August 29, 2015
We left
port at about 1315hrs. Engine hours read
3160.7.
Elaine and
I were just going out for a little boat ride, no special destination in
mind. We cruised through Greenwich bay
and turned south toward the Jamestown Bridge.
We cruised past the west side of Hope Island and the west side of Conanicut Island before turning around just
before the bridge.
The weather
was beautiful and the seas were calm and the winds light out of the south. We cruised along listening to Island music
and watching boats.
After we
turned north and passed the northern tip of Conanicut Island we noticed a nice
sailboat healed over with several people up on the starboard rail. We joked about how they did not look quite as
comfortable as we were. We then noticed
that the sailboat looked familiar and as it got closer we saw that it was
URSA. We then noticed that two of the
uncomfortable looking sailors on the rail were Mike and Cheryl Marrone. We waved and they saw us and waved back. They were just finishing a race in Wickford.
As we were
approaching our marina we decided to go over to the North Yard to get some fuel
for our port tank. When we got to the
fuel dock we told the Brewer attendant that we only needed about 50 gal. of
diesel for our port tank. The attendant
handed me a nozzle. I told him that it
was a much smaller nozzle than the last time I put diesel in the boat. I started to slowly put fuel into the tank
and we were joking with the attendant about the last time we fueled the boat
when we had a little diesel back flow and I got soaked with diesel. The attendant then said “I gave you gas, we
don’t have diesel here”.
We had
mistakenly put 16gal of gas in our diesel tank.
I shut all of the fuel valves from both tanks to the fuel filter and
both return valves. Luckily the engine
was not running. The attendant called
his service manager to explain the problem.
They wanted to have us leave the boat there, a Saturday, and they would
take care of it on Monday when the yard opened.
We really did not like this option.
Adam and Tom from the south yard graciously volunteered to tow us back
to our slip.
We got back to our slip, bow in, with
the engine hours at 6163.7.
The south yard service manager, Mike,
short hauled and pumped out the port tank on Tuesday and we were back in the
water and operational.
It was a
very good day up until the little miscommunication. We learned yet another valuable lesson. I guarantee that we will never again put gas
in our diesel tanks.
