Unused Brand New Diesel Jerry Cans for Water?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Alan Mighty

Absolute nonsense.

First, you've given the wrong source. The citation should be to Deng Xiaoping, not Mao Zedong zhuxi.

The usual representation of Chairman Mao is that he might have been expected to care about the ideological character of a cat and to prefer a cat with a particular ideology over others, in expectation that all cats can catch rats.

The usual representation of Deng is the opposite. He is usually seen as pragmatic, wanting results or ends and not caring much about the means or worldview of the agents that were the means to those ends.

Second, you've created a racist monster, pretending that Chinese is some sort of unsophisticated language that is the equivalent of ungrammatical baby-talk English.

Third, you've ignored the history of the citation and its context.

Zhuo Lin, Deng Xiaoping's spouse, pointed to the ultimate source: the collection of Sichuan stories by Pu Songling entitled <Liaozhai zhiyi> [Strange tales from Liaozhi]. One of those stories had the line 'yellow cat or black cat, the rat-catcher is the powerful one' [huangli heili, deshuzhe xiong]. That follows object-comment word order (i.e. OC instead of the more usual SVO subject-verb-object word order of colloquial spoken Chinese). OC is not uncommon in written modern Chinese and is also quite common in classical Chinese.

Zhuo said that Deng had often carried Pu's book with him when travelling, as something to read before retiring for the night.

Deng was from Sichuan, albeit his family was one of many that had moved from Guangdong to Sichuan after a historical depopulation of Sichuan.

Pu's line was his version of an adage known in Sichuan: 'yellow cat or black cat, if it simply catches rats then it's a good cat' [huangmao heimao, zhiyao zhuazhu laoshu jiushi haomao]. Also in object-comment word order.

Deng Xiaoping's quote was 'it matters not if white cat or black cat, if it catches rats then it's a good cat' [buguan baimao heimao, zhuo dao laoshu jiushi haomao].

Wow, where did that come from?!


Alan, you are a fountain of erudition.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Wow, where did that come from?!


Alan, you are a fountain of erudition.

It may be in the water he is drinking! [emoji6]

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Alan, you are a fountain of erudition.

Not so!

By writing quickly, without taking the time to check sources etc, I made blunders, for which I apologise (I take my cue of course from the immortal Roland B. Hedley Jr., whom I'll paraphrase as "The time you spend reading my posts is gone, lost forever, carrying you closer to death. I try not to abuse the privilege.")

Blunder 1.
Pu Songling's 'Strange tales from Liaozhai' are folk tales, but not from Sichuan. There's no indication that the story that was the source of 'yellow cat, black cat' was from Sichuan.

Blunder 2.
The adage 'yellow cat, black cat' is also not necessarily from Sichuan. Pu Songling's 'Strange tales from Liaozhai' has been around for nearly 300 years and was clearly much read throughout China, Japan, Korea and the rest of the civilised world (including in translation in European tongues).

3. At the time I posted my time was constrained, so I only rendered the Chinese quickly in hanyu pinyin, not in hanzi. To be complete here are the cites in Chinese:

不管白猫黑猫,捉到老鼠就是好猫。 Deng Xiaoping

黄狸黑狸,得鼠者雄。Pu Songling <聊斋志异>

黄猫黑猫只要抓住老鼠就是好猫。Chinese adage

You'll note that Pu Songling's text is clearly in classical Chinese, not spoken modern standard Chinese. Classical Chinese is in some ways similar to Latin - it's very conservative of words and so can express a lot with just a few words. The adage and Deng Xiaoping's quote are more colloquial, more spoken than written. Chinese is of course, compared to English, more verb-oriented.

I won't go into whether it is better to translate huang 黄 as yellow or brown. The names of colours are culture-bound (e.g. is 'light blue' a colour or a shade of blue? what was meant by Homer's 'wine-dark sea'?). So if you prefer to read huang as brown, feel free.

4. Similarly I did not have time nor did I bother to give sources. Here're a couple:

(a) Chinese Wikipedia on "Strange tales from Liaozhai":
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%81...BF%97%E7%95%B0

That's in Chinese of course. Note that the article cites both Pu Songling's version of 'yellow cat, black cat' and Deng Xiaoping's 'white cat, black cat' and argues that Pu Songling's work influenced both Chairman Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

(b) the impoverished version of that page on English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strang...Chinese_Studio

[JPA Cate]

Dockhead,

Take the crew into "town", and ask the person at the store, "what do you have, about 10 liters in size that I can safely carry water in?" It could be for any food product they use.

If they have a cafe where fish and chips are cooked, possibly used oil containers would do it for you. Wash repeatedly with hot soapy water, rinse thoroughly. Are there large food grade containers of fruit sold? You can eat the fruit and drink the juice, and those containers will work well for water. No plastic-y taste.

Sometimes bakeries get milk in large containers. Those will work for water, will want careful cleaning, to get rid of milk solids at the tops. Get the locals helping, they'll love it, and it will help.

