Leaderboard

Last Thursday we were the last boat to use the Liverpool Link for the year, the locks are now all closed and lighting installations are being built over the canal at the Pierhead and around the Albert dock, etc. We didn't even need to get off the boat in Stanley lock - three Vlockies and two Cart men in attendance, thanks very much. We got as far as Hancock's swing bridge by 14:20 and found it locked off on a timer until 6pm due to the busy road it carries, so we were stuck there for the rest of the daylight - most frustrating! However it gave me a chance to go for a walk up and over the A59 to look at the ancient 13th C St Andrew's church in Maghull, a surprising find in such a built-up area. Further on into Maghull I was intrigued by the elaborate spillway and the fact that it looked to be redundant due to the concrete and piling put into the canal on the water side of it. David

Even I have depths to which I will not sink. Unlike, on two occasions , my boat...

Canalplan has lots of info if you search the gazeteer entry: Geodata Latitude: 52°35′39″N Longitude: 1°34′16″W Postal code: CV9 3DU OS Grid: SP291996 CanalPlan: tph7 CRT Asset: CC-030-002 What3Words: sliding.guards.anchorman Geohash: gcqghq2p16hhm8w116 Maidenhead: IO92fo12 Open Location Code: 9C4WHCVH+MJ

Your Whale Gulper must be on steroids.

Two vollies there were at Hillmorton A tall one, and one rather short one. One said "If you will Stay well clear of the cill, It's not a good thing to get caught on"

I do not know the answer to that. What I do know is with Balmar regulator you could set the voltage down to 13.9V and set a float at 13.2. You would need to disable the voltage regulator in the alternator to go that low. The Balmar regulator also monitors the alternator temperature and reduces field (and hence charge) current if it gets too hot. You can also limit the maximum field current to effectively derate the alternator output. You can install a relay on the ignition line to the Balmar regulator driven by the BMV to turn the alternator field current off when the BMV requests rather than needing a dump battery. However, this is getting well away from the cheap BMS idea, but if I was specifying a full Victron type system, this is how I would handle the alternator, rather than using an LA dump battery.

I don't know why but I read that in the voice of Michael Caine

Interesting, my Grandfather also worked out of Goole on the Tom Puddings , we did manage to find a picture of him (He's the one with the watchchain), haven't a clue what the boat he was photographed on was though.

Meanwhile Steve Haywood has now made it to Tilbury docks on the Thames, and was very displeased to find a cruiser moored in his spot! ?

Years ago a mate of mine bought a sunken boat, for £20, an ex naval pinnace about 45' long and was sunk in the Bow backwaers at Bow east London. Its coach roof was a couple of inches below the surface. I was invited to watch the performance of raising it as my mate was a total nutcase and wouldn't have miss his performance of the operation for the whole world. It all began with sending his Mrs down in her bathing costume to inspect the vessel, after which she arose, sufaced and spluttered a declaration that she was frightened to open her eyes because the water was all muddy. My mate was a Firestone tyre store manager and had brought along hundreds of old inner tubes as well as an petrol air compressor to pump them up for floatation, plus two small water pumps from hire shops. Again his Mrs who sat shivering in my Land Rover to keep warm was called on again for the 2nd operation, and that was to dive in and stuff blown up inner tubes through the broken windows in and attempt to raise it. Now thats a big struggle forcing inflated innertubes under water and into windows and poor old, ''we'll call her Dunkella'' in case they're reading ths. Now Dunkella was a big powerful lass, she even once carried my mate home in her arms like a baby from the pub when he got legless, this is true, I witnessed it. It really warmed poor old Dunkella up stuffing those inner tubes in even with her eyes shut. And then after about a dozen were stuffed in suddenenly CRASH, CRACK RUMBLE, Tinkle the whole coach roof broke away and along with all the innertubes floated off down the river. Dunkella was ordered to swim, chase and retrieve it all, but she refused, despite her size and strength declared that she had swallowed some water and had mud in her eyes which was itchy and retired back into my L/Rover to rest and recooperate. The boat hadn;t budged an inch, still reposeing on the bottom. In the end my old series 2A Land Rover did the job. We managed to draped two large weighted rope strops under and around bow and stern and bring them together above the surface and then connected them with another bit of rope to my large rope double pulley wheel reduction tackle. The tackle I tied to the front bumper of my L/Rover with a thick longish stick stuck vertically at an angle under the rope to give a better upward lift. And then , hold onto yer hats, in low transfer, revere gear the old L/Rover took the strain, the ropes stretched thinner and thinner with the strain and looked aggressive so I and Dunkella who was still sitting next to me getting dry both ducked down below the windscreen in case the rope snapped and came whipping back. But it didn't and slowly but surely up popped the Naval Pinnace minus coach roof. I held its gunnels above water with my brakes hard on while my mate jumped in it with the pump suction hose and started the pump and gradually the vessel rose up. Dunkella was ordered to jump in and do this but she refused saying she didn't want to get wet anymore and and gave my mate, her hubby a thick ear which must have hurt him cos she's mighty powerful. Anyway the boat was finally emptied of water. An internal inspection revealed a Perkins 4/107 engine and several small holes drilled through the double diagonal wooden hull which we blocked up by shoving matchsticks into them, we wish we hadn't as we used them all up and had no light to light our cigarettes. I don't think the holes were bored by tormented Toredo worm. However my mate sold it on to another mate who got it to Bill Blakes yard in Barking creek, Last I heard was that he never ever found those holes and matchsticks again. After the raising operation we all retired to the Globe pub in the Mile End road to recover. Dunkella strait away down half a pint of brandy demanded off her husband at great expense, or else!! We then all drove off home, all nice and happy. THE END.

