Fuel Lines

[fallguy1000]

I had a rude awakening today.

All year, my boat has been stinky. Hydrocarbon nauseatingly stinky.

Craig Watson visited and wanted to smoke onboard and I was a little nervous. I had recently purchased a ppm sniffer and had readings of 2000 ppm near the tanks. I had misinterpreted LEL as 1400 ppm; it is 14000. LEL is lower explosion limit and the boundary for persons to enter a confined space (even with respirators). You do not want to go into an area with 10,000 ppm hydrocarbons without.

Craig was kind and explained it was my lines. I listened, but had some doubts. I bought USCG approved lines, why would they stink?

Well, this needs to be clarified. Some credits to TomW for challenging me.

Here are line ratings.

Des. Perm rating max
A1-15. 15g/m^2/24 hours
A1. 100
A2. 300

All are CG approved, but are not at all equal.

I did a calculation and my boat lines are about 0.1825 m^2 each side of surface area.

If we assume the line makers lines are say 20% better than the standard

A2 line is 240 rating
A1-15 line is 12 rating

So, my boat is dumping

0.1825 • 240 g or 43.8g of hydrocarbons into the air in 24 hours or about 2 grams per hour....into my confined spaces

The A1-15 line would be 1/20th of that or 0.1 gram per hour.

A stunning revelation that explains the stink, why Craig and Tom were both correct and how the USCG standard messed me up.

[Jeff]

Wow FG, that is terrible!! How difficult will it be to replace the bad hoses? Jeff

[OrangeQuest]

Wow FG, that is terrible!! How difficult will it be to replace the bad hoses? Jeff

I was thinking the same thing.
Maybe buy a few feet to start and put fuel in it, cap off both ends and set it in a quiet place like in a sealed container and test the levels after a few days.

[cape man]

Find a way to vent the compartments. Not enough vapor to blow, but smells.

[Larry B]

Thanks for this info.
My OD18 has always smelled and I'm pretty sure this is the reason. When parked I always have my hatchs open to vent, if left closed the smell is terrible and everything in the compartment smells like gas.
Going to look into replaceing fuel lines. I didn't know this about fuel lines???
Thanks, Larry

[fallguy1000]

But wait, there's more.

The rating is for fuel standing in the lines.

So, another thing to do is make sure the lines are best as possibly possible, pitched all the way.

I am also going to check the perm of the tank itself, because if that is more than the lines, I'd rip up the floor to no benefit.

[OrangeQuest]

I am also going to check the perm of the tank itself, because if that is more than the lines, I'd rip up the floor to no benefit.

You can't pull and replace the fuel lines without removing the floors?

Can't you pull lines through from one end and pull new lines through at the same time?
Before ripping and tearing things up, pinpoint the source of the vapor. Even if you replace everything you may still have hydrocarbons left that can be detected in the surrounding areas that are stuck to the compartments walls.

[fallguy1000]

I am also going to check the perm of the tank itself, because if that is more than the lines, I'd rip up the floor to no benefit.

You can't pull and replace the fuel lines without removing the floors?

Can't you pull lines through from one end and pull new lines through at the same time?
Before ripping and tearing things up, pinpoint the source of the vapor. Even if you replace everything you may still have hydrocarbons left that can be detected in the surrounding areas that are stuck to the compartments walls.

No and no.

[OrangeQuest]

Well that really blows.

[Doug N]

Checked old info I have and the shields - comflex I used for fuel fill is only rated for A1 as per their tech department. Any other fuel fill hose I could find was A2. Quite an improvement but still not as good as A1-15.