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I have knocked on boats running engines at 10pm but completely understand why some would be reluctant to do this, and of course, there's no guarantee this will have a successful outcome (in my case it did). The only other option is to involve CRT who, hopefully, will at least contact the offender and perhaps get a result. I don't know what further action they could/would take but if we all just accept anti-social behaviour these selfish individuals feel empowered to do whatever they want.

To be candid, I can't just let this slide, I have to take a stand and say this is tripe - odd for this forum.

I like the old Logo of the C&RT and the British waterways, so I got on the scroll saw and cut these. Looks better than the old brittle plastic wallet that stuck on the window at the moment.

That is all. Two hours to get from the river and out of Stourport. Ugh, MP.

Is there any way of filtering out these posts? Without being negative, they just fog up the picture the OP is setting up.

Pertwee did!

The Doctor uses a Shewee? prepostorus!

You don't need to read the over a thousand posts......just watch my lips.........THEY DONT WORK!!

I'd like to offer a word of support for the much maligned volockies at Hillmorton who have managed to temper the idiotic 'one lock of each pair is closed to save water' edict from CRT with some commonsense. Namely they've taken it upon themselves to open all the locks when queues build up. (The other morning there were 12 boats waiting at the top when the locks opened and only one coming the other way.) If they weren't there, you'd just have to wait – no jobsworth from CRT would be coming out to unlock them. And just as a footnote, there was a volockie on duty all day Sunday in the pouring rain – and there were plenty glad of the help.

Be sure to treat that perfect system with the same respect and care that you are so concerned about with a more automated approach... ? For someday, it too, may fail. I installed seven cameras in my home a few years back... not only to keep an eye on the house, but to be able to check in with my wife (of 30+ years), who was in the middle of an 8 year battle with cancer. She lost that battle a little over a year ago, and I lost her. But before she passed, I automated the house heater and air conditioner so she could adjust it from her bed. I automated her sprinklers so she could set in the front window of the house and water her yard and garden from her phone. I automated the garage doors so they could be opened and closed from anywhere in the world at any time, and close themselves securely each night. I got our dog a collar that reported to us by text message and email anytime he left our secured area (I admit I still love this when it tells me that my daughter Stephanie and my dog Doogan have gone on a walk). Of all the home automation that I installed, the one camera that kept a private eye on our bedroom was the best. I could log in from anywhere and see how my wife was fairing. And it worked both ways... there were times toward the end when my wife was called to stay in the hospital for various treatments, that she would ask me to pull up the home cameras so she could see how her house and dog were getting along in her absence. Then at times from work, logging in to the cameras was like being able to go home for lunch... which I couldn't actually do because of distance. My cameras are on a secure network and even if someone hacked it... I'm not sure I would care much. We were pretty simple people. If there was any downside to the constant personal surveillance that became such a part of the last few years... it's that I have years of stored video clips of the woman I loved, getting weaker and weaker as the time passed... including April 10th, 2017, at 4:15am... when she took her final breath. I may be completely out of line for posting this. Especially as my second post on the forum. But I was following this thread because of my interest in home automation and just wanted to share a different perspective on its value. If I am someday able to fulfill my fantasy of retirement on the water... there will be cameras. Jim

I do have soul and I also have hearing that I want to keep! Do you drive a car for work etc? Does it ( err have soul ) or is it a vastly superior modern engine? Answers on a postcard ?

Eeeeeeeeeeejut! The Rail was focussed on the spider it was about to eat. The spider certainly did not have any mastic on him.

Riding along on the cress of the wave.

A focus rail may work for that. (Do I get bonus points for working a bird joke in that one?)

I'll f-stop if you f-stop

Very likely. It must be very exciting on regeneration day,so many things to do. She must remember to pee. THETFORD - Time Had Ended Too Fast On Regeneration Day.

Well he certainly wasn't thinking out of the box. ?

