Sunsail Charters

1000 less headaches

Rarely do you meet anyone who owns 1000 yachts and sailboats. When they speak, we listen! Earlier this year the largest charter company in the world made Algae-X Fuel Conditioners and AFC-705 Fuel Catalyst standard equipment on all new vessels. How many is that? Approximately 250 new yachts a year! Staggering figures for most companies, but not for Sunsail Charter whom already owns over 1000 yachts and sailboats, it’s small change.

Sunsail currently has the largest charter fleet in the world with 36 bases around the world with a 3 to 5 year charter life (www.sunsail.com). They offer the biggest and best choice of sailing vacations in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Indian Ocean for experienced sailors as well as complete beginners.

Sunsail has come to mean reliability, quality and value for money. They are always expanding on these features ensuring the best for their clientele. “We wanted to add that extra touch of safety and reliability for our customers” says Martin Challis, Group Technical Manager for Sunsail Charters. He contacted Algae-X and explained the fuel problem they were having to Chief Engineer, Chris Tschegg.

“Our charter boats are replaced every few years so we have lots of 5 year old yachts that have to undertake a long offshore sea delivery back to the US or mainland Europe to be sold. Although the engines run OK in more sheltered waters of their charter area the accumulation of sludge in the tank is stirred up as soon as the yacht is offshore and blocks the filters and fuel system so the engine becomes inoperable.”

“I spoke to Chris Tschegg of Algae-X and he explained to me a way to reduce downtime, increase filter life and reliability as well as make our fleet more environmentally friendly. He said the fuel had formed clusters and sediments, which were clogging the filters. He recommended I use the AFC 705 Fuel Catalyst and an LGX 200 Fuel Conditioner inline.”

In my job I continuously get approached by people with “wonder products”, many of which don’t work, so I am naturally suspicious and test most things myself before fitting to our charter yachts. This is what happened: I ran the LGX 200 on a small electric fuel pump on the tank of my boat that had so much sludge it which was blocking the filters. Afterwards I took a fuel sample and all the sludge was gone.

I then took it one step further. My diesel car always needs a fuel additive but even then runs badly on cheap “supermarket” diesel, which I have to avoid. So I tried AFC 705 Additive and the car ran noticeably better than with any of the other additives and even ran ok on the cheap fuel. It’s the best additive I have seen and after a few fills even seems to have improved fuel economy.

Now I was starting to believe in this.

Chris assured me fitting the LGX 200 Fuel Conditioner inline to all new yachts would prevent the accumulation of sludge over the years so we decided to fit that to all new yachts. It was not so easy to retrofit the LGX200 to all the worldwide fleet but I still had to stop those expensive breakdowns when the boats were on long distance sailing deliveries. For those older boats returning from their charter area Chris recommended a heavy treatment of AFC 705 Fuel Catalyst. So we supplied all our charter bases with AFC 705 Fuel Catalyst to deal with the existing sludge.

Last week I had a very positive report from our Seychelles operation. Fuel quality and local conditions have always made this area the worst for fuel problems. Without exception every yacht in the last 4 years that has left our Seychelles fleet to sail back to Europe has had serious engine breakdowns due to sludge. A few weeks ago we had a 6 year old due to sail back. These boats have 2 engines and no inspection hatch in the tank so no way to clean the tank. So here was the real test. We added a heavy dose of Fuel Catalyst before departure and gave the skipper the rest of the bottle to add when refilling along the way. The boat arrived in South France with both engines running perfectly and the skipper never even had to use one of the many spare fuel filters we always have to put aboard for these offshore passages.

Amazing, I am now totally convinced.”

Now I make the LG-X units and AFC-705 Fuel Catalyst standard equipment for every one of our new vessels. The inexpensive units prevent fuel filter problems, unsatisfied customers and a lot of headaches.”

ALGAE-X is the worldwide leader in Total Fuel Management Systems to Optimize Fuel Quality to promote Peak Engine Performance and Reliability. ALGAE-X technology improves the stability and quality of fuels resulting in improved combustion, significant reduction in particulate emissions and lower overall operating and maintenance costs.

Sunsail is the leading provider of yacht charter and water sports sailing holidays worldwide.