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I have not got involved in this topic as my experience of running our narrow boats is nearly 30 years old when we sold them and had a 50footer built on an old station boat hull at WFBC. When we first started in the early 70,s there were still a lot of boatmen around especially at Braunston and I had no intention of upsetting them by trying to dress up or by showing off. I admired the Brays, Whitlock,Collins etc and they gave advice and help willingly. Some were working for bwb and lock keepers like Henry Grantham at Buckby would soon put you right but also encourage. There were nowhere near as many boats on the cut and certainly not endless moorer’s on the main line so we were able to make our mistakes out of site (usually) except trying to get round Sutton stop loaded when there would invariably be an audience of experts and Joe and Rose. They of course never did it in a motor. Rose Whitlock then told me there was a pin in the bridge that they used to use to strap round! Not much use single handed though. I’m sure we upset people who thought we were speeding or forcing them out of the channel but unfortunately the physics of moving loaded boats on very shallow canals caused difficulties for all parties. We were told that we were to big, sometimes to slow, or just shouldn’t be on the canal at all but usually other boaters then were happy to see us. we were certainly not rich indeed quite the opposite and the boats had to pay for themselves which we tried to do by humping coal and carrying Scouts etc in the summer. We were still hopeful that some long distance carrying could be brought back following the demise of the Crowley traffic but apart from odd loads and short distance it never happened. Now I see the majority of old boats in pristine condition and owned by enthusiastic people who are quite a long way removed from the working boats without the pleasure of seeing the Brays working through the Braunston flight or Mrs Whitlock gently admonishing you for the lack of shine on the chimney brass. We were lucky to know them and I hope we never upset them by pretending to be them which I personally never did. there has always been a perceived pecking order amongst boat owners whether it be whose hull you have, what engine, how shiny your boat is etc. With the thousands of boats now on the waterways some people will always be in a bad fit for some reason or other so if possible it’s best to let them get on with it and get on with your own lives.

I am very uncomfortable with this thread as I did not appreciate there is such hostility towards 'historic' boat owners, my discomfort being based on my 50 year involvement with these sort of boats and my being the current owner of a 'historic' boat that is undergoing a fairly extensive restoration. Am I wealthy - I do not think so and I am currently working up to 100 hours a week to fund the work on my boat. Am I a hobby boater - yes, just like most other boat owners. Do these make me a bad person - I do not think so, but my interest is soley in 'historic' boats, to the point that I have built my own archive over the past thirty years or so. I have no real interest in waterways or their history and I have no interest in modern boats. This makes my sphere of knowledge quite specialised where the only useful conversation I can have will be with other 'historic' boat owners. Of course I will speak with anybody who is prepared to listen, but the default common interest group is going to be 'historic' boat owners. I will accept this probably makes me a boring b@5tard. I do not say hello to everybody I pass when walking along a pavement, and I do not say hello to everybody I pass on the canal. Does that mean I have an attitude and turn my back on people - I have been accused of that but I think it has limited foundation as most of these people are strangers to me. If anybody approaches me for conversation in any part of my different lives (work / boats / cars) I always endeavour to be polite and courteous, but you can not win them all, and the lads who work for me might well have a different opinion. I was taught a very traditional form of boating based upon speed and efficiency, and probably about 75% of the boating I have done has been with a motor / butty pair (some professional and some recreational). Several people have told me that things have changed during the years I have been away and I will regret coming back to the boats, and these Forums make it fairly clear that some of the boating practices I learned as a boy are no longer acceptable - but pinching locks. taking a butty through a lock without letting another boat use the water, speeding past moored boats were not amongst these

We can squeeze another couple in duck....

You're assuming that the boat with the pump out has space in the tank. This may not be a safe assumption. MP.

Erebus the ice breaker has been completely stripped welded cleaned and under coated Foam sprayed and now ready for the fit out Where is the new little 24 horse fitted in the front end

Special thanks to the Monkey man for my early birthday present of these extra panels and charger ♥️? I'll be happy to sell any spare electricity back to him at a very reasonable rate And as my birthday isn't till August, I'm taking this as permission to celebrate my birthday for two whole months starting today ?

I thought hobby working boat owners were loaded. How else do they afford the upkeep?

That is my view too, although variation in the SoC of the cells in series means the overall capacity of the bank is reduced as one needs to keep the lowest charge cell above its minimum safe SoC and the highest charged cell below its maximum. And this is where the danger lies if you just look at the bank as a whole. Individual cell monitoring is essential in my view if managing the bank manually. Peterboat confirms what you find about cell balance - they stay where they are over long periods. WotEver argued a while back this cannot happen, but your and Peter's empirical evidence illustrates it can, and does.

