I once picked up bad fuel, which lead me to consider the following precautions: We never took on fuel if the storage tanks were near empty. We tried to take on fuel where the fishing or commercial boats got their supplies, with high volumes of fuel pumped. We looked for signs that the fuel filters on the pumps were changed regularly We would take a small sample in a clear container, or in a larger container and pour into a clear container before going ahead with filling tanks. We did use a multi stage filter. An origional box type Baja filter--held about 5 gallons of fuel, with successively finer screens, and a small ridge between the fill piple and bottom of the filter, so that any water could be seen, and trapped. The problem with this is that it makes fueling slower than normal. We self contaminated fuel, when we had the vent under water for a prolonged time, (motorsailor) and picked up salt water in the tank. In this case, fortunately we had less than half of our tanks full, and ran the contaminated fuel thru our onboard polishing system, into the good tank until we were getting badly contaminated fuel--and then we opened the tank man hole. The remainder of the material was pumped into containers--and I'll have to admit dumped at sea. We then cleaned the bottom of the tanks with paper towels, and transfered the fuel back to the tank--we also made sure that all of the fuel lines were clear of contaminated fuel. I am aware of Steve Dashew's thoughts that his costs of operation for his last sailboat were more than for the most recent passagemaker. I have the greatest respect for Steve and Linda. But one has to understand both how and where they sail, as well as their various philosophies. Also consider how much each of his boats cost to build. We have made a number of ocean crossings with the only fuel use being 50 gallons for generator and manuevering at origin and destination of the passage. Bob Austin