Is BIOFUEL SAFE? (Filling with diesel in remote places) | Sailing Ep 334
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- Finding diesel is always a challenge. But when all you have on offer is biofuel, how safe is biodiesel in a sailboat engine? Then there's the problem of finding somewhere to leave the dinghy too...
If you enjoyed this video, drop us a quick "Thanks a lot" via SUPER THANKS! 🙏
00:00 Foul weather sailing (still)
02:21 Navigating the Buton Strait, Sulawesi
05:14 Baubau (Bau-Bau?)
07:25 How to find diesel in remote places
13:55 The problem with biofuel
14:41 Indonesia's biodiesel explained
16:09 The price of fuel in Indonesia
17:04 Getting the fuel on board
🤙 Support our videos: PATREON | FTBMates | Rum Fund - followtheboat.com/pub/
Thank you for watching, please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE, it really helps us get noticed.
Peace and fair winds!
Liz and Jamie
▶️ HOW WE STARTED SAILING
- • How we started sailing...
▶️ SABAH TO LOMBOK [PLAYLIST]
- • 2500 miles from Borneo...
▶️ EVERY EPISODE FROM THE BEGINNING [PLAYLIST]
- • Weekly episodes from t...
▶️ PODCAST SERIES [PLAYLIST]
- • Video Podcasts | Casti...
▶️ TOTAL REFIT SERIES
- • TOTAL SAILBOAT REFIT: ...
▶️ 5 REASONS NOT TO BUY A SAILBOAT
- • 5 Reasons NOT to Buy a...
▶️ 5 REASONS YOU SHOULD BUY A SAILBOAT
- • 5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOU...
▶️ HOW MUCH TO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD?
- • How much does it cost ...
▶️ ARE YOU TOO OLD TO SAIL?
- • Are you too old to sai...
▶️ HOW TO BUY A SAILBOAT
- • How to buy a liveaboar...
▶️ THE BEST SAILBOAT TO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD?
- • What is the best sailb...
🎣 Liz's Top 3 Fishing Tips - • How to catch fish on a...
FTB MERCH
followtheboat.com/shop
LET'S CONNECT!
FB - / followtheboat
Instagram - / followtheboat
Twitter: / followtheboat
All Music from Epidemic Sound
OUR SAILBOAT
SY Esper is a 1989 Oyster435 cutter-rigged ketch
LOCATION
Bau-Bau, Sulawesi - 5°26'33.0"S 122°36'27.4"E
FOLLOW US IN REAL-TIME WITH AIS
*www.marinetraffic.com
MMSI - 235026188
#sailing #diesel #biofuel
Thanks!
Oh WOW! Thanks for your SUPER THANKS! ♥️🙏
"Shades of black, grey and rain. Nothing to film...." That is our normal and we manage!!!!! 😄 We loved the kids and kept hoping that one of them was going to say "Follow the boat" 😉
Pleased you loved the children, they were so excited to greet us at the water's edge. ♥️ Liz
I absolutely love seeing your smile liz!
It's a rare thing. 😄😁 Liz
We had a bad experiance last year with bio diesel. During a rough passage the fuel in one tank broke down, and half filled our racor filter with fat. We had it tested and it was shown to be the fame content separating. The fuel itself wont harm and engine, and most diesels will run happily on it, but its shelf life is only around 90 days before it starts to break down. Also the fame content is hydroscopic, and therefore atracts moisture. As we all know water is the prime cause of diesel bug. We run with fuel additives to help prevent the break down of the fuel, and a diesel bug preventor.
Yes, the fuel filters fill up with gunk and water very quickly! Liz
Great video thanks for sharing. Stay safe. We love your videos 🍻
Thanks for the encouragement. 🙏 Liz
Here in Sweden there are two different bio-oils that can be put into diesel. FAME from veggieoil or HVO that is made from all sorts of bio residue. Animal fat, used veggie oil a.s.o. HVO is chemically altered to be as close to diesel as possible, and is either mixed into diesel or sold as straight HVO100.