I cannot understand the mindset of spending tens of thousands of pounds on something that is impossible to make secure and then leaving it tied to the towpath in the middle of nowhere for weeks on end. You wouldn't do it with anything else and expect to find it in the state you left it, or even the same place! Depending on where you are, farm moorings are cheap, safe and plentiful. Marinas are more expensive. One or the other should, for a leisure boat, be included in the cost. PS leave it for weeks at a time over winter and it will be damp, your furniture & bedding mouldy, the fridge will be disgusting and the toilet unspeakable! And, of course, if you get flu so you can't get to it for a while and it rains/snows a lot, it'll sink.

Yes, so in other words they're being inconsiderate. Consideration of others is proactive and requires some thought, empathy (seeing things from someone else's perspective) and potentially some effort. Unfortunately that quality is lacking amongst too many people in this country who instead read an absence of any complaint as permission to carry on regardless. Instead of thinking about the nuisance they may be causing they put the obligation onto their neighbours to either complain or otherwise lump it.

As this is for Khashoggi i should put the next few finishing jobs here and here is the V berth table Iroko tiles on 18mm base with Sapele hockey stick trim, all to match the cupboard top in Khashoggi. The filler i made worked great, used Cascamite and added Iroko dust from the last job. Near done now on Khashoggi. Oh finished in Le Tonkinous. image: https://i.postimg.cc/htVx2xmN/73504655-10221030460016031-8872191458916958208-n.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/1zPF2tcX/74158535-10221030466136184-6366642958749401088-n.jpg image: https://i.postimg.cc/7LVzkkmV/75362410-10221030469256262-7555749717443870720-n.jpg

No lubrication in unleaded fuel, as others have said check plug, we used to make the gap smaller when we did gas conversions on cars. After a large amount of hours check valve gaps, I have known them to be tight on brand new cars so the same could happen on a genny. I must have done over a thousand LPG conversions on cars, and quite a few on gennies, I know of one on a catering van that has done thousands of hours with no issues, it is of course a Honda

hence I have just bought a blige blower and ducting and will fit it next week.

Being stuck at Nottingham some planned weather would allow us to plan the trip to our mooring at Newark. As they say, God laughs at plans!

In my world bath night was always Sunday, ie the night before school. Even when we finally got a proper bath I don't remember my parents ever using it, there was never enough hot water and no-one actually liked bathing anyway. I do remember a lot of old folks saying it was bad for you and I'm quite sure my grandad never took a bath after he finished working down the pit. He farted constantly ("where's that bloody cat...") but didn't smell unpleasant. My grandma on the other hand smelled of boiled cabbage. You couldn't avoid boiled cabbage in those days schools used it by the truckload but it was everywhere, actually that probably explains my grandad's flatulence.