If you want to spare some roof space to solar that would be good. As your consumption is low you could get a good percentage of the charging done in winter as well. You can bulk charge in the morning, and let the solar do it stuff for absorption n the like. Not by much looking at the Periodic table.

Degenerate you degenerate. No Yes

There isn't any difference between starter and leisure batteries apart from liesures tend to be bigger in size and have a different sticker on the front. The insides are constructed the same, ie. for low DoD and high current requirements.

Give im a Brownie instead of a Greenie.

Move?

You may laugh, but your not far off when getting the devices to talk to each other ?

If you still looking at Lithium (although with your usage they may not be that beneficial). I'm looking at this system from Victron and it may be suitable for your needs as it's simpler setup to other BMS wiring's. Basically it's a BMS 12/200 - It's the BMS, but has 3 connections. One for the LiFePO4 battery, one for the alternator/engine starter battery and one for the loads or other charging equipment like solar. It combines your batteries together when charging so you don't need any split charge relays. The only downside is that if you have any loads that are grounded to the hull (they should be none, but a car radio with aerial mounted on the hull probably is) then you'll need a DC-DC converter for these items. The smallest battery Victron do is 60ah with a charge rate upto 30amp. You will be looking at around £1100 for the battery and BMS tho. https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet-BMS-12-200-EN.pdf

Ah, tubular cells are the bees knees of lead acid batteries, whether wet or gel. They give excellent performance but as you say are much taller than normal lead acids, so don't lend themselves to easy replacement.

I can't find the thread at the moment, it was regarding using 2v Tubular Gels. To be honest if I wasn't going down the Lithium route I would revisit 2v Tubular again. @mrsmelly Even though 2v tend to be tall, with Gels and AGM you can position them on their side so don't discount them because of the height.

Mine are 5000 then capacity is down to 80% however if you restrict the voltage to 13.8 this raises to 10000 cycles which is why I do just that

A rather moving film just posted on Youtube: Some incredible photography.

Thanks Dr Bob, I was absent when this thread was 'raging' - can't wait to blaze up the fire, and settle down to read all these posts! ?

Well they must be working then cause boat prices have gone up since Mikey's post. I blame Rusty for posting the link to this thread again!

There are a number of gas less boats around who have to run the engine to brew up or cook food, poor souls.

That's it. Read the ultimate test one for all the info you need and then read the wind up merchant one if you have insomnia and can't get to sleep. The duck can't be wrong.

If you are happy using cheap batteries leaving them alone and then changing them a couple of years later. Why change now?

There is Blacktoft Jerry further downstream but it will mean going past Goole to come back again. Believe there used to be a charge for using it as well. Not sure if there still is.

Do you mean the "just a quick question one (over 1000 replies) .......... " posed by that w̶i̶n̶d̶-̶u̶p̶ ̶m̶e̶r̶c̶h̶a̶n̶t̶ smelly bloke. Or the conclusive proof one, by that doctor bloke....

Blimey, at that price I would buy three. I think they are made of aluminium though, not steel. The duck is unanimous in saying this particular fan works. He was part of the Ultimate test of ecofans, reported in a thread earlier in the year. Ours worked famously again yesterday but unfortunately it didnt go round today. I think the fire went out. eta....Go on Rusty, put the link up!

We came down the flight a few days ago during the early rush at 0900 - I thanked the volockie for opening both locks to clear the queue. Two CRT guys then gave him some grief for not consulting them first - he gave a spirited rebuttal along the lines that they were not there at the time?

Thanks For the input. I like the fact you don't even know what make they are ? The only reason I know mine are still fitted is the wife is at present watching telly so mine must still be there ?

There is no need to feel guilty. Running engines to heat water and charge batteries is normal, and sometimes we don't want to move. Worse things happen. Our engines will sound much better than my banjo practice, traffic and train noise. Rog

Looks like yet another solution to a problem that I haven't got! ?

I think very loud music and rowdy behaviour effectively outside at 3am in close proximity to people trying to sleep counts as anti-social in most people’s book. Including the law’s.