They have to put at least 5% bifuel in diesel for cars, but at marine fuelstations they allow 0% for better storage.
FAME burns well, but there are bacteria that can grow and form clumps in the tank with time. HVO have no problems other than being a bit more expensive than normal diesel. The last fillup in my boat every fall, I put in HVO or marine diesel.
There're additives to put in to prevent bacterial growth that seems to work fine too.
Indonesia's diesel is notoriously good at going off and clogging up engines. We've never seen anything like it before. Liz
Humm dont get me started on bio fuels and palm oil!! Sail Safe Guys, Ant & Cid. xx
Yes, thorny subjects! 🤔🤓 Liz
I do enjoy watching your journey.
I'm so pleased, and thrilled you bothered to take the time to tell us. Thank you. 🙏 Liz
Thanks!
Thank you for your appreciation and kindness. 🙏♥️
Nice sailing, tho weather is a bit different. ⛱🏖Thankyou !!
The weather is up and down...but at least it's always warm. 😁 Liz
Heads Up!
Biodiesel has the tendency to remove sludge/slime/buildup/etc. from the inside of diesel tanks and lines (as it has the tendency to be thinner than typical diesel). This now free sludge/slime/buildup now goes into the filters and can foul the injectors. Change the filters more often, this helps.
☹🐻
Yes! We've been changing the filters more often than ever before. As for the theory that biodiesel removes sludge... wait till you see what we found when we hauled out in Lombok. 😁🤓 Liz
104th fan LIKE; 483rd desktop phantom shipmate view. I've seen a few old Mercedes-Benz that had conversions to their "D" engines so they could run on repurposed cooking oil - with the added benefit of exhaust with the appetizing aroma of a donut shop. I haven't actually smelled one for proof... but that sort of biodiesel seemed like a good DIY option, for those so inclined.
I agree, it's a wonder more people don't do that. Not possible for we cruisers, we have to take what we can get as we travel! 🤓 Liz
@@followtheboat TBH - I'm amazed at how well you CAN get the supplies you need in such remote parts of the globe -
your ability to sustain and be self-sufficient is truly remarkable to us land-lubbers.
As long as there are people around you can get a supplies. They may not be anything you're used to, though, you have to be adaptable! 🤓 Liz
70 p. a liter! That's a bargain! And the fun of going to town and seeing the people! Those kids are charming -- wish I could have heard them address Liz as Mister... Take care, guys. A la prochaine!
Yes, getting to know the town and the people is the best bit for me. 👌 Liz
Good work, capturing the rainbow on film. I had to use my imagination regarding the unicorn, however. Was he running before a storm under bare pole? That's the picture I drew in my mind, anyway. It's not easy being a dad, sometimes.
Not that you had any choice, but I question the environmental benefits of Indonesia's bio diesel. Whether you're burning that, or dinosaur wee, you're adding a couple of oxygen bits to a carbon bit and spitting it out the exhaust as C02. In the case of Indonesia's bio diesel, you're cutting down native habitat to facilitate the process. Drilling a hole in a Middle Eastern desert might just be a better option, overall.
I don't know if I've missed an episode or two, but what's happened with your vibration issues? The suspense is killing me! It's like reading an Agatha Christie novel with one eye on an episode of Midsommer Murders, except, after this amount of time, it's more like a "who hasn't fixed it" rather than a "who done it".
Thanks for your efforts, once again.
Oh believe me, that vibration was still there... 🤦🏼
The destruction of rainforests has already happened. It commenced with Europeans cutting down hectares of hard woods for ship-building hundreds of years ago (because we'd already used up our own forests for agriculture)
The islands are now covered in coconut, rubber, spice and palm oil plantations. Farmers plant what consumers demand. 🤔 Liz
interesting about the fuel.
