DandV

There are two schools of thought re the best fuel take off position in a boat fuel tank. The most favoured position is an inch or so above the bottom of the tank. This gives a large capacity, fuel settling area for water and crud, much larger then any bowl on a fuel filter. However the effectiveness of this settling chamber, like any fuel water separator, is totally dependant on routinely removing the accumulated water and crud. Without removal the water level will slowly rise to the fuel outlet level and then at the most inopportune time send a slug of water and crud through the fuel system, at best overloading the other filters and at worst getting through to the expensive bits. Unless you routinely remove this water and crud you are providing ideal conditions for cultivating your own special brew of diesel bug. Diesel plus water plus a little yeast, either airborne via makeup air, or from delivered fuel, helped by a bit of warmth and bingo. Some fuel tanks of this configuration are fitted with an additional plugged and valved bottom outlet for draining the tank bottom, ours was. The other way of removing the tank bottoms, and the way we used, was a small hand plunger or bulb transfer pump with either a rigid plastic or copper tube suction extension down the dip pipe transferring the tank bottoms into a clear vessel. soft drink bottle? for inspection until the fuel runs "clear and bright" To avoid any problems caused by not routinely removing the settled water and crud, the other school of thought is to take the fuel from the absolute tank bottom and use the fuel system filtration to remove contaminants before they get to the engine. This is the approach used in automotive fuel tanks. But you cannot use this approach if your fuel take off position is above the tank bottom. The crud will just lie in wait.

I feel saddened that the neo liberal push for small government and deregulation has created so many casualties worldwide. When I worked as a fire protection design engineer in New Zealand in the 1980's we relied on our New Zealand standards, which in the main were a close derivative of British Standards, and for some buildings, if the prime insurer was American, NFPA or Factory Mutual codes. We regularily received the British Fire Protection Magazine that described in much detail the research and testing that this organisation did in its extensive purpose built facilities in Boreham Wood. We would refer to published test results from this organisation to determine the fire safety and fire load of building materials to determine appropriate hazard classification of our sprinkler systems and required fire separation measures. Does this facility still exist to perform independent testing? Now in NZ, we have certifiers that conduct desktop exercises interpreting others certifications on which our regulators then pass materials and systems without ever being actually real world tested.

That is pleasing to hear that Britain at least setting and enforcing standards improving standards for mobile homes with new residential mobile units having to meet comparable insulation standards to new bricks and mortar housing. We are perhaps behind you here in NZ, and so many of the trailer parks in the US and Australia are squalid.

Further to my previous post. Not only in Worksop, but throughout the world, there has been a trend towards campsites providing more and more permanent accommodation. This is inspite of so many of the campsites being established on land that was available cheaply, only because of being low lying and prone to flooding, or was prone to other disadvantages. This was acceptable for short term holiday camp pitches, as often these were scenic sites next to a river or stream, and campers could generally quickly flee rising waters Even so there were tragedies with flash flooding of such sites especially in the mountains of Europe. However with the costs of providing permanent housing rising out of reach of an ever increasing portion of populations, this flood prone land has increasingly provided dwelling space for more and more people inspite of it's inherent unsuitability. The mobile home fiasco where a house attached to the ground has to comply with ever increasing standards, but if wheels are attached to a box used for living in, it becomes instead a vehicle, even if not road worthy, and free from most dwelling standards. This is a worldwide failure to tackle the core issue of declining housing affordability. The trailer park inhabitants worldwide are there because, it is their best option, not because it is a good option. Because of this such inhabitants bear a disproportionate share of the deaths and injuries during any disasters including , flooding, bushfires, tornadoes and hurricanes.

A few observations. 1/ Was there a flood mitigation plan in place for the area? A plan that determined thresholds and actions by whom, and a formal command structure. There certainly should have been such a plan, but if there had been it would almost certain that CART would not have been a lead agency for any such plan, rather the Council or the EA should have been the lead agency and any instructions should have been from a defined command structure. 2/ CART are legally required to formally identify hazards, that their employees and the public could be exposed to. In this case they identified access to the sluice was unacceptably hazardous due to the condition of the building in which it was located. Once identified the effect of this hazard MUST be eliminated, minimised or controlled. CART, correctly notified the building owner, the responsible local authority, (who happened to be one in the same) and prohibited their staff, (who would not meet the normal criteria for emergency service workers) from operating the sluice until access had been reassessed, to safe. It is clear that there was a flooding emergency, but an emergency that was almost inevitable due to a flood plain location.. That the authorities, particularily the Council were ill prepared, The Council had not ensured access to their building was safe. The CART response was still in accordance with their notified safety plan to ban entry. If the building was unstable for routine entry, then any entry in flood conditions would be even more hazardous. The Council's response to the emergency and the building's state was deficient so resorted to blame laying in defence.

The science of flood management has evolved to include managing the speed of discharge of water downstream.They call it The time of concentration of catchments. Catchments that have been designed to be efficient in removing water quickly from one area are also efficient in quickly discharging this slug of water downstream regardless of consequence. Large areas of surface piped away such as paving and rooftops, have short concentration times, as does steep hillsides with grazing pasture. Straightening water courses shortens this time of concentration and confining water courses between floodbanks raises peak levels. The effect of this traditional stormwater design has been that peak flows have intensified but their duration shortened.But when combined with constrained water channels peak water levels have been raised increasingly often catastrophically. Rapid climate warming by increasing the energy available in weather systems is worldwide, exceeding the rate in which flood defences are being raised. In response enlightened authorities are moving towards designing to systematically lower the time of concentration of catchments. Such things as reafforestation of steep slopes, and the provision of more floodable channelside buffer water storage in wetlands and meadows, all to slow the time of stormwater concentration, in other words prolonging the period of high water flow as a trade off for reducing peak water levels. I am afraid though organisational inertia appears to be much greater then the rate of climate change induced storm intensification. The old ways of quickly draining the water without regard to downstream consequences are still very much in evidence even in new works. Compassion for the victims of flooding, or bush fires, is simply not enough. As a society we need to make drastic changes to how how we are doing things, urgently, like as of right now.

Thanks for the update. Hope that sleep is free from interruption. Don

You are firmly in "The Joy's of Boating Part 2" territory. I am praying that both you, your boat and your neighbours escape with nothing much more then a very cold wet and scary night. All the best and don't worry about Brexit in the meantime!