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I had a small success today and thought I'd share it here in case it proves useful to others. When shutting down the boat before lockdown last month, I managed to snap the key of the front locker. For a month I have read about ways of extracting a broken key from its lock; the articles all dismissed my first thought of "How about using superglue" by observing that this usually ends up with you gluing the broken key section irrevocably into the lock. All recommended using some sort of a hook to pull it out, but the big question was "how?" My wife had left a packet of "TePe" interdental brushes on the bathroom shelf, and these caught my attention. In case you don't know what they are, they are small brushes for cleaning between your teeth (see here if you want full details) that look like this: The brush part is about 1.5 cm long, and has 2 stiff twisted wires about the thickness of a hair. I cut the wires at the very tip and then separated and untwisted them; the bristles simply fell out. After folding one of the two wires back out of the way, I flattened out the spiral of the other and bent the tip back by about 1mm as a hook. There was just enough room to insert this probe into the lock, next to the broken key, and then rotate it by 90 degrees. On my third attempt the end of the hook engaged in the key, and I was able to pull out the offending item and leave the lock clear. Even better, the key had its maker's name (Lowe and Fletcher) and a pattern number stamped into the side, and I was able to order a replacement key from them on line. SUCCESS!

Bought a shiny new scroll saw, got bored, so made a little model of my Dawncraft 22 boat. It's about 3" by about 2".

Autumn into winter 2020 - Macclesfield Canal

It's because CRT now have a fishing peoples department and managers who dont know what a fookin boat is.

Simply a nice rescue dog

Just ban the fisherscum....problem solved as they can chuff off and moan somewhere else!

No anodes, but it is 'shielded'.

This is why Bruce Wayne had the bat signal. How else would he get the call from the mayor of Gotham if the de Enfield's were hogging the party line?

That's not a Viking boat though. This is what can happen with no galvanic isolator.

Polluted silt? Perhaps the fishists could campaign for it to be dredged?

A large part of the problem is a lack of dredging, rather than boating in itself. When the gravel traffic began between Denham and Hayes it was accompanied by extensive dredging, and within a short time we had massive hatches of mayflies, Dragonflies hunting and a lot more small fish but within 6-7 years they gradually disappeared. Some anglers are definitely careless and one injured swan is one too many but there are also many swans and other casualties taken to rescue centres by the majority of considerate anglers, and also 90 percent of pollution incidents are reported by the same - particularly on remote stretches and waterways that nobody else visits. I see a lot more injurious crap left behind by "boaters", along with the ubiquitous oil slicks in areas popular with long stayers. Pike are one of the most fragile fish and bad handling often results in a dead fish, but time out of the water is rarely a factor - i have carried them from a water that insisted on their removal (death), for over an hour to release in another venue with no ill effects.

You said "I am doubtful..." and provided no evidence to back this opinion up. Me and others have provided plenty of evidence on this forum showing why your opinion is factually wrong, and why total BEV CO2 emissions over lifetime are a lot lower than ICE even including all the things you mentioned. There's a huge amount of hard scientific evidence showing this, arguing against it without facts is like arguing that climate change is not manmade -- you might possibly be able to find some biased pseudo-scientific article somewhere saying it ain't so, but >99% of reputable sources would disagree. You are of course entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts ?

It's the old definition of an intelligent person - someone who comes up with an idea I've already had ...

Fine if you never go anywhere Peter old bean. I am looking forward to a day when modern technology can catch up with old. I drive 150 miles each way to mums care home normaly and there is no charging point there even if I could get that far in one go. I visit kids and Grandkids 220 miles away so again hopeless unless I had god only knows how many thousands of pounds to mug away on a new car££££ At present I and millions of others do this in sub 2k cars in comfort and reliability with 400 mile range and 3 minute to recharge to full again at thousands of places anywhere UK. Millions of people dont have big car budgets and they still need to get to work and travel, shop etc etc, public transport is non existant for the majority of the UK. Although governments waffle about what they will be doing in nine years time ( They will all be long gone ) reality states that the government of that day will still need people to have affordable transport not shiny new Teslas, it simply isnt possible. Millions live in flats, terraced housing etc etc earning minimum wage.

Diesel energy content is 37MJ/l, at current pump price of £1.18/l that's 3.2p/MJ. For BEV 1kWh=3.6MJ so at 30p/kWh that's 8.3p/MJ which at first look seems a lot more expensive. But a diesel powertrain is typically 22% efficient overall, so cost of power at the wheels is 14.5p/MJ. A typical BEV powertrain is 64% efficient overall, which puts the energy cost at the wheels up to 13p/MJ. So even at 30p/kWh the cost of energy for a BEV is lower than ICE, the break-even point is 34p/kWh. However this ignores the fact that BEV are much more efficient at low power levels and low speeds than ICE, and use regenerative braking to return power to the batteries, which moves the break-even cost up a long way, my guesstimate is to at least 50p/kWh.

