Rob Murray’s article on the well-dressed power cord made us realize that we dress other things on the boat, too. Naida’s jerry cans are outfitted with covers that match her livery and provide more than just great esthetics. Anne made our covers, using a design that came from friend and BCA member Torsten Schulz of Fortitude X. Since the jerry cans are outside year-round, UV protection is quite important. The covers also protect the cans from chafe – we’ve heard from other cruisers who experienced leaking jerry cans on deck from wear and tear. You can imagine that mess and hazard! Additionally, the covers keep the fuel in the dark, which I assume limits the growth of things in the fuel.

Jerry can without and with its new cover

The need for jerry cans onboard Naida was a topic of discussion for quite a while before we departed Vancouver, and it was revisited over our two seasons in Mexico. Ken was against carrying additional fuel in jerry cans as we hold 400L of diesel in our two tanks. Anne advocated for the security of having some additional fuel available. At some point, Anne read that there are limited places in French Polynesia where you can pull up to a fuel dock, so having jerry cans to schlep fuel is highly recommended. This convinced Ken that we needed some cans on board. Initially, we purchased two cans that we kept in a cockpit locker for our second season in Mexico, in anticipation of our spring departure for French Polynesia. Since that time our thoughts on jerry cans have evolved. We now have five 20L diesel cans in addition to one 25L gas can that are all secured on deck.

Another great reason to have cans on board is that someone may need fuel and the easiest way to get it to them is in your jerry cans. Each year on passage, any passage, someone has problems and needs to motor a much longer distance than they intended. We donated our original two jerry cans to help Niniwahuni motor back to Mexico when they lost their rig. At that point we decided we should carry more fuel on our passage to French Polynesia and purchased five 20L jerry cans. We also had two stainless steel rails constructed that bolt between two of our stanchions and help to secure the jerry cans on deck. The photo at the start of the article shows three jerry cans secured on the port deck of Naida as we approach Fatu Hiva. The other cans are on the starboard deck.  I’m still not a fan of having them on deck, but we haven’t come up with any other place to keep them. On the plus side, we do look like cool voyagers with our jerry cans on display.

Left: Strap and cord secure the cans; Right: Strap around stainless steel retaining bar

While we did have both main fuel tanks cleaned before leaving Vancouver and always use a biocide when refueling, an additional bonus of having the cans is that fuel can be fed directly to the engine should we ever have a blockage in the fuel lines from the main tanks.

We currently use a rattle siphon to manually transfer the fuel from the cans to the main tanks via the deck fills. It is very awkward to attempt to pour from the cans to the deck fills, even with a funnel. We haven’t found a drill pump in French Polynesia, so we might bring one back next time we are home. So far we’ve only transferred fuel when at anchor in calm conditions. We need to sit the fuel can on the cockpit coaming to transfer the fuel into the fitting that is mounted flat on the deck beside the cockpit. We’d hate to have to do this at sea in rough conditions as one can see spilling diesel or having water wash on deck and rush down into the open deck fill. Multi-time circumnavigator Jeanne Socrates commented to us that she moved her deck fills into the cockpit for just this reason.

Accessing Fuel in French Polynesia

It turns out that there are some fuel docks in French Polynesia, but the jerry cans are still our most common way of refueling. We tend to keep the main tanks topped up via the jerry cans and refill the cans whenever we empty them.

Taiohae Bay on Nuku Hiva has a fuel dock for the brave. The swell rolls into the bay and the fuel dock has no protection from the swell. We didn’t attempt it but it was described to us this way: you need to drop your anchor and back toward the fuel dock where you can secure a couple of stern lines and tension your anchor rode to hold the boat off the concrete pier. The attendant, who is well above you, passes you a fuel hose with no nozzle. The attendant controls the flow from the pump, which is way, way across the pier. This means you need to have the attendant stop the flow while there is still room in the tank for all the fuel in the hose – all while the boat is rocking up and down. Maybe you will be lucky, and it will be one of the rare calm days when you need fuel. We opted to pay Kevin Ellis of Nuku Hiva Yacht Services 1500XPF (~$15) to drive us with our five cans to and from the fuel station. Back at the dock, he even helped load the jerry cans into our dinghy.

The next fuel dock we encountered was in the Tuamotus in Fakarava Atoll. That was easy to access but again we chose simply to bring our five cans in the dinghy as we didn’t need much. We were fortunate that they had fuel in Fakarava. We heard of many periods of limited or no fuel due to supply ship interruptions.

Marina Taina in Tahiti has a convenient fuel dock where we did bring Naida and fill the main tanks and the jerry cans. Raiatea and Bora Bora both have convenient fuel docks, neither of which we have used.

Our experience both in French Polynesia and Mexico is that fuel is of good quality. It is consumed rapidly in the places we have been and is stored properly. We do have a Racor funnel filter that we occasionally use when filling, but it never appears to have been needed as there is never anything trapped in the filter.