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It was a sunny Friday in June, June 20th, a very hot day over 35 C degrees, I arrived in Ayvalik Setur Marina to see my sailboat, Snow White after about 7 years. This was my first walk in onto the boat after many years due to Covid, work, family issues. It was in good shape, no apparent damage of broken pieces. However, I wrote down a few things right away: Boat is covered with dust need a good wash, all lines/halyards and batteries were dead, needed replacements, fuel tank needed to be empties and cleaned up, motor, a Volvo D255 needed major maintenance (if it ever worked). All electrical systems were working except a few lights, the heads needed replacement because they were so dry, navigation systems worked, VHF radio worked but not the regular radio. There were no faul smell anywhere including fresh water tank.
The very first thing I did was to order 2 house batteries and a starter battery. Total cost $1150. Then I washed the top and did a routine cleaning inside to get rid of years of accumulated dust and dirt. I took all the cushion covers, linens, clothes etc. home to do a marathon laundry. Then I removed the fuel gauge and took a peek inside the fuel tank. Not much except for diesel showing half way full. Acting on the advise, I emptied the tank and took a second look inside. then I noticed yellowish looking slime at the bottom. The technicians on site told me to remove the tank and clean it with either gasoline or thinner to kill all the bacterial build up.
I ordered a paint job complete with sanding, plastering, and three coats of poison. We made a package deal, the top portion of the boat was also polished head to toe. In addition, the top flat window was resealed just in case.
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Be careful for those screws. The seals (round, black) underneath them was broken and started leaking when I had the tank filled up. It did not down on me until I unscrew them to check.
As an engineering practice, I started marking everything I dismantled and took picture how they looked before disassemble anything. I regret those time when I did not apply this rule. Anyway, I proceed to empty the fuel tank and pumped them into multiple plastic containers, later sold them at half price to a farmer with tractors. Once I saw the amount of sludge at the bottom, I decided that tank had to be thoroghly cleaned. That means removal. Next step was to take out all house batteries, remove side panels and remove the two hoses in the back. Removing the hoses was very difficult, so the marine shop technician was called in, he also helped to remove top bar. We flipped boat side ways, unhook the metal rod (which held the metal rod in the bottom), voila! the tank came loose, we took it out and placed it on the the ground. Due to danger, I did not use gasoline nor thinner but used chlorium based cleaner to kill the backteria. All discharge went to the recycle deparment. Finally, I pressure washed the inside tank several times until I was happy to see a very clean tank. We decided to leave the tank out until it was bone dry and there was no smell.
This picture above is taken just before the removing air hoses and side panels. Below showed the condition of the fuel hose entering the tank. The smaller air hose was easy to remove, but this one was difficult until the technican was able to rotate it around.
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Voyages of "SNOW
WHITE"
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img src="images/Didilli1.jpg" width="470" height="352" alt="dinner">
Catching fish by hand -->>click here 
