Anyone ever had a steel fuel tank fail?

meridian said:

Side decks on Kk42 are only 14” wide. What year are you looking at? The first few years were fiberglass tanks.

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'83 to '88 currently. All steel in those years? Yeah, I guess that 14" would make that a non-starter without brutalizing the salon walls

I’ve got a good write up on replacing them. PM me and I’ll send it to you.

diver dave said:

Question for the KK42 and GB42 folks. If you are faced with both a deck job and a tank job, is it a feasible option to pull the tanks UP and OUT? IOW, is there structural framing below deck that makes this very difficult?
I've been looking a buying one or the other. (yes, I know they are not close in performance)

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No, won't work as the tanks are wider than the side decks. Choice is to cut the two 350 gallon tanks out and either replace with smaller tanks - mine were four 110 US gallon tanks, or remove the main engine and replace with two 350 tanks the same shape as the originals.

I was happy with the smaller tanks. Would be a problem if you were going to cross oceans. However I just returned from St. Lucia, total 1550 nm. Fueled up in St. Lucia and again in Puerto Rico (250 gallons). When we reached Stuart Florida we had 80 to 100 gallons left.

We replaced the tanks on Hobo in 2016. I can’t say I’d do it again. The replacement tanks were ~$11k just for the tanks.

Here’s the thread with some pictures.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s32/krogen-42-fuel-tank-replacement-28204.html

I had 4 steel tanks with total capacity of 1000 USG. One had a pinhole (low, against the hull) but both lateral tanks had lots of flaking rust underneath. Rain entry via the ER vents was the issue. The aft tanks had lesser rust, but I replaced all of them. And re-powered since I had removed the engines to get the old tanks out. And I enlarged the aft tanks to give total capacity of 1240 USG. That was to give enough capacity to reach Hawaii from the west coast. But shipping costs halved, so I shipped home instead.

Would I do it again? No, the value is not there unless you keep the boat long term. Before I bought my boat I considered one that had been re-powered and had fuel tanks replaced. But it was $150k more. Biggest mistake of my life - I would have come out a long way in front had I bought it!

KK42; so, even with a single eng., the crane must come. hmmm.
What is the interior stringer/structure like, in the tank area? I'm going to suppose that a hull rectangle cut won't allow interior access for fiberglass tabbing top and bottom with the new tank mounted. Maybe only fore and aft access is available for interior hull reattach?