foreign vessel Seeker today we're fueling the boat but uh we're not going to the fuel we're
bringing the fuel to us I transferred fuel from Barrels in Muskogee to right off the
dock that's because there are fuel pumps weren't working and the fuel they did have if they did
get their pumps working was like three years old and I didn't want that uh here I can get
gasoline I can get gasoline at uh Callahan's Cove too but uh just gasoline and there's
no way to get the boat in that close anyway even if they had diesel so we take an empty
55 gallon barrel in and we fill it up from Barrels in my truck so into the docks here
at Russellville Marina it's nice to them I got a nice little slip here and I can't say enough
how nice people are here and they're kind enough to take all my mail here so another pump to try
out so with the truck I can buy my diesel at a place like this every town has one it's an
oil company and I can buy AG diesel because it's off-road diesel and boats are off-road
50 gallons many thanks to Max Taylor Oil Company here for loaning me the empty 55 gallon drum that
I use to transport it out to Seeker as much as I love Russellville Arkansas and it is a wonderful
Community you have to get used to the smell of money because the smell of money here smells like
chickens Dead Alive processed chickens oh and The Sawmill too which is a nice counterbalance
to the chicken manure and here's a great idea to consider if you went ooh or your children go ooh
um get some chickens raise them up in your yard most any City you can do that and uh slaughter
them put them on your table and eat them it's uh you know it just kills me that kids nowadays
barely know where chicken McNuggets come from you know they think uh they ditched his pop off
a tree somewhere I think so yeah it'll be a fantastic lesson for everybody involved
goes a load of air freshener right there
the truck is up there in the parking lot we just pull up here to the shore Tire Pony off right
there yeah the best hose I've found to do this is packs and this is one inch Paxton put a valve
in it that helps a lot because you can control the flow be sure to have some diapers around
that's what those white things are down there if you don't want to spill anything boy it'll show
up like nothing else there is no hiding fuel if you just put a drop into the water put a little
tension on this make sure that it pulls to the side and stays in the barrel okay the trick is
to put that hose down to the very bottom and make sure it's at the back of the barrel that's gonna
be the low spot and then strap it in too there we go now the next step is suck on it you know
to suck on it don't you now open the valve up now if you have fuel in the line you can pick
up a siphon just from what's coming down through the line that next tank will probably do that way
and pulls it in good so now you're watching wait and you push the boat back off the Rocks
a little bit to make sure that the way of the barrel doesn't sit you hard to ground
because that'll be about 450 pounds and this boat's capacity is over a thousand pounds so
we could do two barrels we wanted to the other thing that's important is your 55 gallon drums
but I only had them put 52 gallons in them and that gives me a little room so that I can open
the tops up without spilling any fuel and I'm sure that I'm going to run out of fuel here before that
tank down there fills then just keep an eye on it it'll take 10 to 15 minutes to empty that Barrel
shut the valve off
and do our clip here and let the last of the fuel in this section of the line drain into the tank
now
put a diaper around it just to make sure no drop goes anywhere it's not supposed
to see I got fuel on the line so that'll make the siphon easy to start next time
cure this ends of the line into the truck so it's not to go anywhere and we'll leave it
now you're asking yourself well that Whaley with a 50 horsepower
outboard plane with 55 gallons of fuel on board
yes it will
home sweet home I already got my lines and fenders in place so tying up is easy
and after getting the cargo net on the first time put a couple of uh zip ties
on it where the hook goes and that way it's easy to set up the next time too
peaceful now I got the option of laying the tank over on the side and installing this and
dumping the fuel through there but it's easy it's just a siphon that way you don't have to
move the tank around if I had a couple of guys on here and yeah maybe we'd lay the tank over
that is our Baja filter so the fuel goes in there and those pipes are all vents coming
back from the various tanks so when the tank is full I know it because fuel starts coming
out the vent and if I was concerned about the fuel I'd lay a towel down in here and
then put the fuel through the towel and if I saw any sand or Gunk building up on
the towel I know I got problem fuel neutral idle engine on oh I added an alarm for it
as soon as the oil pressure is up the alarm goes off get the remote control out of here
turn the crane on lights tell me it's on close the bypass so I get hydraulic pressure
okay
and swing it over there
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fuel so it's almost full I appreciate the support because if you make donations to
us you've probably helped me buy some fuel here thank you now we're putting fuel into our third
tank we got six of them all together but I'm not gonna fill the whole boat I'm gonna make
a change here because when this came out this pipe it ran back and dripped down the
wall so I'm going to put some O-rings here to make sure it drips into the tank foreign
do I like having a crane back for more much easier to start when it has fuel in it just drain some of
the fuel down turn the valve on start slowing you know it's unfortunate it has to be done this way
