I went ashore to see about getting Fred to swap out our diesel fitting in the bridge deck lockers and to clear our stay on the new mooring. The mooring we had ended up on was owned by Raiatea Marine (the yard right next to the Carenage). I went over to see about paying them and after determining that I was a Carenage client they told me I had to go. "I understand", I said, "you have a client coming in?" "No.", they said. "The mooring is too small for our boat?", I said. "No.", they said. "So what is the problem?" "You are a client of the Carenage", they said.

I was blown away. The Raiatea Marine folks apparently have a very serious case of petty. After a little more digging Fred found me a private mooring that a client of his was not using. So we moved, again.

Fred came out to look at our diesel shutoffs in the afternoon. The shut offs and the tank fittings are both good stainless. The hose fittings that Saint Francis used are mild steel though. When they delivered the boat to us the fittings were already heavily corroded. I tried to get the factory to take action but I got the sense that they liked those fittings and didn't see that any change was necessary.

I should note that in the engine rooms use these fittings and that they are fine there. Unfortunately this is not the engine room. In fact the tank fittings are mounted just above the bridge deck drain for the deck locker above. This means that when you are at sea salt water is splashing all over them continuously.

I had tried on a few occasions to find a solution but getting no support from the factory and finding no obvious fixes in the Caribbean I had sort of accepted the situation for the time being. Right until last week. As we were preparing to launch I was going over the underside of the boat to make sure that everything was in good shape. As I looked over the bridge deck I noticed a greasy looking sheen leading back from the bridge deck locker drains. The "rub you thumb and forefinger in it test" revealed corroded metal and diesel. The fittings were finally leaking as they ultimately had to do.

I am now committed, involuntarily, to change out the lot of them. They are just oozing a drip here and a drip there right now and we are keeping up with paper towels.