After 12 weeks I finally just got aggravated, called Tartan, and cancelled my tank order for a refund. It's unbelievable, but in the entire time, Chris Ranney at Tartan never once spoke to me on the phone and would only occasionally answer emails. Calls go to his voicemail, and it is full. I would get any info by speaking to the secretaries that answered the phone or calling Kracor directly. A lot of the blame is on Kracor, but Chris Ranney's inaction and unavailability is just awful. If you need anything from Tartan.....good luck to you. I'll never do business with them again.
Anyways, I've ordered the 52 gallon Plastimo flexible water tank. I'm laying down rubber interlocking tiles in the bilge for protection and ventilation (I scraped out the foam stuff under the old tank). Then I'll put memory foam carpet underlay on top of the tiles and up all the walls. Going to secure all that with double sided extreme mounting tape. Once I get that all in, I'll figure out how to secure the tank from shifting around too much. Thinking I'll also cover any hose clamps with neoprene.
My old tank is gone so not using it for a case for the bladder like others have done. Plus the 52 gallon bladder is 69" empty (should be about 60" full), and the tank is only 55" long. I'll be the guinea pig here to see how it fits. I think it'll be just right, but the memory foam may be pressed into the forward area close to where my water pump is. Will let everyone know how I manage this.
At $170, I can experiment for a while when we are out cruising and go through a few bladders before I'd come anywhere near feeling like we should have shelled out $1000-$2000 for a different tank solution. We've been waiting for the other tank to head off to the Bahamas so we'll be giving the Plastimo a field trial right away.
A note on the volume of our large tank that is supposed to be 65 gallons. We could only ever get about 7 of our 6 gallon Reliance jugs to fit in it. I had guessed/hoped that more than 6 gallons actually fit in those when completely filled. So, we tested with a gallon milk jug. 6 gallons and maybe an extra tenth of a gallon when completely filled. The top of our old water tank was a little concave, but we now know we were only getting 40-42 gallons in it (45 at the most). Also, the small tank fits just shy of 4 of the Reliance jugs making it 25 gallons at the absolute most.
_________________ Zach Duncan SV Holiday Hull# 280
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