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A French commercial boat family meal at the end of the day. Bit different to the back cabin of the butty! Photo from Facebook

An old saying "A cobbler is always the worst shod." immediately sprang to mind.

Hi Been boating a very long time and been living aboard for nearly 20 years and this is my postal story. Winter is mostly spent on my home mooring which is bankside and not serviced at all. Spring, summer and autumn I'm out boating all over the place. For a full postal service that gives a street address and mailing service for residential boaters try BoatPost. They are in Belper but that doesn't matter in the least. Call or email David on 07977 597478 or email boatpost2@gmail.com I have been using their excellent service for years. Quite brilliant. That's where everyone from the Taxman to the kind senders of Christmas cards think I live. You can use their address as your own for nearly all purposes including for your car insurance correspondence and give the marina as the place you keep it. If that doesn't work, (actuaries can lack imagination!) talk to the marina as there will be little or no correspondence as you can do it all on line. The insurers should only be interested in where its kept and used. The NHS can be tricky as for them one size fits all so you will have to find an address to use that's where your doctors is. Maybe a friend? If you give a mailing agency's address they'll just remove you from your doctors list and tell you to get GP near there! Electoral roll is no problem, just speak to the Electoral Services office of the council where you wish to vote. They will want to know about your connections with the area but won't care about you giving a postal only address. That's it, easy peasy and works a treat for me. Do message me on here if you have any thing you wish to raise. James

Hope I didn't break your camera Peter

There has been some research published about LiFePO4 battery life vs. max/min SoC. IIRC the key at the top end was to not go up the rising voltage knee shown on Nick's curves because this is where the internal chemistry starts to change, which suggests that even 90%-95%/13.6V(3.4V/cell) is fine, and you can stay there forever (e.g. on "float" if that's what your charger calls it). What they definitely do *not* like is being taken up to 100% SoC (14.4V/3.6V/cell) and kept there for any length of time (e.g. by "floating" at this voltage), so again what Nick does is absolutely fine. Like Nick said, the only real reason to ever go to 100% is to do top balancing at 14.4V/3.6V/cell, and this should be for a short period before letting the cells/float voltage to drop back to 13.6V/3.4V/cell. At the bottom end, if you follow the same principle discharging down to 10% SoC (12.4V or 3.1V/cell) should also be fine -- again, it's going below this where the voltage starts to plummet that reduces battery life. In between these limits (10%-90%/95% SoC) the exact SoC has little effect on total battery life -- yes you get more cycles with a narrower range but also less energy per cycle, the product of the two stays pretty constant. Just as an example, if you used 10%-90% (80% range) and got a lifetime of 3000 cycles, you might expect 30%-70% (40% range) to give 6000 cycles -- in both cases the product (total energy over lifetime) is roughly the same, but you have to recharge twice as often (by half as much) in the second case. Not exactly true, but close enough that it's a good rule-of-thumb. Not surprising when you consider the same total amount of chemicals/ions are being moved backwards and forwards in both cases. Unless you charge/discharge at very high rates when this falls over, but all boat applications are fractional-charge (<C, usually <0.5C, often 0.25C or lower which is 4 hours charge/discharge for 100%). [the Will Prowse video shows this to some extent, other papers or manufacturers data show this too] This is why LiFePO4 are so easy to use once you have a proper BMS installed -- so long as you stay away from the very bottom and top of the SoC range for normal use, what you do in between makes little difference to lifetime. Even occasional excursions down to 0% and up to 100% won't cause any damage or reduce the lifetime so long as you only do this occasionally.

An online poll is going to be quite biased in favour of those with internet access ...

Some years ago we were put solidly aground by a boat advertising helmsman training!

Thanks Tony. Had another look for this elusive strainer this morning.Took a box like fitting under the sump off which looked likely,but it was an expansion chamber for the exhaust.A small outlet and when exhaust pressure builds,it exits through the prop hub.The strainer wasn't in there. Removed another small housing which looked likely,but it was a sort of metal plug and this looked to be in the cooling water circuit. The engine is Euro 4 compliant and looks to have a lot of gubbins crammed into a very small space,and I am sure it needs specialised knowledge to service it properly.Have searched the internet and found plenty of generalised information, but nothing really technical.This is rather annoying as I prefer to do my own servicing. Beginning to regret selling my previous boat with a simple BMC 1500 diesel.

https://www.refugeesupport.eu/john-sloan-is-retiring-from-his-retirement/

Sorry to read this - you did a good thing offering him a home x

I always wave at cyclists, especially if they are going fast near narrow bits like bridges ... I've not had one fall off waving back yet, but there's been a couple nearly did. /Joke

Absolute candidness is vital . We went through brokers for day insurance, and on one occasion for one months cover only ( third party only) when we had let our house and technically not uk residents. They bled us dry but.. I have done the maths a few times and unless you commute to work , if you live aboard and move a great deal a car is a pita, and not worth the hassle. Hiring is quite cheap. ( we have wandered in to b and q and hired their van a few times for a few hours before now). Im sure they pay the bond. I believe its £500000 or so.

