Getting ready

We have a spreadsheet that was used to record fuel consumption on a large sailboat. It has rows which look like this:

date engine on fuel height
engine off
Other notes
10/25/2013 08:24 29
13:15 27
calm seas—anchor solomon's island
10/26/2013 09:12 27
18:25 22
choppy—anchor in jackson's creek

 

Fuel height? Yes. There's no float sensor to estimate the level of fuel in the tanks. Instead there's a sight-gauge that allows direct observation of the fuel. It's calibrated in inches of depth. For all practical purposes the tank is rectangular, so the depth shown can be converted to volume pretty easily—31 inches of depth is about 75 gallons.

What's important is that the spreadsheet data is not properly ...

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