Well.... no snark intended here, but you might want to avoid creating 17 hour sequences. It is really unusual, and likely something coders won't being losing sleep over trying to adjust. Generally, the timeline is where a single sequence or program is constructed. If you are needing to portray an actual real passage in time without breaks, you should break that up into more manageable sequences. After all, no one is going to watch a 15+ hour program. Speaking more generically, the raw footage should remain in the project panel, and the trimmed bits should assembled in the timeline into a sequence or program.
Best of Luck