My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel problems
in a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to polish his
fuel, there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc
and traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income? What
would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and then by
the gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me! It's
not spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service you may
someday want.
Thanks
Gordon

Gordon wrote:
My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel
problems in a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to
polish his fuel, there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc
and traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income?
What would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and
then by the gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me!
It's not spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service
you may someday want.
Thanks
Gordon

Sounds like a good way to go bust fairly quickly, unless he sells cheap
inline filters as a sideline.

"Gordon" wrote in message
...
My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel problems in
a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to polish his fuel,
there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc and
traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income? What
would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and then by the
gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me! It's not
spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service you may someday
want.
Thanks
Gordon

There was such a service in the LA/Long Beach/Alamitos Bay area, possibly
more than one, and it was a rather valuable service that seemed popular.
This past spring I was looking for a similar service here in Marinette
Wisconsin, nobody had ever heard of such a critter. The thing is that
Essie's tank holds about 40 gallons of diesel, which is good for about 200+
hours of motoring. At my current burn rate, I should need to fill the tank
again sometime around the end of the Iraq war -- call it four years from
now, give or take.

Fuel sitting in the tank tends to pick up greyish black particulates. These
filter out and don't cause me any engine problems, but I would prefer to
polish the fuel at least at the beginning of each season. The only other
option seems to be to keep a minimum amount of fuel in my tank and risk
considerable water condensation problems.

Therefore, it is my considered opinion that you'll either go broke or make a
go of it. But the service should cost no more than...hmmmm, what would I be
willing to pay? A buck fifty per gallon of fuel polished? Dunno. What is
reasonable?

He will probably go broke as fuel polishing is a treatment to a symptom
of a tank that needs cleaning, as polishing the fluid in a dirty tank
doesnt remove the problem but only the symptoms. Since his 'polishing'
service wont solve the problem but only temporarily remove the
symptoms, the 'call back' and customer complaints are going be costly.
Recirculation polishing will only reduce the 'background' particles
from the fluid and wont do anything for the source of the particles
that are growing/agglomerating on the tank walls, etc. ... that will
immediately be available to recontaminate and issue particles to the
fluid. What he needs to better consider is a tank 'cleaning' service
.... where polishing is used to remediate what the cleaning doesnt
remove.

Commercial filter polishing is a learned 'art form' and will require a
bit of lab equipment to verify/validate the removal - otherwise like
posted above, its may be quite costly to serve all the 'call-back', and
unhappy customers.








In article , Gordon
wrote:

My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel problems
in a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to polish his
fuel, there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc
and traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income? What
would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and then by
the gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me! It's
not spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service you may
someday want.
Thanks
Gordon

KLC Lewis wrote:
"Gordon" wrote in message
...

My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel problems in
a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to polish his fuel,
there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc and
traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income? What
would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and then by the
gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me! It's not
spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service you may someday
want.
Thanks
Gordon


There was such a service in the LA/Long Beach/Alamitos Bay area, possibly
more than one, and it was a rather valuable service that seemed popular.
This past spring I was looking for a similar service here in Marinette
Wisconsin, nobody had ever heard of such a critter. The thing is that
Essie's tank holds about 40 gallons of diesel, which is good for about 200+
hours of motoring. At my current burn rate, I should need to fill the tank
again sometime around the end of the Iraq war -- call it four years from
now, give or take.

Fuel sitting in the tank tends to pick up greyish black particulates. These
filter out and don't cause me any engine problems, but I would prefer to
polish the fuel at least at the beginning of each season. The only other
option seems to be to keep a minimum amount of fuel in my tank and risk
considerable water condensation problems.

Therefore, it is my considered opinion that you'll either go broke or make a
go of it. But the service should cost no more than...hmmmm, what would I be
willing to pay? A buck fifty per gallon of fuel polished? Dunno. What is
reasonable?


There are at least four "fuel polishing" ad's in the local boating
newspaper here in Ft. Lauderdale. They have been in business a number of
years. My neighbor used on a few months ago. The guy drove up with a 55
gal. drum on wheels in a trailor, a big pump, hoses, a fuel gallons
counter and a huge Racor filter. He removed the access port to the tank,
dropped a pickup and return line in the tank. When the fuel was being
pumped through the filter he sprayed the returning fuel around the sides
of the tank and moved the pickup around the bottom. Did a good job.
Charged $100 to filter 40 gallons.
krj

Gordon wrote in news:12k4if17qre2e41
@corp.supernews.com:

So, is this feasible?

