Leaderboard

I know there’s quite a bit of negativity around volockies. But today I had a first class experience with 3 volockies on the Tardebigge flight. Id been stuck at the bottom of the flight due to aggravating a long standing back problem. Caused by very poorly maintained lockgear, with paddles almost impossible to move. I’m a burly 15st Builder but really struggled to shift some of the paddles. Any how there was no way I could tackle the flight in my present condition. As the flight is closing I had to get through before I became trapped. I mentioned it to a couple of passing volockies yesterday afternoon and they said they’d arrange help for 9.30 am this morning. True to their word 3 people turned up on time this morning to help me. All ex boaters, they worked me up the flight perfectly. No fuss no bossiness and all in three and a half hours. Id like to give a special thanks to Bill for seeing me all the way to the top lock. I’m moored up now and will have a few days of recuperation. So a big thumbs lads, I’ll be eternally grateful.

Glad to say that yesterday we finally moved on board Dark Rosaleen. Today the back breaking job of moving all our gear on board has been completed. Had a 2 hour cruise and all is brilliant.

oops. Must be some subliminal reaction, I've just been staying with son, daughter-in-law and new baby...

Don't forget to prick them or they explode <BANG>, and this is particularly unfortunate if they're on the top shelf of the oven and a souffle <BANG> is on the bottom shelf 'cos you can't open the oven <BANG> to get them out. Don't ask me how I know this... ?

Last month a vollie at Hillmorton explained to me at length how the locks there had been duplicated so that one set could be used for boats going up and the other for boats going down, so as to eliminate the need for boats to cross over when they met. Hence I invented the word Vollocks!)

Why not look it up in "Ouse Ouse"?

I agree that the problem is where to put the points, but compared to the far bigger car problem this is a tiny issue -- they can be put at locks or moorings or wherever necessary, the energy use of a boat is less than a tenth that of a car and there are 1000x more cars. A 70kWh battery pack (same size as a car because these will be cheapest and widely available) will run a narrowboat for about 4 days, I can't imagine charge points being further apart than this.even on the Ashby. Honestly everyone is thinking this is a big problem when actually it's a tiny one compared to the car one which will be solved. It's like IC design (my business), there's no way small companies like the one I work for (only a few hundred million pounds a year turnover...) could afford to pay for a bleeding-edge fab which costs about $50billion, but we don't have to because Apple have already paid for it and we get to ride on their coat-tails. The same will happen for electric boats, they can use everything that will be developed for electric cars "for free" -- or at least not have to pay for all the development costs, and the installation and running costs per boat will be 10x lower than for cars because so is the energy used. It's no different to people saying "petrol engines will never replace horses" because there are stables everywhere and hardly any petrol stations -- this was true when everyone used horses and nobody drove cars. The same thing will happen with the transition from diesel/petrol power to batteries on both roads and canals. The big question is -- when? ?

Proper oatcakes come from Staffordshire. Stoke in particular. Anything else is an imposter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staffordshire_oatcake Brest with bacon, fried egg, cheese and ketchup.

