Why Ethanol (E15) is Bad for Boats – the really quick version.

Gasoline is not your most exotic boat accessory purchase, but it will be your most frequent.  Yesterday the EPA moved ahead with its plan for E15.  I thought I’d explain the basics of why ethanol and boats do not mix.

Ethanol is a solvent.  It dissolves seals, gaskets, hoses and fiberglass fuel tanks.  Boats are different from cars because we will drive a mid-90’s boat and not think twice that the boat is currently 20 years old, long before ethanol was mixed in gasoline. Long before it was shown that ethanol would dissolve the rubber in gas hoses.  (Problem!)

Ethanol also degrades quickly, meaning it typically does not have the shelf life to last a  winter storage season.

Ethanol also loves water.  It attracts it, and you don’t want water in any fuel tank.

These problems have been noticed in other small engines, for example, lawn mower engines.

But, why not cars?  Because a car is typically used on a daily basis and the fuel is replenished before it degrades.  What is degrading? Degrading in your boat fuel tank goes like this. The water sepatates to the bottom of the tank, then you take off and the bow goes up the fuel pushes to the lowest point where the pick up tube is… Guess what, since the water has separated from “non-use” its at the bottom of the tank so that is what gets pushed into the engines.  Next you hear sputtering, this article does a fantastic job explaining it. You really should read it.

But I promised a very quick version of why ethanol free fuel is important in your boat.

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I Got Sea Sick.

I’ve been lucky enough to take two cruises.  Great fun, awesome food, and sea sick both times.  I grew up “on a boat”, in fact my first boat ride was at 6 days old (so I’m told). I’ve never been sick on a boat ride, and there I was… standing in the gift shop of my first cruise ship vacation, and I immediately wanted to throw up.  It was the oddest thing.  I knew if I didn’t get into fresh air I was not going to make it.

Point A to point B got me to the deck and I felt better.  I sat in the lounge chair for a little while and thought, “I’m OK” so I headed back inside (of course attempting to get back to the gift store) and… nope… that wasn’t going to happen. It was nearly instant, I was queazy and felt green.  Why?  Why was this happening to me.  After 24 hours and getting off the ship at the first port, I was fine the rest of the cruise.   I was fine even with the 20 foot swells, imagine walking down the hallway and literally bouncing off one wall onto the other side. Wow!

The second cruise I thought, “I’ll prepare” — haha, there’s a laugh.  I took my sea sick prevention pills ahead of the cruise.  I even bought the bands for my wrists (never thinking I’d need them). We boarded the ship, I was fine and as soon as we got underway, it was 24 hours of misery.  I could tell right when I walked down the stairs toward our cabin.  I made another point A to point B dash right to my wrist bands.  I bought the pressure point style.  They do work… I felt less awful. I’m not sure if that’s an endorsement, but anything that could get me to force down (at least) dry toast was an accomplishment.  And almost as rapid as the onset was the relief, again it took 24 hours.

I bring this up because this morning I read an interesting article on sea sickness.  They don’t really know what causes it but the article has a hypothesis, and that is that your inner ears and vision don’t match causing overload in your brain.  OH, I’ll go with that theory.  Both times I became sea sick I found relief as soon I was able to get outside… I thought the fresh air made me feel better, but now I wonder if it was the combination of fresh air and being able to see the elements, that helped me, hummm.

My recommendations.  1) Go on a cruise, it’s fun. 2) Get a room with a veranda so you can go outside from your cabin. 3) Read the article about sea sickness  (Source: Seasickness prevention and cure: the good, the bad and the dreadful)  4) prepare for being sea sick and hope it doesn’t happen, because it’s awful!

Top Boating Insurance Claims

It seems funny that an article that’s three years old could still have relevance, but, when talking about insurance claims, things don’t change much.

The interesting idea I’d like you to take away from this article is how to prevent a bad time with your boat.  Sure, weather events like lightening or hurricanes are hard to take out of the equation… but theft, accidents and collisions have some degree of prevention for boat owners.

Read the article and as you are shopping for a boat, this should give you a good foundation of talking points with your agent.

This was the ranking a few years ago according to the article.

1-Hurricane
2-Sinking
3-Weather/Wind
4-Striking Submerged Object
5-Fire/Explosion
6-Collision
7-Grounding
8-Injury
9-Theft
10-Lightening