nicknorman

However, in case other readers are not aware, you have a widebeam which allows you to have a lot more solar than on a narrowboat.

Well mine does. And earlier this year I put on the electric kettle (2kw) and then after a minute or two gingerly felt all the cell terminal bolts and interconnect busbars to see if any were warm or hot. They weren’t.

Obviously. But I doubt they do. There is a class action in the making against battleborn, and plenty of other people and groups are sounding warnings about their batteries overheating due to poor internal connections.

That is what the complainants are saying. Well they would say that, wouldn’t they. There would be unlikely to say “our batteries are dangerous but we are suing Will for pointing it out”.

It’s a canal but so normally there would be no increase in level unless extreme flooding. Might be below normal in a drought I suppose!

Ah yes, so all this fuss about the Gas Safe register is just hot air!

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If it’s anything like our Beta 43 install, there is an electric lift pump but also the mechanical lift pump on the engine. The former is “optional” depending on the installation, but anyway makes bleeding much easier. So there should be no problem with the engine continuing to run without the electric pump. Ours certainly does. Our engine also has a manual shut off lever adjacent to the solenoid. In the absence of that I guess you could block off the air inlet to force a stop, probably better than turning the fuel tap off.

I’m not sure that it makes any difference re airlocks, but in terms of getting rid of moving pockets of air, in an unpressurised system they escape through the header tank (which also allows air in!) whereas with a pressurised system there should be an automatic air vent at the highest point, typically a sort of float thing which sinks down when in air and opens the vent, and floats up to close the vent when the air has been expelled. A bit like a carburettor float chamber in reverse.

No, water is incompressible so no thicker, denser or more viscous when under pressure. A pressurised system should have some sort of automatic air vent. The advantage of a pressurised system is that fresh oxygen can’t get in - it is the oxygen that causes corrosion in pipes and radiators and creates that black sludge.

Yes I would go with a collapsed internal part of flexi hose blocking flow. One technique to check it is to roll a ball bearing just slightly smaller than the hose ID down the (disconnected) hose. If it gets stuck…

1. Not quite what I said. The VM's on the river (EA water) are likely to be full of CMers. The moorings just above the last lock are usually available but it is not a particularly salubrious area. Personally I would not leave my boat unattended there, but most likely it would be fine. 2,3. The flight of locks is prone to dry pounds but usually a CRT bod fills them up in the morning. The long pounds nearer the bottom are rather shallow, but in particular there can be a big problem with weed - so it depends on the weather and how bad the weed is. Most likely it will be OK at this time of year. But most of the canal doesn't have piling and does have quite a lot of vegetation at the edges, so mooring isn't great except at the end. If you have a shallow drafted boat then maybe it will be fine. There is plenty of "street view" and towpath photos to give you an idea of the state of the banks. 4. It is quite a long walk to the nearest car park. The marina is on an island between the lock and the weir. 5. Yes, but you can get daily or weekly licences. It does amount to a fair bit though. My personal view is that the arm is a bit of a chore and only worth doing to get onto the Nene (which is very nice in most parts). To go down the arm, turn round and then go back is not something I'd do for choice. Yes the upper part is quite pleasant if you like lock flights, but the lower part a bit of a drag - well it was when we did it, but that was in summer and the weed was terrible! You might be as well to moor the boat at Blisworth village area and get a bus into Northampton.

If you mean on the river, it’s not CRT water it’s EA. The VMs tend to be full of CMers in my experience. The marina is friendly and has visitor moorings but at a cost.

Just before the last (bottom) lock is the only realistic option, before that it is very shallow at the sides. And very shallow in the middle for that matter!

It is difficult without direct access to the actual data. One thing I have recently learnt as a 69 year old bloke is that nothing on the internet can be trusted. Yes of course some of it has integrity, but a lot of it is biased and a fair bit is simply completely made up. As a fellow engineer I seek fact, science and the "truth" and am always happy to be proven wrong, but we both know that taking things at face value without checking provenance is a fool's game. One also has to bear in mind that a fair chunk of "new" boaters are using their boats as somewhere cheap to live, "Oh the lifestyle" and "belonging to the boating community" (whatever that BS is), or are only interested in cruising as a means to make income from vlogging. Cynical? Yes.