I wonder how travellers get on with taxing and insuring their vehicles? Many are constantly on the move with no permanent home address.

When we were moored up in Stoke recently I got talking to a guy who was a full time liveaboard with a mooring at Kings Bromley marina. He said because he had sold his house he initially had similar issues and that was the reason he chose that particular marina - they allow him to use it as a postal address. I was sceptical but he assured me it was no problem and I don't think he had any special connections there, in fact he had only been on the water about a year. Kings Bromley is part of the Castle Marinas group I believe so you would expect all the other marinas would operate a similar policy. It may be some sort of special case of course, I'm still surprised because every marina we've stayed at has made a big thing about not using the address for post, deliveries etc. Maybe things have changed under Covid..?

I was very very naughty this morning. We have Jeff’s parents on board which uses 2 x more hot water, 2 x more dishes to wash up etc. So the pudding dishes and glasses from last night were dirty this morning, but I knew there wouldn’t be any hot water left so …I put the immersion heater on for an hour! Very naughty and against all forum protocols. But the batteries gave me a shrug and the SoC still about 60% at the end of that, and plenty of hot water for the washing up. By mid morning they were back at 80% and alternator in float.

Sorry to read this, always a heartache losing a dog. Take care.

By law you do not need an address to use NHS services. My doctor knew I lived on a boat all I did was give a length of canal within their catchment area and bobs your auntie. They corresponded with me by email and text. If you want to vote then u cannot do it online. You go to the council offices where you want to vote and put a location which you frequent quite a lot even a park bench and register as homeless ( Lol they apologised to me re being homeless until I said it was happily intentional ) and you can vote. Banbury council last time I went were very good. Nothing is insurmountable and dont cave in re a poxy postcode as you dont have one. Be careful though with car insurance, the best bet is to go into an old fashioned broker and tell them your circumstances as trying to do it on line is a problem with many companies unless you are a generic bod with a postcode. If you fonr DVLA re a licence address they will tell you that they will accept any address where they can contact you. I have used kids and for a while a pub I used. If you tell them carte blanche you simply do not have a postcode they are amenable to common sense. The only time I had a real problem was when I had to give an address and postcode for my security check and they insisted they wouldnt issue without one. Eventualy after several fone calls and me stating how they would look in the sun newspaper refusing me one as a retired bobby in receipt of a pension and exemplary disharge papers from the RN and having held 7 justices on licences for pubs as a fit and proper person then it was issued. At first things seem hard and many public bodies try to be awkward but after the first few years I looked forward to the challenge from wallies. In recent years with more people having alternative lifestyles things have got better. I find it wierd now having moved into a house as the first bill I got was for something near two grand for an item called council tax? I paid immediately but it has not yet been delivered so its not all plain sailing in a house

Jules Fuels boats on the Southern GU are always immaculately turned out.

Is that like the TV adverts that conclude with "keep away from children" - always strikes me as good advice.

Well, that gives the No Boats Travel Anywhere freedom from a few weeks of enforcement.

The advantage of safefill botles is you can fill them up at any state of the content of gas in the bottle. Morrison’s lpg stations are approved by them. Also most petrol/lpg stations if you approach them with the right attitude ,if you know what I mean will accommodate you. We filled our up at Leamington spa Morrison’s right next to the canal.😁👍

So he was teaching the pupil right; put someone else aground rather than yourself !!!!😜

Indeed but I wouldn’t be handing my cash over! But do you show it to customers as an example of your work??

That'll be because they are all on the Coventry and the Oxford. Never seen it so busy here.

Yay- so can I now I know it’s working, I probably wouldn’t have slept 🤪 The water that I couldn’t pump out was what went into the shower tray (on my boat) before I managed to get in the shower because the pump didn’t want to work, so I pissed about for 2 hours trying to figure it out, which is now working and luckily I’ve had a “boat shower” now. I hope that helps to clear up the confusion 😃

On a boat it is generally easier to empty it into the bathroom sink. It still ends up in the canal. (Unless your bathroom sink drains into the shower tray - it's not entirely unknown!)

Sorry, I borrowed him for the afternoon...

I was brung up oop Norff and lived most of my adult life darn sarf. I find it the same up or down.

And yet you had yours done by an Admiral? Theres real power of command for you! I'd be happy if I could talk a dockyard matey into it!