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Everytime I read The Shooting Star I always get puzzled by the scene on Pg31 (Methuen) where the 'Golden Oil II' is filling the tanks of the 'Aurora' (via the 'Sirius').

It seems a daft question but how can a vessel the size of the Golden Oil II contain enough of the stuff to fill the tanks of the much larger vessel?

Mind you, It could be because It's only supplying oil and not diesel?

I know I'm missing something blindingly obvious. Please put me right. :)


Agh! Mods can you make it random and not randon. Thanks!
Done! - Mod.

Hi Ranko.

Two solutions occur to me:

1) The smaller vessel (Golden Oil II) being a purpose built refuelling tanker, is entirely full of oil, whereas only a small proportion of the larger vessels it's refuelling would be taken up by their fuel tanks. In other words, as long as the Golden Oil's entire hold area is as big as the fuel tanks on the bigger vessels, it could do the refuelling job.

2) Maybe the Golden Oil is simply taking one end of a hose out to the Sirius, and the other end of the hose is connected to a larger storage tank onshore. I'd need to look at the book (which I don't have to hand) to see if that looks possible. And I'm not sure if such a system would make sense with the way ships are refuelled. My first idea seems more likely.

Beats me as well, but I reckon the Golden Oil II can contain engough oil for the Aurora. After all the Aurora is not a huge ship.

Ranko's problem is difficult to solve. Let's hope one tintinologist is a real sea dog and tells us the truth. :)

What we're not shown is the hose coming back out of the tank of the Aurora on the seaboard side, and back into the reserves on the Golden Oil II...!

If you look at the 5 th frame on 31, you can see only one hose leaving the Golden Oil and no other hoses. To me there is just one "output" hose going through the Sirius into the Aurora. I can't find any evidence of a larger storage tank onshore either. All the oil must be from the Golden Oil.

I think Balthazar is kind of on to it with his first solution. I'm under the (mistaken?) impression that diesel and oil tanks would be filled seperately on a ship. That being said, I can't possibly see how the Golden Oil II could hold enough diesel for the size of the Aurora. If it was being filled with oil, then yes, possibly.

Going back over the previous few pages the talk is definitely of 'fuel oil' which I had quick search on and came upon this wikipedia article, which states:

This interesting picture accompanied the article. It seems to answer the question.

Those little vessels must be one giant fuel tank!!