I would think his first stop was the local/state/EPA pollution control
bureaucrats who are going to be VERY interested in its operation, taxing
and licensing. Wanna bet it's going to require a master's license with
HAZMAT handling endorsement(s) before it even gets off the ground?



--
-- (shameless tagline) --
If you're sending someone some Styrofoam,
what do you pack it in?

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:23:48 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

There was such a service in the LA/Long Beach/Alamitos Bay area, possibly
more than one, and it was a rather valuable service that seemed popular.
This past spring I was looking for a similar service here in Marinette
Wisconsin, nobody had ever heard of such a critter. The thing is that
Essie's tank holds about 40 gallons of diesel, which is good for about 200+
hours of motoring. At my current burn rate, I should need to fill the tank
again sometime around the end of the Iraq war -- call it four years from
now, give or take.

What you need is a smaller tank. Think about a day tank, only a few
gallons or so, you can hook up to your fuel intake. You can also fill
it wherever you want and avoid paying marina rates.

Steve

"Steve" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:23:48 -0500, "KLC Lewis"
wrote:

There was such a service in the LA/Long Beach/Alamitos Bay area, possibly
more than one, and it was a rather valuable service that seemed popular.
This past spring I was looking for a similar service here in Marinette
Wisconsin, nobody had ever heard of such a critter. The thing is that
Essie's tank holds about 40 gallons of diesel, which is good for about
200+
hours of motoring. At my current burn rate, I should need to fill the tank
again sometime around the end of the Iraq war -- call it four years from
now, give or take.

What you need is a smaller tank. Think about a day tank, only a few
gallons or so, you can hook up to your fuel intake. You can also fill
it wherever you want and avoid paying marina rates.

Steve

I'm thinking along those lines, but in the meantime I've still got all that
fuel in the big tank and I'd hate to just dump it. It burns clean and,
despite the color, it doesn't clog up my filters.

On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:03:02 -0700, Gordon wrote:

My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel problems
in a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to polish his
fuel, there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc
and traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income? What
would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and then by
the gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me! It's
not spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service you may
someday want.


There's such a service in Bellingham, WA, and I see them working somewhere
in the marina almost every day. But Bellingham has a large enough harbor
-- 1500-2000 boats and plenty of big ones -- to keep such a service in
business.

They have their equipment on carts, which they wheel down the docks. They
may have a boat too.

We've used their services when someone put water in a fuel tank. I think
they also checked the tank's condition with a video camera after removing
the fuel (ours were perfect).

I don't know what they charged, but I could probably find out.

Matt O.

I picked up 10 gals of really bad fuel at the West End, Bahamas.
Fortunately it was only in one tank, and just before the trip I had finished
the install on the second racor. I can now switch either tank thru either
filter. When I got back to St. Augustine there was a fellow a few boats down
that was polishing fuel on a trawler.
The following day he polished mine. One tank (40 gals) for $220. It was
full of gunk! What surprised me also was I had filtered it thru one of West
Marine's fuel strainers the Practical Sailor had raved about. Comparible to
the Baja at a fraction of the cost.
Needless to say I return it to WM and bought a Baja.

--

Jay A. Howell
Registered Representative
Financial Network Investment Corporation, Member SIPC
4950 Westgrove Drive, Suite 130
Dallas, TX 75248
(817) 265-3513 personal office
(817) 265-2813 fax
"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 11:03:02 -0700, Gordon wrote:

My neighbor, who is a bit of an entrepreneur, had dirty fuel problems
in a cruising sailboat. When he tried to find a service to polish his
fuel, there wasn't one.
So his idea is to start such a service. Finding a serviceable old
bowpicker or such with deck space for barrels, hoses, spill gear, etc
and traveling marina to marina with pre publicity to service all those
pleasure boats that feel they may have a need.
So, is this feasible? Enough customers for a reasonable income? What
would customers be willing to pay? Bill by minimum charge and then by
the gallon or poundage on top of that?

If you feel this is spam don't bother answering. Just plonk me! It's
not spam, it's just looking for help to maybe set up a service you may
someday want.


There's such a service in Bellingham, WA, and I see them working somewhere
in the marina almost every day. But Bellingham has a large enough harbor
-- 1500-2000 boats and plenty of big ones -- to keep such a service in
business.

They have their equipment on carts, which they wheel down the docks. They
may have a boat too.

We've used their services when someone put water in a fuel tank. I think
they also checked the tank's condition with a video camera after removing
the fuel (ours were perfect).

I don't know what they charged, but I could probably find out.

Matt O.