Being a 'bear of little brain' when it comes to this 'lithium stuff' - if the alternator can only charge to 14.4 / 14.6 volts then the batteries will never get above this voltage, that being the case why would you need a buck step-down when the maximum voltage was only ever the same as FLA's ? When charging from the mains - could you not also use a 'standard' FLA charger at 14.6v max ? Sorry if its a stupid question.

Which is wrong but I could as easily say all boaters are dirty polluting wasters because I've seen a few occasions where dirty oily bilge water has been pumped directly into the canal

It depends on who has reported it and that we will never know. There is of course a difference between a report from a fisherman against that of a mother and toddler, cyclist, dog walker, naturalist etc. How do you know it is not a conclusion supported by facts? CRT said they had had reports recently not we have had reports over the last 5 years. Have you a reference which suggests the situation is not as report being what CRT say. Equally it could be suggested that all those posting here being boaters and in favour of the commercial use are stimulated by a separate agenda. Which is exactly why the situation ought to be investigated by a separate independent group.

The S&SY has always had big boats travelling on it, I see very few dead fish from them. I do see dead fish from fishermen on a regular basis I also see BBQs with the bones of fish around them from our eastern European neighbours, it's a fact of life and the normal for them, it does cause problems between the two fishing groups. The waterway in question is and always has been a commercial waterway apart from a few years when Rix, waddingtons and then finally the Humber energy/Princess etc stopped using it. I for one am glad that real boats are once again trading on these underused waterways, sod the fishermen as Tim says plenty of other places to fish and the fish will move there

I am aware how fishermen are viewed by many on here and to a degree see where people are coming from, grumpy sods or the blood sports angle are both valid but many fishermen have and still are active in campaigning to clean up and keep waterways open and are often first to spot and report pollution events, I personally have reported a couple. Of course many boaters have and still do similar, the more who support this sort of informal monitoring the better. As reported the chap in the story comes across as a bit of a pratt but it could be a possibility that large boats are stirring up eutrophic/polluted silt and causing fish deaths if this is the case maybe something could be done or it might be a price worth paying for an increase in river trade and the reduction in road traffic. We could of course just shout "fishermen bad" and ignore a possible underlying bigger issue

In defence of anglers, a friend is a keen one, sometimes he doesn't catch a fish all day, but it doesn't spoil his enjoyment, he tells me it's not all about catching fish, it's the whole experience, like sitting for hours messing around and doing nothing in particular and then a kingfisher perches on your rod for a while, magic moment. Little things makes it all worthwhile, a bit like life in general I suppose. But then he doesn't like sitting in a long line and being fiercely competitive.

There is always dead fish after a fishing match. What I see of the dead fish round here is that there are injurys around the mouth from hooks. An injured mouth for any animal should result in difficulty feeding as the wound heals. The most common causes of death are the physiological stresses caused by the struggle during capture and injuries caused by the hook or the angler.

It’s just a bloodsport...hopefully to be banned like other bloodsports...

Remove the houdini hatch and replace with steel & insulation. Trim the inside, paint the outside. Do you really need diagrams or written instructions for this? I thought better of you ...

Near one of my moorings, on a clapped out unlicensed cruiser lived a seriously dangerous guy who bragged sbout stealing from our boats, and that from local knowledge we knew it was true. He stole coal, diesel, generators and anything else he could get, broke into a few. Police wouldn't do anything, couldn't even be bothered to interview either us or him. None of us were particularly surprised or saddened when someone set fire to his boat, nor were we bothered that he was asleep drunk at the time. He and his dog (which had bitten enough people for us not to care about that either) got off and survived unhurt, the boat didn't, he shoved off somewhere and all the thieving stopped. Trouble is, the law is useless against most antisocial behaviour, however bad it is, and so sometimes you have to treat badly behaved animals like you do similar nonhuman ones. Rules only work against people who recognise their validity, and pisstakers don't. Thus CRT takes years to get a liveaboard off the water, and everyone suffers for that time.

