Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am having a boat built in Maine and have hired a
technical consultant and one of the current issues is what type of fuel hoses
should be used.  I am told that the Parker Hannifin hoses and fittings are the
best, and from my professional background know that to be true--both in hose
and fitting reliability.  However the cost to upgrade from
traditionjal Trident fuel hose and appropriate fittings to the Parker hose and
fittings is approximately $3500.  A hell of a lot of money.  The real question
is what is adequate/good enough, not necessarily what is best.

That said, the
boat is a power Catamaran and the engine room space is limited in each hull
and this includes hoses for two engines, genset and fuel polishing system.  My
question to you all are as follows-

1-What comments do those of you with
direct experience have regarding traditional Trident diesel hose vs Parker?
2-Would any of you pay more for a boat plumbed with the PArker material on the
used market?

3-Your view of the adequacy/reliability of traditional Trident
fuel hose and appropriate fittings for a 10 year service life.

And finally,
as appropriate for this site, any damn comments or opinions you wish to offer.
Many thanks,

Gary Hagstrom
Building Crackerjack, a MaineCat P-47
www.mecat.com

Iron River, Wisconsin

Home 715-372-5256
Mobile 925-212-0296
ghagstrom@yahoo.com

1-What comments do those of you with
direct experience have regarding traditional Trident diesel hose vs Parker?

Reply:
I know the dilemma that you feel that you are facing, but I think that you
worded your question well... "does it make a difference?"

I used Trident, type A hose on the sailboat that I built, and when we sold it,
10 years later, the hoses were still in good shape. No sign of deterioration,
at least from the outside, and at the ends, where I was able to see into the
hose when I had disconnected a couple of the hoses,

On our trawler I used the same hose and five years later they too have all
appearances of being in good shape.

I have no idea how long Parker hose will last before needing to be replaced,
but it sounds like you can buy an awful lot of Trident hose for the
difference. If Parker hose does last significantly longer than Trident hose,
maybe you could strike a compromise... use Parker hose in those impossible to
reach areas, and use Trident hose in locations where the hose would be easier
to replace.

No matter which hose you use, it will need to be replaced at some point in the
future so I'd suggest considering installing all of the hose in such a manner
that would make replacing it as easy as possible, even at the expense of
appearance.

A couple months ago I had a job of replacing hoses on a 60+ sportfisher. The
hoses were run in a manner that added days of work to the job, and I had to
cut holes to get to some of the hose. That type of installation just doesn't
make sense to me, but my pocketbook liked it.

Rudy
Briney Bug, Panama City, Fl

Why use hoses? The only place I have them is where I need flexability from
stringers to engines. Most generators come with a short length of hose from
the gen set bed to the gen set engine. I doubt I have 8' of hose with 2
engines and 2 gensets on Rollsdoc. I think the Parker is way over kill. Hard
to work with and the blue coloring is yuk. We have  all copper connecting 6
tanks to the day tank. Then all is copper to engines and gen sets. You could
even paint the copper differant colors for supply and return. I've used the
Aero-Quip push on ends and hoses when I need flexability for years with no
problems but they are not CG approved as we are not a CG inspected vessel.
System looks much neater than having hoses with clamps or or large fittings on
each end.

Rodger
Rollsdoc
MT49PH