasonably stout. They should be good for trolling as well, I wouldn't put a bar on one but we had them running deep dive rapalas and they had no issues. I will be in the market for another pair of Penn 50 VSWs over the winter.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RCt7HSAzUWFLBtFC9

[CamB25]

That amount of water seems unbelievably high. May want to check the orientation of your vents, vent loops, and look for other ways that rainwater/seawater can get into the system. It's been raining quite a bit up there, right?

[ktm_2000]

Pic of vent hose during build - I had it long so I could eventually get it to go to the highest part of the thin hand hold portion of the gunnel. I used 3m sticky pads on the inside of the gunnel cover I eventually put in and zip tied the vent hose up high. I have validated that that system is intact.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kaAy6GK8aaZiHWUU7

I am not sure how much water vs how much impacted gas.... nor do I know what state the stuff I am calling "cloudy" is.

I will treat this as a learning event and try to do a scientific experiment.

If that article I referenced is accurate, 1 gallon needs 4 tablespoons to phase separate out. If16oz is 1/8th of a gallon, it should hold that 1/2 tablespoon of water which google says is 7.39ml (I have the small cups to mix MEKP) to force the gas to phase separate.

I am going to take the water bottle I used because it doesn't have any residual water and fill it with 16oz of gas from my lawn mower supply then add the appropriate amount of water and shake it up to see if it generates the cloudy gas that I removed.

I will take pics of before and after and share the results.

If it doesn't phase separate or doesn't get "cloudy", I will continue to add water in defined amounts to try to get to get it to the same "cloudy" gas.

[ktm_2000]

Sorry this will be photo link intensive but I am glad that I did the experiment.

Poured about 16oz of not so fresh gas (but it was in a sealed gas can that had no vent) and did a measuring cup with 7.5 ml of water
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2KMES2cQB71BjdQw6

put the cap and mixed for about 1 min - cloudy gas.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/wCZumm2ae2z4a2sZ9

It didn't seem like the level of cloudy I had so I added 7.5ml more
before 2nd addition of 7.5ml
https://photos.app.goo.gl/co1PBruRs8trqzRd9
after 2nd 7.5ml
https://photos.app.goo.gl/N2NpJ4q6xefcFUbV7

It still didn't phase separate out till there was water showing in the bottom of the bottle so I filled up the measuring cup which is roughly 30ml
https://photos.app.goo.gl/R1MxaUwCaAwvhb9L7

I mixed it up and now at this point there is 45ml of water in the mix, the flash was not showing the level of separation so I held it outside so it could be visually seen, there is a definitive line of separation, very similar to what I took out my first pull from the water separator.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Xm6zRd4nmLZz2zaj7

Using this data I am going to estimate the volume of water which got into my tank as

45 ml - 1st 16oz bottle pulled friday at marina
45 ml - 2nd 16oz bottle pulled while driving back to ramp
saturday during filter session while at home, going to use 15ml for a number
4 bottles x 15ml each = 60ml
2 more bottles after filling up the tank and riding for at least 1/2hr on the water 2x15ml each

Total = 180ml or 6oz of water

I can definitively say that while ugly looking it is not a lot of water and something that could have accumulated via condensation in 58hrs of running time over 2.5 months since august 14th when I checked the fuel bowl last. I am sure I burnt some gas that was ugly before doing the filter session but we are talking ounces of water.

[Tony Meola]

If you head over to a good auto supply store, they sell a tape that you can put on a stick and put it into the tank and it will let you know if you have water.

Gas stations usually do not pump water. They would have to remove the filters off the pump. The water clogs up the filters and the pump really slows down or does not pump at all. I grew up with my father having a gas station. We knew whenever there was water in the tanks since the pumps would slow down or stop. That usually resulted in our having to call the Oil Company to come and change the filters and to check the tanks.

Can it happen, sure but today, very rare. Usually happens after a lot of flooding and heavy rain if the caps on the tanks aren't well sealed.