Not long ago, a friend of one of Power and Motoryacht’s editors had a fuel spill aboard a new-to-her beautifully restored cabin cruiser: The previous owner had replaced the original I/O with a two-stroke outboard, installing a new gas tank in the process. However, although he removed the original tank and its plumbing, he left the original deck fill and simply forgot to inform the new owner. Naturally, Murphy’s Law took over and about five gallons of 50:1 oil/gasoline premix went into the now-disconnected fill before the problem was caught—while the boat was on the water. Thanks to the boat’s design, the raw gas spilled into the deckhouse, where most of it was soaked up by the carpet. Cleaning up the mess was thus easier than if the gas had ended up in the bilge—moving the carpet off the boat and letting the gas evaporate did most of the work. But the boat was still full of gas fumes for longer than anyone would like (weeks even with a big fan going and the boat wide open), and the two-stroke oil didn’t evaporate, so it had to be cleaned up—a real pain.
This was editor mentioned above literally had the rod-holder disaster happen to another friend a couple of weeks before the deadline for this column, so I guess it does happen. (Two gas mishaps strike the same editor’s friends in such a short time? He’s a nice guy, but I don’t think I’ll be running to the fuel dock with him anytime soon!)
