Cooking Oil instead of Diesel - yes you can do it!
by Melissa Yeager, WINK News/Sail-World on 13 Oct 2008
Ramsay Drummond - leading the way SW
A Florida boat captain is leading the way by example, using cooking oil in his commercial fishing boat instead of the regular diesel. His example is drawing lots of attention, even from Florida senators.
From the dock, Captain Ramsey Drummond's boat looks like all the others. Once you step on board, you'll notice it smells a little like french fries.
Captain Ramsey has converted his charter fishing boat himself to run on bio-diesel.
'At the time, it was about $4.62 a gallon for off road diesel,' said Ramsey Drummond, 'So you figure in the middle of season we'd burn through about a thousand a week. so you're looking at 4500 a week just in fuel.'
Now he processes his own fuel at home, using cooking oil from the fryers from the restaurant next to his business. It costs him $1.35 a gallon. It keeps the engine on his boat running smoothly, and saves him more than $3,000 dollars a week.
'When you're working on a small budget and trying to keep a boat a float, it definitely helped,' said Drummond.
Drummond says customers have also liked the change because now they don't get sick from the sulfur smell of diesel fuel.
In a crashed economy, it is the innovative who will survive - Anyone else out there doing something similar? Let us know about it at Sail-World Cruising!
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/49725