It's Melaleuca's damn lithium battery bank, it is warping the fabric of the space/time continuum Richard

The BMV is useful to check voltages and monitor domestic battery charging current, the latter being the best way to know when the batteries are fully charged. The ammeter will not give any additional information if connected to the domestic batteries and has limited use if connected to the engine battery. I wouldn’t bother with it. The smartgauge is very good at knowing the actual state of charge of the domestic batteries during discharge, and hence knowing when to start recharging. Comparing the State of Charge indications during discharge from the Smartgauge, and from the BMV set to the nominal battery capacity, is a really good way of knowing the health and actual capacity of the batteries (ie how much capacity has been lost due to battery ageing). You should be aware that there was a batch of Smartgauges that left the factory badly calibrated and Mike the Boilerman had two. He refused to send them back to the manufacturer and instead runs a campaign to “rubbish” them on here. Which I feel is not helpful to people such as yourself. A correctly calibrated Smartgauge is very useful. I have one which I use a lot. An incorrectly calibrated Smartgauge is of course rubbish. Since the Smartgauge works only by measuring voltage, it is quite easy to check the calibration simply by comparing the displayed domestic battery voltage with a known accurate voltage measurement from say an accurate digital multimeter or the BMV. If they agree, there is no problem. We would all agree that it was bad that these Smartgauges were released by the factory badly calibrated, but that doesn’t change the fact that a correctly calibrated one is effective and useful.

Take up Darts for practice.

1st time this week we have had a window worth looking out of!!

Trying to get my head around this. Is my thinking wrong here. First array is passing 2 amps to controller battery output terminals. Second array is passing 4 amps to controller ouput terminal. So actual current passed through connections to battery bank will only be 2 amps? I'm thinking of the scenario where solar panels of different currents are wired in series such as shown here Solar Panels in Series of Different Currents http://www.alternative-energy-tutorials.com/energy-articles/connecting-solar-panels-together.html

What if I told them?

Because we cooked up this mad scheme to boat the tidal Thames, then dash up to Boston and cross the wash, for much of that time we've been boating every day. The batteries have been getting to charge termination each day, so 100%, but actually 13.5v charge/13.34v open circuit - our charge thresholds are set not to stuff the last bit of capacity into the batteries, for cell longevity. Since we boat during the day and switch the engine off when the solar output is falling off and we have a fridge on all the time, the system has never had to do charge termination as a result of solar input. Graph of SOC (purple) and current (green) for the last nine weeks is below. I have considered taking the batteries offline when the engine is running on alternate days, to reduce the average SOC, but have not actually done it. MP.

swiped from bbc news this morning

I dont think their stock is that old ...shame they are gone though.

Its not you, we have only owned historic boats since 1981, lived on them worked them, restored them, and got stuck pretty much everywhere on the system , and been helped by an assorted group of hirers modern boat owners and even fisherpeople. However we are not part of a group nor do we want to be, we are not in any club. We simply love old boats. we get ignored by a number of historic boat owners too, so what. as for wealthy ha, most of the historic boat owners i know run a 10 year old estate car or a van.

I don't know about hobby historic boaters ... but the rudest boater I've ever shared a lock with was an 'old hand' who'd been on the cut over 40 years and had built his own boat from the base plate upwards. He complained about the 'waviness' of our cabin roof (built by Mel Davis) and commented, 'The next time I see Mel I'll bring it up'. He then insisted we both pull out of the lock together (as I suppose real traditional boaters did/do alongside their butties) ... and these being beat up old K&A gates ... they wouldn't open all the way ... so we both got stuck between them. After we extracted ourselves from the lock it quickly became time to 'stop for an early lunch' and let him continue on his own. We also accompanied a real, loaded, working boat through half a dozen locks on the GUC traveling north from Apsley ... whose skipper insisted we leave every set of top gates open as we proceeded. This finally irked us enough to resort to stopping for 'an early dinner' ... and let him continue on his own. And he was off with a snort!

I get the impression that Boatman Stoves is basically a bloke in a shed making stoves. If he is answering emails and phone calls, then he can't make stoves at the same time. He will get back eventually and his stoves are very good. +1 on the comments about stove flue draw, potential heat damage and collision movement risk with the stove above the cauliflower. It will also mean that a circulation pump is required to move water from the back boiler down to the cauliflower. This will need to run all the time while the fire is lit, or you'll get vapour locks and boiling in the back boiler. The pump will use a lot of power from your batteries when you are not on shore line. I'd suggest having the stove at floor level and raise the calorifier up if you possibly can. This will allow you to use gravity circulation through the calorifier and a pump shouldn't be needed. I'd have enough radiators in the loop as well after the cauliflower so that the heat from the back boiler will be dumped when the cauliflower is up to full temperature. Again you risk boiling in the back boiler if you don't. Careful planning of the radiator sites, types, pipe runs and using large bore pipes will let gravity circulation do its thing. I have this set up on my boat and it works well. You'll already have a circ pump with the Ebersplutter, but removing the need for it when on solid fuel will save a lot of power and make the inside of the boat quieter. Not really answering all your questions, but some more things to think about. Jen

Going to be spending more time food shopping than boating at this rate....