at all because if the Corps of Engineers would stop saying their favorite word which is no to
everybody that wants to do something along this River and instead said yes and we'll help you
imagine all these little towns through here with little docks out there selling bait and
beer and cabins that you can stay overnight in about every 10 15 miles up this River and it'd
be fantastic get on a boat and go up if you have trouble there's mechanics along the way and tow
services but as it is now it's like you got to be dedicated to do you know 50 80 miles without any
support whatsoever on this River and so it just kills it I mean you got barge traffic here and
that's it you got fishing in The Lakes now Kerr and Dardanelle here but that's it all this other
water is just going to waste and why because our government gets in the way I don't think that's
what government's supposed to do yeah it's done so this time we drain every last drop into the barrel
foreign
600 gallons of water and 400 gallons of fuel and we're about to get to the water line in the front
still not there though the plan is to see how she sails but I'm still thinking I'm gonna have
to move some stuff out of the engine room forward into the cargo hole to get the ass in back up but
tell you the truth I'm still happy with that for a home-built boat with no plans One of a
Kind this big yeah I'll take that so these tanks have inspection Lids 18 inches so I can unbolt
that actually get down in the tank and there's a baffle about there and another inspection lid back
that direction so I can access the entire tank and then each lid has an inspection port on it
so I can open that up check for water dip the tank see what the level is that sort of thing
what I'm doing is I'm building a profile and this tank doesn't have any fuel in it
so once I put 52 gallons into it I'll dip it with a stick and know that at
this level it has to be two gallons and you know we keep doing that and I can transfer
fuel around we'll eventually build up a nice profile to see what each tank holds
I missed the bottom of this tank it's got a few gallons in there so plan B come on
now just all the cleanup that stays there like down it goes back
this may be the last time I performed this operation but you never know so I'm hanging
on to the hoses 52 gallons right there wow it's not that much it's a big tank seven and three
quarter inches and we really don't need anything more accurate than that because in here we have a
sight glass on the side of our day tank here and so when we put fuel in debt we know exactly how
much we pulled out of one of the tanks out there on the floor you know so I'll never run with all
of my tanks full I mean that's a lot of fuel I mean what would we be doing to cross the Atlantic
and go back without fueling up and once I build up enough of these measurements I can just dip
the tank and get a pretty good close estimate as to what's in it Alexa 636 times 2.2 636 times 2.2
is 1 399.2 now you can do this multiple ways but I figure I get about 2.2 miles per gallon
running at five and a half knots that'd be about 6.3 miles per hour so yeah not fast and it sucks
down a lot of fuel but with 636 gallons I can go almost 1400 miles and that's that's doing pretty
good now we can actually do better than that because once we hit the Mississippi we pick up
another five maybe five and a half knots from the current in the Mississippi so you know that
Speed without burning more fuel so you get that which is also a reason why I like sailing it's
Speed without burning fuel so yeah let's take this tank back well on my way to drop off the
barrel I passed the FedEx truck and so I uh tailed him for a while and picked up my shipment today
that box back there electric bike because I'm not young enough to do that anymore more power to him
though and as much as I love my little Toyota truck with 230 000 miles on her I'm not going
to be able to keep her forever okay let's see what we got well that helps with the packing it's
a bike that didn't fold and have to begin with it looks like it's been in some terrible crash
okay that looks like it takes a handlebar
wow
that is a big bike it's not one of these little cheap things that's for sure
okay
how about that
okay the seat's backwards but if you hate long assembly times
this is certainly a fantastic bike for you
I love it trying to pick up the mess nice the wind's not
blowing from boxer Road and Miss but I don't have it turned on yeah I hear it
oh this is Dominic and Dominic figured out how to turn it on so he gets the second ride yeah
you use the gears so it's not just it's not a hub motor it's uh I can't remember what they
call it it's more like a motorcycle you know it's got a motor and that motor runs a chain
just keep it out of the Lake OH engine yeah yeah I like those too but they're just noisy what
miles an hour hey yeah we need air in the tires do that
I'm gonna get used to this
welcome home
I think some days it'll come on board and some days it'll just stay in the Tinder here but
may want to hook myself up so I'm sort of a racket to make hauling it over easy it does
weigh I think about well maybe about 60 pounds I'm just guessing one of the features I do like
is you can take the batteries off and take them inside to charge them so you don't got to move
the whole bike just to charge the batteries so Darwin and I here are getting kind of excited
the weather's cooling off there's a little bit of color in the leaves now we got over
600 gallons of diesel on board and water Crews coming in on October 15th and we head out to
New Orleans and after that we'll be mosing across to uh somewhere around Pensacola to
do work on the sails and learn how to sail this boat so keep with us and uh hope you
did something beautiful out in your shop today if you did send us a picture what'd you make today
thank you
foreign