My Wahoo!

The fuel fill on my Wahoo! (quite possibly the original) is shot. Actually a lot of the deck hardware could stand replacing, but the fuel fill in particular is cracked and broken. So I bought a replacement. To remove the original, I accessed and removed the hose clamps that secure it to the fuel fill hose via an access port on the port side. Problem is the fuel fill hose is more or less “melded” onto the fuel fill tube. So coming at it from a different direction, I removed the hose clamps that secure the fuel fill hose to the gas tank itself. But again, that hose connection wouldn’t budge, and no amount of twisting, pulling, or prying made any difference.

So it looks like I’m going to have to cut the hose off (using a box cutter or similar device). Which of course will ruin it, although I’m sure it’s  best practice is to replace the hose any time you replace the fuel fill anyway. One last thing I’ll try before cutting is to apply some heat (e.g., wrap the hose in a towel that’s been dipped in boiling water). I’ll report back how that goes.

Added 6/9/12

Well. I finally got the  old fuel fill line off. But it was not easy. In fact it was a bitch. I basically had to saw it off bit by bit with a sharp knife (a box cutter it turned out was too short handled to do the job).  Cutting the hose through the small five inch entry port was hard enough, with me all the while wondering if metal against metal could cause enough spark to ignite fumes from the tank. But then to further complicate things it turned out that A) fuel fill lines include an embedded spiral of wire that you need to cut through, and, B) as my brother-in-law Russ had predicted, the material of the old fuel fill line had more or less melded over time onto the neck coming from the tank: meaning in fact  there was no way I could ever have twisted it off. It had to be cut free. A brute force solution. And man did it fight to maintain that relationship, aided and encouraged by the embedded wire coil, down to the last quarter inch of line. With boats in salt water, nothing is easy. A dremel tool with a cutting wheel probably could have freed the hose in under a minute, but IMO it’d be just too easy to raise sparks or cut too deep.

Lessons Learned: Things I’ll know if and when I next replace a fuel fill:

1. Assume you’ll also have to replace the fuel fill hose, so order that as well.

2. The replacement fuel fill will probably not come with a gasket. So pick up one of those. Also, depending on the shape they’re in, you may want to replace the clamps that secure the fuel fill hose. Inspect everything before ordering your parts.

3. To remove the fill and hose (and assuming that removing the clamps and twisting the hose does not work), cut a vertical slice out of the hose where it covers the neck from the fuel tank. Use a good serrated knife or a small pistol grip saw. Be careful not to cut into the neck. then you can work the hose off. You may also need pliers to pull out pieces of embedded wire you cut exposes.

My Wahoo! Striper 16.2 has four built-in compartments: an anchor storage in the bow, a combination cooler/seat located in front on the center console, and two compartments in either corner of the stern, typically used to store the battery and fuel/water separator (also  sometimes used as a live well).

All of these compartments include a drain hole to allow any water that gets into them to drain out. But with the exception of the anchor storage,  instead of the drain hole being located in the compartment floor, it’s located on a side wall, with the lower lip of the drain hole one inch off of the compartment floor. This means that when water gets in the last inch of it has no means of escape. It sits there, eventually getting slimy and gross. In winter, if it gets cold enough where you live, it freezes, the expanding ice potentially putting pressure on the compartment seams. Not good design.

At this point drilling holes in the floors of these compartments is no solution as it would have them draining into the bilge, something I do not want. So the best option I can figure is to displace that last inch of water by putting in inserts that in effect raise the floor of the compartments. It has to be something that is durable, won’t rust, rot, or absorb water, float, or cause discoloration. Some possibilities:

• Synthetic deck “wood”
• Acrylic sheets (like they use for cutting boards)
• PT
• Solid rubber mat

Any other ideas?

Addendum 5/17/2012: Curiouser and curiouser. While (as I mentioned) the forward anchor compartment’s drain hole is in the floor, the tube that eventually sends water from that compartment onto the deck is actually situated four inches HIGHER than the drain hole.  So the last four inches of water in the anchor compartment will not drain on its own (unless the boat is underway with its nose up).  I don’t get it.

Addendum 7/6/2012: I finally came up with a solution to my standing water issues: Eva Foam. Eva foam is a pretty widely used closed cell foam that comes in a variety of thicknesses and colors. It’s used for all kinds of things from craft foam to exercise and sleeping mats to padding in shoes and other sports gear. Odds are you already own plenty of stuff containing Eva Foam. The particular foam I bought I came across in Home Depot…a four pack of 2.5 by 2.5 foot 1/3 inch interlocking sheets being sold as a kids play mat. It went for $15. Each of the four sheets was a different color but I didn’t care too much about that…they’re going to sit out of sight at the bottom of my Wahoo!’s storage compartments. Also possibly I could have found foam even cheaper somewhere else, but $15 was good enough for me.

What is good about Eva Foam is that it is almost weightless, fairly impervious to breakdown by immersion to water and mold, is durable, won’t rust or rot, is easy to cut to shape, and won’t leach color. Almost perfect for how I wanted to use it except for one thing…it floats. And how can something that floats displace water? Short answer, it can’t.  Not unless something holds it in place to prevent it from floating. Like the anchor in my anchor compartment. The battery in my battery compartment. The fuel/water separator  in my fuel/water separator compartment. By happy coincidence, I realized that three of the four storage compartments in my boat already contained a built in mechanism to hold the foam in place. That left only the cooler compartment, but I’ll think of something to toss in there to ensure the foam is held down. I guess as a last resort I could use an adhesive like 3M 4200 to glue the foam to the floor, but I”m sure there are less permanent solutions.

Note that unless you’re a wiz at measuring and cutting (which I’m not) it will be diffficult to create any false floor for your Wahoo1 compartments that completely eliminates room for standing water. Still, for the four compartments my 1987 Striper 16.2 has, I calculated that without alteration the compartments collectively allowed about two gallons of standing water to remain. And after fitting them with Eva Foam I think I’ve got that amount down to under one quart, a 90% reduction. I’ll take it for now.

I do a lot of my boat supply shopping online. Sometimes the orders are large but often I just need something small. As was the case the other night when I went looking for a nylon replacement vent for my fuel tank. Now when placing a small order online, it drives me nuts to get to checkout only to discover an exorbitant shipping fee. This is what happened the other night. It seemed like site after site wanted $10 to ship this $4 part.

So I decided to do a comparison of shipping rates. I searched for the same item on a dozen or so large boating supply web sites. (If a site didn’t have the exact item, I chose a similarly priced one so I could still compare their shipping rates.)

What I found was  a range in shipping fees from free shipping (Overtons) to $16.18 from Go2 Marine ($11.18 shipping + a $5 small order handling fee).  And Go2 Marine might not have been the highest: While Boat Owners Warehouse stated on their shopping cart there would be an $8 handling fee, I never got the actual shipping cost as the site would not show it until I entered my credit card info first (somethingI declined to do).

One other thing I dislike when shopping online: having to gp through checkout before you can find out what the shipping fee is. Fortunately, many sites include a calculator that lets you see the estimated shipping as soon as you put an item in your cart. Just punch in a state and zip code. Others though make you fill out all of your personal information first. And Boat Owners Warehouse, unbelievably, also wanted my credit card number before it would quote a shipping fee.