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.

Only embroidered a little. All mostly true. Actually Dunkella was a super long distance swimmer and diver and won lots cups and trophies. She dove in and resued her hubby on the Norfolk Broads once when he fell off the boat drunk. They say Hickling Broad overflowed its banks when she dove in it. Incidentally she is a Norfolk girl so she is a real Norfolk Broad. She also attemted to swim the channel but got puffed out half way across and was hauled out by the guard boat crew, they had a heck of a struggle. You ought to have seen her all smothered in goose grease to keep out the cold. It was difficult taking a photo of her at their wedding, the photographer couldn't find a wide enough angle lens to get her all in and he couldn't get back far enough either to get her all in.

Yes you are right of course, if you have multiple batteries. I was thinking of having just the one. Unless you can somehow take the lid off the Valence cells and connect them in parallel at cell level. Probably too difficult!

Reminds me of the definition of a harpist (in an orchestra). Someone who spends 90% of the time tuning the instrument, and the remaining 10% playing out of tune.

That little?! No not a foul, but I've an idea in my head that LPG fueled engines eat spark plugs at a higher rate than when running on petrol. Erosion of the electrodes and enlarging spark gaps. This would be consistent with the symptoms you report.

Just a few comments on the Valence batteries. If you choose these then you will be on the leading edge if charging via an alternator. The main experience on here, Tom, MP, Peter and myself have not done this. Tom, MP and myself all charge from an alternator but have bare cells so we can monitor cell voltage closely during charge. I think it is important as in a previous post to map out the charging voltage and current and take it up to 100% looking first for the voltage knee and second for the drop in current whilst monitoring individual cell currents. It is vital to monitor cell voltage in case there is an in-balance. Now, I dont know the Valence batteries but looking at the video, I am not sure how easy it is to monitor voltage on all the cells at the same time. These batteries have hundreds of individual cells and not sure if it easy to monitor (Peter..what do you think...I take the point that they self balance but can you check the balance easily when getting up to 100%). On my system, I have a cell monitor display (always available...computer not needed) that displays the 4 cells. It is very quick to see if an in-balance is present. It looks to me that Thundersky bare cells are much easier to understand. You need to be able to go up to 100% (as measured by voltage and tail current …..as MP keeps saying) to scope out your voltage/current relationship for different charging currents and understand your voltage vs SoC relationship. Without getting to 100% SoC you cant really create an accurate voltage vs SoC graph. I take mine up to 100% every 3 months to synchronise the BMV and to avoid the memory effect (which may or may not be real!). Can you safely take the Valence batteries up to 100% and ensure the cell balance is ok as you can with the Winston Thunderskys?

Oops. You are using the Valance batteries. Wot I wrote above was for bare cell batteries. I do not know how these work on charging to 100%. Peter can you help? Can you monitor cell voltage on charging and do the isolate themselves on full charge? Personally I would try and source bare cells i.e. Thunderskys, as you will have more control. Will th Valance batteries cope with 200-300A loads if you are using them with your start batteries? Peter doesn't have LAs in his system.

Does the 20:00 to 08:00 'rule' still apply in relation to not running engines or generators if moored ? If so then running engines or generators during the hours 08:00 to 20:00 should be acceptable even if a little irritating (to some) - or am I missing something

The operation of a signal between the steerer and the engine room man (I do not know the correct term) is a proven system and was successfully used on all Fellows, Morton and Clayton Ltd. steamers back in the day - and very likely other steamer operators as well. The big difference back then is that these men were professionals who all operated as a team, based upon trust and an understanding of what they were doing. PRESIDENT is run by volunteers who all have differing levels of interest, skill and understanding - and at best are dis-functional as a team (evidence based and demonstrated in the video above). It is my view that the problems lie with crew and their training rather than the signal system Not to mention the women dressing up as men (apparently they claim it is unlucky to have a women on a steamer hence women dressing as men. Perhaps they would fare better if the men dressed up as women - but lets not go there)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytV76_ZWprQ