BM2 and Smartgauge work in different ways, but its complicated! The BM2 measures current and uses the current flowing in and out to calculate AH in and out. But it also measures voltage when the current is low and uses that to modify its SoC reading. However it isn't very good at it. The strength of the BM2 is that it measures current, so you an see when to stop charging. It measures total AH taken out. It resets itself to 100% SoC when, during charging, the current falls to a preset % of capacity. But its not very good at estimating SoC during discharge. The Smartgauge doesn't measure current at all. I only measures voltage. But it has a very clever algorithm that allows it to accurately calculate SoC during discharge, and the reported SoC is the % of the actual capacity, not the capacity that you think your batteries have (which is usually more than they do have!). So the Smartgauge is very good for telling you when to charge and giving you an idea about the health of your batteries (ie if the indication is falling faster than it used to, low SoC being displayed in the morning, it's telling you your batteries are losing capacity. However since it doesn't measure current, only voltage, it can only "see" the voltage being produced by the charger during charging. It makes a reasonable estimate of SoC during charge but it can be up to 10% out, which is a lot if you want to know when to stop charging. Really you need an ammeter (either separate, or as part of a BM2 type monitor) to tell you when to stop charging. So Smartgauge great during discharge, not great during charge. BM2 great during charge, pretty hopeless during discharge in terms of its SoC indication. This is why I have both a Smartgauge and an AH-counting monitor (not a BM2 but the same kind of thing). No you can't directly correlate charge current and SoC. The 1% of capacity figure (1A in the example) is a compromise figure - the compromise being between very long charging times (engine running etc) vs actually getting the batteries "fully charged" in order to ward off sulphation. Lead acid batteries are really annoying in that as they become more and more charged, they will take less and less current. So to absolutely fully charge a battery takes days or longer. Impractical! So a compromise figure that we might call "fully charged" when in fact it is only 99.9% or whatever of fully charged. In summary, you can never practically get your batteries fully charged, you have to decide how long you want to charge them for in order to ward off sulphation, And its also worth mentioning that if you charge at high voltages for long periods, whilst you ward off sulphation there is another problem - positive plate corrosion - which will shorten the battery life. So it is all a compromise. The main thing is that whatever you do to a battery, you shorten its life! Just to confirm, no the tail current cannot be used to tell you the SoC %. It can only used to tell you when the batteries are nominally fully charged.

I must confess that we have a tippy box and keep in inside the boat right next to the stove. We have a digital readout CO meter and have never seen the slightest trace of CO. I am obviously not suggesting that others follow this bad example but suspect that type of coal, type of stove, and the way that its used are probably big factors. I do note that when we empty the ash pan that it contains just ash, I suspect its the still burning fragments of fuel that are the real danger. No matter what you do, if you have a solid fuel stove in a boat its going to make some muck and dust. ..............Dave

There seems to be a potential opportunity to use the volunteer lock keeper scheme for a genuine purpose. The way volockies operate at present is too random to be classed as a genuine service to boaters. It should be possible to specifically arrange tuition for new hirers at specific locks by collaboration between CRT and hire bases. JP

You nicked that from Michael Green’s The Art of Coarse Sailing, still a good laugh after all these years.

A bit like the hire saling cruiser tacking, going from bank to bank up the river Bure on the Broads with the wind blowig from astern. When asked why, they said, ''We know this stretch, we had to tack up here last year''.

Just for the avoidance of doubt I’m not anti-hire boater. Both the boats’ occupants were perfectly pleasant, receptive to my tuition and very grateful for it. It’s not their fault, it is the fault of the hire base operators.

Burning wood certainly isn't a perfect environmental fuel, but none are, and the discussion is about comparing it with diesel. It does beat diesel from an environmental POV. The fact of the matter is that once a tree has grown, the carbon within it is destined to end up in the atmosphere by one way or another, so it may as well be used to displace fossil fuel in your boat. Picking up dead branches from the canal side has got to be an environmentally better fuel than diesel.