A fuel- system that is polishing heads clogs off before they slow you down.
A diesel fuel-polishing system helps ensure engines get pure fuel, causing a clean burn and fewer problems.
Better to Burn
The great thing about boats that are efficient is obviously they do not use much fuel to reach your cruising destination. The drawback is they can leave plenty of fresh, prone to-pollution fuel in your tanks. Owners of diesel-powered boats have fought with water and/or the increase of colonies of microorganisms that thrive in water and diesel fuel. These microbes alga are called by many people but they are really mold, bacteria, and yeast. Whatever you call them, to keep them from clogging your fuel filters, then remove whatever water is in your fuel ahead of the organisms can get a foothold and you must split.
The best means to get water--and the terrible stuff which is included with it--out of your boat's fuel tank is having a fuel-shining system. The technology 's been around for a long time but only lately have owners of smaller craft--those down to about 40 feet LOA--began installing the systems on their boats. Firms including Reverso Pumps, Algae-X, ESI Total Fuel Management, Gulf Coast Filters, Walker Engineering, yet others offer their own versions but all of them basically pump diesel fuel out of the tank, through a mix fuel-water separator and filter, and then back into the tank. Many companies that assemble polishing systems use separators from well known businesses like Separ and Racor.
"Price is chiefly what kept [the commercial systems] from being used on smaller boats," explains John Napurano, owner of Reverso Pumps in Fort Lauderdale . He says that big, complicated systems similar to those on commercial vessels might make sense on yachts longer than 90 but they are not practical for anything smaller.
Fundamentally, a polisher cleans the fuel before it hits on the engines' fuel system. When a filter gets clogged with no shining system on a boat, the fuel pump is starved, which can mean not only a burnt-up pump but an air- locked engine due to fuel starvation, or worse. You just replace the component when a shining filter gets clogged.
While Napurano generalizes that systems are installed by Reverso on boats from 40 to 80 feet, how big is the polisher actually has more to do using a boat's fuel capacity than with its hull span. Many trawlers have larger fuel tanks per LOA because they're meant for extended cruising, so you had use a higher-capacity polisher on one than you might on a boat set up more for day cruising. Trawler companies such as Selene, Grand Banks, and Kadey-Krogen install shining systems on most of the boats.
For a 65-foot trawler carrying 2,000 gallons of fuel, Napurano recommends a 600-gph shining system. The 210-gph kit was created to get a 110-volt A.C. electrical system and comprises a mechanical timer and alloy heat deflector. Gulf Coast Filters' GCF-FPS-Deluxe Magnum is rated at 120 gph; it is recommended by the firm for boats with fuel capacities greater than 500 gallons.
One key to an effective polishing system setup is the fact that the fuel is picked up by it as low as you can where all the contaminants accumulates in the tank, which will be. Another is timing. Napurano says the top time to shine your fuel is correct when the fuel is agitated after filling the tanks. Think of it as shaking up a snow globe. Sediment and development in the microorganisms that are resting on the bottom of the tank get stirred up during fueling . With debris and water dispersed through the tank, they get pulled easily into the filters and from your boat's tank. You may need to modify the filter element in the fuel-shining system later, but you'll be prepared to cruise with confidence knowing that all that diesel fuel is clean and able to burn in the tanks of your boat that is efficient.