do you know about FUEL RETURNS? this story of the most expensive cinnamon buns on the planet will certainly help you remember - lessons can be expensive - these are on someone else's dime

ONCE upon a time, in a marina far, far away (powell river), there lived a boat with lots of valves in the engine room.

Our student ~ or 'VICTIM' ~ decided to change a few of the valves, not fully appreciating that diesel engines draw more fuel than they require & RETURN fuel back to the tanks. Being that 'a little knowledge is dangerous,' they inadvertently set up so that both engines drew fuel from the port tank & returned to the starboard tank.   Their journey took them to the top of TOBA inlet, at which point, their boat had a heavy list that wasn't noticed until both engines died & the boat came to a complete stop.  

Receiving the call (how they had phone coverage I may never know - at least something worked), it didn't take long to determine what had happened.  The adventure in the engine room had come to an end ~ they would not extend their 'tinkering' to bleeding out the entire fuel injection system, so we dispatched help.  

Friendly STU came to the rescue in his high speed vessel.  Knowing people would not be delighted about the whole experience, STU's craft made one emergency stop in LUND to take on 'mission critical' supplies.

When STU climbed aboard the listing, motionless craft at the head of TOBA, he said with his giant enthusiastic smile ~ "Hi, I'm here to get you running again - enjoy these fresh CINNAMON BUNS from NANCY'S BAKERY while I work".  Tinkering with something they didn't fully understand lead these people to enjoy the most expensive bakery items of their life - but they fully understood what happened & it never happened again.



In delivering our new addition "KITTIWAKE" to SIDNEY this week, being the recipient of that fateful call that lead to the infamous sticky bun delivery, I was quick to realize when one tank was gaining fuel and the other was losing fuel ~ something had to be amiss ~ enter that pesky "RETURN LINE" setup once again.  A couple trips to the engine room lead to a correction.  Be sure to familiarize yourself with all boat systems, monitor your gauges & only change settings you understand.



The cinnamon bun story allows this valuable lesson to be at someone else's expense.