First of all the flashing low voltage light on the inverter when the washing machine is in use with the engine running - I trust running means revving at a speed that gives the highest amp reading on the meter. This is a bit difficult to understand but we know high current flow reduces the batteries terminal voltage so maybe your battery interlinks and/or the 12V wiring to the inverter is/are undersized causing voltdrop. It could also be that you do not have enough batteries to supply the load without excess loss of voltage through the batteries. It is even possible that you have lost a phase in the alternator or a charge controller is switching far slower than normal. I can't sugget any more on this. Now the red bit. I am afraid that is impossible until the very last minute in one failure mode but even then it could be confused with anther failure mode. batteries usually fail through one of two causes. I ma ignoring exceptionally rare faults like cell interlinks not properly welded and are this highly restive. The two faults are sulphation that amens simply a loss of capacity or an internal cell short circuit which means a high or very high rate of self discharge and presenting a lower resistance path to the charging current. An ordinary boater, especially a livaboard will find making a definite diagnosis at any stage of battery life difficult or impossible until the lights go out so the easiest way of doing it is to watch for trend in charging and discharging and making an inference but taking each in turn. Sulphation. The loss of capacity will give you faster recharge times and faster discharge times, any meter will still show 100% charged but that 100% charged will be with the lower capacity. So if you monitor your recharge time to 100% (assuming a properly calibrated meter or the use of tail current) then over the years the typical time will reduce. Likewise if you monitor rested voltage soon after stopping for the day and again before starting off you can infer the batteries capacity by how low they dropped overnight. You do have to factor other things into that inference like did you sit up till 3am chatting and drinking on one [particular night or did you do a short charging run that day. I find as an individual boater this is the easiest way. You could fully charge the batteries, take one out of circuit and apply a known load so you can time how long it takes to drop to the voltage to around 12.2 volts. That is about 50% charged so if you discharged at 2 amps and it too 10 hours that is 20 Ah taken to 50% so battery capacity now 40Ah. With your meter there is an easier way providing you can definitely get them to 100% charged, preferably by tail current. Charge to 100% and zero the Ah out counter. Next morning note the rested voltage and the Ah out reading. Assess the state of charge from the rested voltage and compare that with the Ah reading so if rested voltage gave you a 50% charge battery and you have taken 30 Ah out the actual capacity must be 60Ah. Lead sulphate takes up more space than lead oxide so as batteries sulphate the sulphate tends to bow the ends of the batteries or push the lid up so eh more the ends are bowed the more sulphate there is and a well bowed end is a fair indication that its time to change the battery. Finally, although its no use to you with sealed AGMs if you comprte the state of charge given by rested voltage and specific gravity the larger the different indications are the more sulphated the battery. Internal Short Circuit. This normally happens when the sediment traps at the base of the battery fill up with shedded plate material or a chunk of plate material puncture a separator. In the very early stages this will seem to be just a higher than normal self discharge so can go some time without any major symptoms but monitoring the state of charge as above will give you an early indication because the battery will discharge faster on any given load. So if you suddenly notice your morning voltage readings are lower than usual and you can't explain why its a fair chance a battery is developing and internal short. The basic symptoms of an internal short are slower charge time to 100% and a faster discharge time when compared with normal. As the short develops more dramatic things happen that are easier to see, especially with open cell batteries: The charging current is higher for longer than normal Certain cells in a battery get hotter than the rest under charge. Individual cells gas much more than the rest when under charge and also need topping up more - not a lot of use with sealed batteries. Eventually whatever type of LA battery will start to produce hydrogen sulphide that tarnishes bright metal and smell of rotten eggs. That gas is dangerous. If you ignore all this the cell will eventually dry out and a battery explosion becomes more likely. This is why if your batteries are suspect they should not be left on an unattended charge for long periods. Taking your symptoms I would suggest that you probably do not yet have any short-circuits in sells but the batteries are probably well sulphated but as long as they are providing for your electrical needs they must still be serviceable. I am still at a loss as far as the inverter light and washing machine goes though.

My favourite Scottish food item, Tattie scones! Very hard to find down south. Aldi sold them for a short while, but dead easy to make. Useful for using up excess mashed potato for breakfast the following day.

I'm teaching myself a bit of Handel's Water music ?

The idea is sound, but there is likely an issue with dimensions. A narrowboat corridor is only 18” wide, so to have two doors that close in and meet in the middle like a wardrobe, would only give you a shower room that is 3’ deep most are 5’. Also, doors will need to be shaped, so as to match the tumble home of the superstructure, thus they are only about 15” at the top. Thus whilst they will meet at the bottom, there will be a 6” gap at the top!

Well they have made a start on the Broads https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/facilities/electric-boat-charging-points

You are pushing against an open door with your capitalisation. Where we disagree is whether it will be cheaper to provide lots of sites with a few low power chargers, i.e. at locks, or a few locations with many low power chargers, i.e. at visitor moorings and how long people will be connected to those chargers, a few minutes or overnight. How will a charger at a lock work for somewhere like the Ashby Canal where a boat travelling from the Oxford Canal to the Atherstone Top Lock on the Coventry Canal via the end of navigation on the Ashby Canal will travel 54 miles between locks - a long way to go on a 10 minute charge? Concentrating the chargers at visitor moorings must be cheaper to supply, as the trench for the bulk cable betwern the nearest power distribution infrastructure and many chsrgers costs about the same as a trench between the nearest power distribution infrastructure an individual charger.

We went through Big Lock yesterday, there's now a temporary bridge made out of scaffolding. Steve

You will not get a widebeam done to any reasonable standard for a total of 80k unless you do much yourselves. When I did a new shell several years ago ( narrow beam ) I found the shell was one third of the costs of the total job with myself doing everything other than the paint job and engine instalation. Keep it very basic and you are in with a shout.

It also assumes that someone will stump up the not inconsiderable cost of providing an electricity supply to the locks.

I think if all the local boats had a great big thick wire connected to a huge ground spike, and ideally the same ground spike, then all would be well. I suspect the problem starts when due to various leakage currents etc the earth wire is not exactly at earth potential and so there is a small voltage between boats that have a really good earth and those that don't. This is what does the damage. You cannot assume that the mains earth is really at earth potential, and you can't assume that an earth spike is a good earth, especially in a dry summer. ............Dave