Yes, much worse in Indonesia than Malaysia or Thailand. It's notorious! 🤓 Liz
I used to run my 1980 Mercedes 300D on 100% used frying oil, a friend of mine would treat it first with alcohol and lime. I was a chef so I could get oil from several chef-pals which I could then trade for treated fuel oil. I drove 300k-400k miles for only 28 cents a liter. I did use a treatment that killed the bugs but fuels with animal fat grow more bugs than Palm. Almost all the commercial frying oils are cottonseed, aka rapeseed. Bio-fuel is a better lubricant and does destroy certain grades of plastic and rubber hoses. All the fuel lines they sell at Mercedes will be bio fuel up graded. They are stock on MB engines and equipment. On UA-cam there are videos that show the procedure to make Poly-diesel from plastic scraps. This will clean up the oceans faster than any other way. All that plastic is just fuel in storage.
Wow, good news!
All I can say is that the only fuel cruisers can get hold of in Indonesia is awful. It clogs filters (easy enough to change more frequently) and fills the tanks with disgusting crap (cleanable but a p.i.a.)! 🤓😁 Liz
You have a newer Beta diesel engine so the issues with tiny injection pump & injector internal rubber o-rings and seals shouldn't be much of a problem since all newer diesel builds use Viton rubber for seals which is up to the rigors of exposure to biofuels and won't be rapidly degraded.
Older motors with aged rubber bits inside of them are martyrs to the biofuels. Many such old seals are barely holding together as it is and exposure to bio will finish them off right quick. Biodiesel makes a really good cleaner compared to dino diesel as it does a great job dissolving gunk and sticky glues just as much as the old seals and gaskets inside an older fuel system.
I'm assuming you replaced all of your fuel lines when you repowered and hopefully you used biodiesel-rated hoses in the process since those rubber hoses that aren't made to withstand it can be rapidly attacked and fall apart from the inside out and fill your tanks, pumps, and filters with tiny rubber coffee grounds and goey glop from the dissolving non-Viton rubber bits.
Finally bio is hydrophilic and will attract moisture contributing to diesel bug. We always use Biobor JF additive to poison and kill any biotics in the fuel before they get a chance to spread and grow. Prevention is better than a cure.
Thanks for the info! We change our filters far more frequently here than in any other country. This palm oil mixture is notorious here. 🤦🏼 Liz
In the USA the fuel quality is so good that we have sometimes gone as much as 1000 hours between changing fuel filters. Even then when we change them they look like brand new inside -especially the one that spins on the engine, But even the Racor drop-in filters look nice when we change them. We don't even find much sediment, moisture, or other crap in the bottom bowl which we visually check at every start-up just in case.
We buy diesel both from fuel docks and on land at auto stations using our Jerry cans depending on price and availability. We are often far from marinas that have diesel when we are exploring off the beaten routes.
When we buy with cans I suck the fuel directly out of them into our tanks using the polishing loop system I installed which has its own Racor and separate fuel pump so we never use a baja fuel filter funnel or dump directly into the deck fill. We do use a baja funnel to filter fuel for the dinghy sometimes since water can find it's way into the gasoline (petrol) in that jug in the dinghy when it rains really hard and we find it floating around inside the dink upside down. It does a great job of separating the water out but we have little issue with gasoline fuel quality out of the pumps either.
But we are set up to deal with bad fuel if we encounter it someday.
The best fuel we've seen was in Oman. In fact we were so concerned about the colourless liquid, we questioned its authenticity. The agent just laughed and said that's what pure, unadulterated diesel looks like and that foreigners often wondered about it. 🤓
It was so pure it looked like water, and we didn't need to change the filters for ages. 😁 Liz.
I used to be a member of a biodiesel co-op in the midwest 20-some years ago back when I was active in the early days of biofuels and looking into using raw used vegetable oil in diesel cars. Raw oil takes quite a bit of modification to run in an automobile -especially in the wintertime.
But making biofuel as an alternative makes everything run easier but still eats up older hoses and seals like I mentioned. Everything needed to be rebuilt and upgraded or it just died or had constant problems with breakdowns and clogging. It also is such that it cleaned out the gunk in any storage tank or pipeline it was kept or transported in and brought it along dissolved in the fuel when pumped elsewhere.
