Fuel Rip-off in Georgetown, Exumma

[boatman61]

True.. Hitler had little stomach for invading Britain.. hence the mistake of invading Russia hoping for a walk over before the Japanese dragged the USA into the war..

[Kelkara]

Originally Posted by rwidman

If it wasn't for us Americans, the British would be speaking German today!

You were only 1400 years too late! After the Italians withdrew their military protection, the Germans had no problem invading England, we've been speaking their language ever since.

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by James S

I'm wondering about the container being filled.. it
seems reasonable that it would be subject to changes in it's size under different temperature influences . in fact.. I'm thinking that if it's plastic.. and given the geometry of a fuel container.. that a small degree of expansion or contraction in the perimiter "skin" would make a rather large difference in the volume..

Without good data, normalized for temperature and pressure, this argument is pointless. History is however littered with examples of this type of ripoff.

Fuel quality varies substantially from batch to batch both intentionally and unintentionally. You get large variations in volume and density from fuel straight from the refinery.

In motorsport we used to source our fuel from the labs where we could obtain fuel which was maxed out in terms of desirable additive tolerance and blends. Very noticeable on the dyno and very consistent in terms of volume and density.

You'd be better off conducting a statistical analysis at many fuel sources. That's what the weights and measures folks do when investigating these issues.

[James S]

hmmm.. ok.. Yes.. I agree that history is littered with this type of rip off..
But as a former supplier of bulk fuel (60,000 litters daily from sea level to 1200 meters) I can speak of my experience.. and it is that calibration is typically imposed on equipment used for the delivery of fuel and, outside of the calibration equipment it's self, not the receptical.
Also as a yacht owner and human with multiple flaws.. I have stored fuel improperly in plastic containers not allowing for proper ventilation (generally by screewing the caps down over bits of plastic to avoid leakage.. very bad idea) then left said containers in a thermaly unstable environment causing quite extreme ballooning of the container..
I would be very sceptical of the volume markings on those containers after that..
And we do know that these containers do expand and contract under the influence of temperature variations...i.e. thermal expansion.. caused by molecular translational energy (if i remember some science homework correctly .. which is suspect at best)
Just my humble (bowing my head) opinion.

[Sea Life]

Just paid over $5 gallon here in San Blas, Panama. They call it a "guna gallon". Probably got 10 gallons for the price of 12.5. But that is the price of cruising remote areas. No other options. So $5.50 for a true gallon, or $5.00 for a short gallon....again, doesn't matter. Don't like it, row!

I worry more about quality anyway. Cheap gas gets expensive real quick when it buggers up your outboard.