I also think the diesel jugs will work okay if they are the only "go." Yes, the water may taste funny. Too bad. You guys are grown ups having an adventure, and this is all part of it. If they have charcoal filters in town, you might be able to filter the water for drinking and coffee/tea. Hope you have a spare hand or foot pump you can install.

Ann

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Wow, where did that come from?!.....

Google......

[JeffH]

@hamburking
& I would strongly recommend replacing your fuel filler cap. The cost is negligible compared to having to pump out your fuel tank when some fuel dock attendant puts gas in when your back is turned. Or, heaven forfend, does that & then you actually start the engine!

[valhalla360]

Warning Thread Drift:

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Ha, ha
The I'net is amazing in this country -- I don't know what it cost per capita to install all this infrastructure for such a small population -- coverage far better than in the UK, and all of it LTE. Was the same in the Faroes, and indeed in all of the Nordic countries.

Assuming a lot of the remote villages had little or no communication links before the cell system, it was probably cheaper than running land lines. In the USA, land lines are slowly dying as it's drastically more expensive to maintain a network of land lines compared to cell towers. So the land line systems (particularly outside of urban areas) gets the minimum maintenance they can get away with.

But back to the point: For a one-off trip where you are very careful...I wouldn't worry about it.

...but as soon as I got back to where I could get legitimate water jugs I would switch to blue before Mr. Murphy decides I need 5 gal of water in the diesel tanks or vice versa.

[ZULU40]

I guess this a complete aside, however.

Originally of course the jerry can or gerri can was developed for the Wehrmacht, where fuel was marked with a W and and X for water.

At the time the Brits and consequently all Commonwealth forces were still using tins of either 2 or 4 Imp gallons or 4.8 USg, they were considered single use as the seams often proved to be weak and would leak.

After the Africa Corps lost Benghazi where jerry cans were acquired in quantity, the Brits seized them famously used by LRDG (Long Range Desert Group), in some ways the forerunner to the SAS. Brit fuel tins were used to make improvised stoves (for tea), to be called Benghazi burners.

The Brits did make their own jerry cans identical to the German product from several contractors, with the same 3 handle layout, filler and latch design. The standard Jerry can is still in use with NATO and even the Russians. Im so pleased we could finally agree on something.

Today we are expected to follow the code of red for gasoline, medium yellow for diesel and medium blue for kerosene. Zaya's is painted a suitable yellow with her name on it.

[Pelagic]

Thanks ZULU40, I enjoyed learning about that

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Wow, where did that come from?!


Alan, you are a fountain of erudition.

I'm assuming that to be literal.

[Larry Florida]

Polyethylene is available in food grade and non food grade. Same chemical composition, different purity specifications.

[Unregistered-1]

If you also have identical diesel cans, there will eventually be a mistake with contents.

[LargeMarge]

We owned restaurants for decades, so our perspective is from a place of not making people sick.

Our suggestion for your water handling:
Use food-grade containers. The designation 'NSF' (National Sanitation Foundation) is the industry standard for food processing.

Based on our experience and training, we would never use random containers for drinking water.

Heck, we wouldn't use random containers for wash water, either.

Acknowledged, boating can seem expensive, and we like to stretch our boating dollars... but sickness has a way of reducing the enjoyment of outdoor activities.

How much is your health worth?

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Is it safe to use brand new, unused diesel jerry cans for water? They seem to be pure polyethylene and don't smell like anything. Are they the same as water jerry cans, or not?

I would guess there would not be a problem. Lets face it there are other uses for water aboard that is not potable. I doubt doing dishes of showering would kill you.

[Ambler]

Why I chose 2 yellow plastic 20 litre diesel cans for carting water.

I have had opaque or clear water containers in the past and the UV made them brittle, The Canadian brand containers were all made of the same plastic according to the labelling but the red and yellow had far more pigment added which helps to keep the UV damage confined to the outer surface rather than making them brittle. The blue plastic version was opaque.

If I ever need to carry extra diesel sometime in the future I can use these as well as my Australian made black willow brand with O ring seals under both lids. The Canadian brand containers have leaked water due to their piss weak seal design and in my opinion are crap for carrying fuel anyway. Just because they're yellow hasn't made them suitable in my opinion.

I store them in the centre cockpit well, aft of wheel where I never stand and they wedge in well. So they do see a lot of sunlight.

I leave an air space in the top of both on a voyage so they float if I have to deploy my liferaft, being yellow and floating just on the surface will help me to retrieve them, then haul them in with me to provide extra balast and perhaps more drinking water shoul my EPIRB fail to bring rescue in 48 hours.

I have also refilled my 500 litre water tanks from waterfalls and roof water tanks as well as town water supplies with these 2 and a 10 litre flexible container. So thats 10 trips in the dinghy.

I use a 1 micron carbon filter in the galley to remove the plastic taste of my fibreglass boat storage tanks.

I have had a comment or two from a passer by when I am filling these with a tap. I just reply "I like living dangerously"