If a gas station filled their big tanks for the first time with bio it would scour their tanks, hoses, pumps and clean them out really well but that contaminated the fuel in the process.
If you have some old pots and pans that are black on the bottom you can use some pure biodiesel to soak the bottoms and you will be amazed at how well it cleans that baked-on crud off. Hopefully they have come up with some new modern technology for additives that helps tame this quality down or maybe the infrastructure there has been using it long enough that all the gunk in the whole area has been already cleaned out of their systems.
My best mates dad made Bio fuel for well over a decade to use in diesel vehicles with no issues at all.
Brilliant! I bet he didn't use palm oil mixed with crap fuel from Indonesia. 😁🤓 Liz
@@followtheboat lol no. He used cooking oil fron McDonald's.
Gojek>Grab!
Looks like hard and uncertain work. How do you manage with the different currencies?
It's never easy (nothing is on a boat)! You have to embrace the challenge, otherwise you'd go bonkers. Cards and/or ATMs work eveeywhere, and we always try to keep cash for remote places. Liz
I noticed that you don't have a helm cover for the wheel. Don't the stainless feel cold in some conditions?
Never. But we live in the tropics, so it's not an issue. 🤓 Liz
Off-topic, but do you have any plans of visiting Japan? The sailing along the coast is supposed very beautiful.
We've been planning to go there for years! It's still very much on the cards... Liz 🤞🙏 Liz
Price of fuel I know too well, at 14mpg in the old Range Rover I'm a regular customer for Petrol at the local pump, just a little top up in the tank last week with £80 worth, probably be back next week for more, currently now down to £1.57 ltr
🤦🏼OMG! Get a bicycle? Pray for a train? (Sorry)!
We can't complain about the price of stuff here. 🙏 Liz
@@followtheboat I have several bicycles, they're all buried in the undergrowth of the garden lol as for trains hmmm no just as expensive as driving and you would still be sitting at bus stops to get where you need to go, living in the sticks, not like living in London where public transport is plentyful, anyway I love driving my old Range Rover even with smiles per gallon, I could start moaning about the ULEZ next or the LTN's 15 minute cities, did you know running cost of an EV is the same as a internal combustion engine car now ?
There was a YT family who recently reported that their jerry cans were not filled up to what the kiosk meter said, ie they were cheated of about 10% volume. Was that your experience?
Not at all. Jamie usually goes with the driver to the petrol station, so you can see the metre going round and the fuel going in. But he doesn't always. We have no reason to suspect this has happened. Perhaps in the more touristy places where scams are a bit more common? Liz
Biaofuel have a not used after, it rots and clog your filters...
The stuff they sell here certainly does! You change filters much more frequently over here... Liz
I always laugh when people talk about boifuel... it's all biofuel.. just nature made it.
Hmmm, not sure about that because the pure stuff is made from fossils. Fossils are mineral, so neither animal nor vegetable...
Over here, it's mixed with palm oil! Liz. 🤦🏼
@@followtheboat Liz oil comes from Organic material transformed into oil over millions of years. Good luck with the bio diesel don't store it too long, though on your boat that maybe a tough one. Back in the UK you can still get regular old fashioned diesel for pleasure craft in some places. I think even there things are moving the same way as road Vehicles, because the offshore and marine industry is forced to move that way, and leisure boats will eventualy follow.
Looks like you have limited options. I guess fossil fuels are bad enough without mixing them with palm oil which is further destroying the environment. Until you have an alternative fuel option the biggest concern will be if it’s doing damage to the engine and pipe work on Esper. Back here in old Blighty some older cars are having problems using E10 petrol because of bio fuel.
I would LOVE an electric or hybrid engine. But we'd have to sell the boat to afford one. Haha! 🤓 Liz
@@followtheboat hope you don’t need to do that, I’d like to see you both on Esper for a while yet! 👍🏻