It is another beautiful day today as we sit on our boat here in Simpson Bay Marina. We are patiently waiting for the storm that is making its way toward us to pass us by and for the mechanic to install new engine mounting bracket bolts before we leave the marina and then anchor out in Simpson Bay, just outside of the lagoon where we are now. Once in Simpson Bay, we will spend a day or two cleaning the hulls before we depart on our passage across the North Atlantic.

By now you are well aware that I go a little nuts when I have to wait with nothing to do. I walk the boat looking for any and all boat projects that I can apply myself to. Today, I decided to get a jump on our refueling by taking 7 of our 5-gallon jerry jugs over to the fuel dock and filling them up. Once that was done, I returned to Leu Cat and unrolled our fuel bladder. I use this bladder to increase the amount of fuel we carry whenever we are making long passages. While it was advertised that it could hold 50 gallons, I have never been able to put in more than 35 gallons.

To fill the bladder, I use our little electric transfer pump and transfer the fuel from the jerry jugs into the bladder. It takes about an half hour and it goes pretty smoothly...most of the time. This time it was a little messy as one of the hose clamps was a bit loose and when I turned the pump on, I was greeted with a fine spray of diesel right in my face. Ugh!

Once cleaned up and with the hose clamp now extra tight, I was able to transfer the fuel and our bladder is now on the deck, nice and full. With Leu Cat's two fuel tanks having a combined capacity 168 gallons, the fuel bladder holding 35 gallons and the 10 5-gallon jerry jugs that will be lashed down on the deck before we leave, we will be able to carry a total of 253 gallons of fuel. At moderately low RMPs (about 1800 RMPs) we can make 4 nm per hour using just one engine, which will burn ½ gallon an hour. That translates to a motoring range of about 2000 nm.

Of course, that 2000nm is theoretical only since the speed is based on no head wind, no adverse current and not ever using the generator (which also burns diesel). Taking all of that into account, it is not unreasonable to expect being able to motor up to 1500 nm on that amount of fuel.

As a general rule, I like to carry enough fuel to motor 50% of our passage miles. Since our passage to the Azores is only about 2500 nm, I will be carrying more than what we usually do. Mary Margaret even questioned why we were carry our maximum amount. My answer was that this may be the last time we see duty free fuel for a while and I have memories of fuel being very expensive in Europe. It is only about $3.00 a gallon here and I believe this is the last time we will see diesel so cheap in a long while.