Magnetman, apologies for coming across very negative on the LTOs, I really should have spent time reading through what was out there on them. I agree with you that LTO's really do look interesting for canal boats BUT it looks like the cost is prohibitive. The cruiser forum is a very good resource on info on Li batteries and has been for the last 8 years! Reading through the LTO thread it is possible to come up with some 'theoretical' observations on LTOs. My take on them is as follows: I see 2 issues – Voltage and cost. First Voltage. It looks like the nominal voltage of the LTO cell is around 2.0 to 2.3V and the upper charge limit is 2.8V. That means 5 cells in series would give you 11.0V-12.0V operational (over 85% of charge range suggested) or 14.0V at highest charge voltage. With 6 in series, operational voltage would be 12.0V to 13.8V with 16.4V at the highest charge voltage which is certainly enough to blow a lot of sensitive 12V electrics. The 5 cells looks too low in voltage and couldnt be used with a dump LA starter battery.. However, if we used 6 cells in series then it looks like these batteries could be charged by a normal alternator or LA charging regime and only achieve a float voltage therefore no danger of overcharging (the big problem with Li's). Think of it – your alternator getting up to 14.4V constant voltage phase would likely to only give an 80% charged LTO set up – a wild guess! All you would need is some sort of 'buck step down' device to protect the 12V systems (not a clue what that entails or costs!). The ability to charge without worrying about overcharging is very significant and could make BMSs much simpler without isolation switches etc. You wouldn't even need an LA start battery as a dump load as the LTOs would never need isolating. This however is all theoretical. How would it work in practice? With LiFePO4s we now have 3-4 years of experience with @Tom and Bex, @MoominPapa and @peterboat all pioneering them and learning all the tricks and demands of the system. We now know how they work. LTOs would require similar pioneering support before peeps could have confidence to install. For example, if we have 6 cells in series, what if one cell fails and we end up with a lower voltage? That means overcharging could be an issue so we do need an autodisconnect and a cell voltage monitoring which may not be available for this type of technology. The barriers to operation show up on this initial leading edge use. Another issue that is mentioned in the Cruiser thread is balancing LTOs. It sound like they need balancing at the top end but if you were just going up to 14.4V then not an issue (less than 80% charged) ....but is it? What about bottom balancing. They claim to be able to go down to 0% SoC with no problems! So no bottom balancing needed.......Hmmmm? The second issue is then cost. With a 6 in series set up, you are using 50% more cells that LiFePO4s cost and as the LTOs seem more expensive to start with then maybe you are talking twice the price for LTOs. Peeps here are looking at 2nd hand Li's to get costs around £1000 per installation rather than the £4,000 for commercial systems so a doubling of cost may be totally prohibitive. Add this to the fact that there are very few EVs based on LTOs so they are not available 2nd hand. Maybe their use on Buses may give a market for 2nd hand batteries but is that really going to happen? The cycle life of LTOs is amazing but will commercial use grow when it is almost certain that in 10 years time our batteries for EVs will be a lot different. In summary, I would be very interested to trial LTOs on my boat if I could find 500Ahrs of capacity at a decent price (as likely as @mrsmelly buying an ecofan) and someone could convince me that I dont need an autodisconnect! Yes. Very interesting but I think the price is too high by a long way. Good to make everyone aware of them. Let me know if you see any cheap ones!

That was my 1st thought, but he says it will not light at all (a thermocouple failure would stop it staying lit when the purge button was released) Are you getting gas when you press the purge ? Will it light with a lighter / match ?

The dead fish you see after a match are nearly all the victims of being placed in a keep net, and rarely has anything to do with being hooked. I'm a keen fisherman but have a dim view of these, more fisheries are banning the use of them but i'd be glad to see the back of them. It's a shame that the rantings of one deluded individual bring about so much hatred for an entire hobby, much the same with cyclists and occasionally pedestrians that use our canals. One thing i'm sure of is that factionalism will only end badly and there are far more anglers, cyclists and walkers than boaters using the system nowadays.

Gas central heating is cheap to buy and ruin, and is responsible for a significant part of UK CO2 emissions. The world (and our government) very much want/need to reduce CO2 emissions. Heat pumps (with energy partly from renewables) are expensive but have much lower CO2 impact. Better insulation should be essential on new houses but can be difficult to retrofit to old ones. The UK used to burn huge amounts of dirt cheap coal in domestic fires which was terrible for both pollution and CO2 emissions, over the years this has disappeared and been replaced by gas which is cleaner and lower CO2 but more expensive to both fit and run. Exactly the same will happen again with the shift from gas CH to renewables (which means heat pumps), but it will take time and cost money because burning fossil fuels is the cheapest and easiest energy source. We have to to everything possible to reduce CO2 emissions including better insulation *and* reducing fossil fuel consumption, in this case meaning gas for heating. What would you have the government do, ignore the gas CH problem and let things carry on as today?

It doesn't matter whether masks do any good or not, much the same as wearing clothes. If people are going to be upset if you don't, why not make the slight effort to let them feel comfortable in your presence?

I think this statement is a bit misleading. You are using Li-ion cells that operate at a slightly higher voltage to the LiFePO4 chemistry that most of us are using. That means when fully charged you pack will be up at 16.4V which could be a bit high for some 12V systems on a boat. Your article is aimed at feeding a victron inverter which can operate up to 17V input which is fine but I didnt see any real caution to any peeps looking to use it to supplement their 12 V electrics. You dont want to blow up your 12V kit. You did say "This means it is important to review the appliances being served to make sure they can handle the voltage range of the 18650 cells of (12V - 16.4V)" but it could easily be missed by someone not familar with these batteries. Perhaps you should put this warning in 'bold'? Also you mention something about your BMS but I didnt see anything about how the BMS avoids overcharging (I only skim read it! - apologies if it is there!). Hope it cuts off as the batteries get to 100% as the chemistry is not as stable as the LiFePO4 chemistry.