blackrose

The hard part is finding a yard which a) does grit blasting or allows you to bring in your own contractor. b) doesn't insist on doing the painting themselves after the grit blasting is done. It's not in most boat yard's interest to do the hard part and let you do the easy part yourself so that you can pay less. Most would much rather charge you big money for the whole job.

I had my widebeam grit blasted by a mobile blasting service for £350 in 2015. That included hull sides up to the top rubbing strake, swims, uxter plate and the upswept part of the baseplate at the bow but not the rest of the baseplate as it was only about 18" off the bottom of the dock so too low and inaccessible. It took the blaster half a day to do all that then I spent a whole day sweeping off the mess. I applied the epoxy myself. 4 coats. It's not difficult as long as you read the technical data sheet beforehand and have everything ready. Important points are mixing part A (paint) thoroughly before adding part B (hardener) in the correct proportions by weight or volume as specified in the TDS. Also be aware of your minimum and maximum overcoating times and final curing time before the boat goes back into the water. If you use the winter grade hardeners that come with some epoxies you can paint at ambient temperatures down to about 10 degrees C or even less.

A broker organising docking for you is fine, but don't let any broker help you organise a survey. Commission the survey yourself. Only then can you be sure it's completely independent and uninfluenced by the broker.

Being cynical is fine but the OP said: "I'm not looking for a policy based on cheapest price"

Are there actually any liveaboard specific insurance policies? I've been living on boats for nearly 20 years and I've never had liveaboard insurance. When I did once ask my insurer whether living aboard made any difference to my policy or premium they said it didn't. They weren't really interested in that. If anything I think they probably view liveaboards as lower risk as they know the boat is more likely to be actively maintained, especially over winter. I've only been with 3 or 4 different insurers so maybe others have "living on board" written into their policies? I imagine there might be some difference if you have a proper residential mooring.

Exactly, which might be a good reason to avoid buying overplated boats unless one knows the reputation of those who did the overplating or one employs the services is a surveyor who can differentiate between good work and botches.

Is it for use while the boat is moored on shore power or does the small capacity equate to small kW output that can be run from the batteries/inverter? I wouldn't do that anyway.

Would you say that the temperature fluctuations typical of narrowboat interiors are suitable for keeping reptiles? I'd intuitively have thought not. It just seems a bit impractical to keep any animal which needs to be kept within stable temperatures on board a boat.

Yes I agree with Jen. The problem is that if or when you crack the fibreglass you'd get water held between the fibreglass and the bare steel which you wouldn't be able to do anything about. That could happen below or above the waterline. With paint you can scrape it off below the waterline and water will be against a very small area of the steel where the paint has been removed. Above the waterline you can rub any scrapes back and touch them up. With a GRP coating you wouldn't even know which bit of the fibreglass has cracked and let water through.

That's basically it. Use the boat's momentum to take you through areas of litter, bags, etc that you can see on the surface, and to avoid the bigger objects stay in the middle where it's a bit deeper and you're less likely to pick something up. It's not foolproof but it will reduce the frequency of fouling.

There are two ways to approach the issue of fouled props. The methods given above at all good for getting stuff off your prop but the other approach is avoiding getting stuff wrapped around your prop in the first place. Prevention is better than cure. Sometimes of course it's unavoidable. I used to moor in west London and some "locals" regard the canal as a legitimate dumping site. But if your prop is getting fouled every time you move then you're doing something wrong. I won't go into the techniques used to avoid or prevent fouled props here as I'm not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs, but the way a boat is moved in polluted water including knowing when to disengage/re-engage gear makes all the difference to how often your prop will get fouled.

That 2mm ID copper pipe will be fine for most of the run, but the Webasto fuel pump and the heater itself have hosetail connections, at least on the Theromotop C. So I don't know how that copper pipe could be fitted without using flexible hose and then you're back to square one. The narrowest ISO 7840 compliant flexible marine fuel hose I could find was 3.5mm ID.

Thanks, it's definitely not an exhaust silencer/back pressure issue. I was wondering if using the wrong diameter fuel pipe might cause problems? The kit came with the recommended 2mm ID thin wall flexible fuel pipe but I used some proper 3.5mm ID marine fuel hose which was marked with the relevant ISO/Lloyds marine certification because I wasn't sure if the Webasto stuff would pass the BSS. Could using increased diameter fuel hose cause the webasto to misbehave? I think I'll try changing it for the Webasto pipe before doing anything else. How does one adjust the fan setting? Edit: Just read on an old thread that the Webasto plastic fuel pipe won't pass the BSS so I won't change it after all unless anyone knows of a compliant 2mm ID flexible fuel pipe?

I hate so called professionals going near my engine. They often step or sit on things that weren't designed to take the weight of a human. It always amazes me how little mechanical sympathy some mechanics possess.

The only reason for my reluctance to accept that you knew why the filter was leaky was because in truth you didn't know! You then refused to believe what the supplier was saying because you were blinded by your own misplaced certainty.

Sorry I didn't see your reply 3 years ago but thought I had to put you straight here. FYI you and Sam were mistaken. The picture I posted above was not the o-ring I used, it was a brand new o-ring from an identical element bought at the same time as the one I used. That's why you can see an element and box in a separate picture. Had they been the ones I used I wouldn't have taken the picture beforehand and certainly wouldn't have put them onto my kitchen worktop after they were soaked in diesel. As I stated earlier that thread, Filtermania admitted that there had been some quality control issues with those Baldwin filters and this was potentially the cause of my leak. I fitted the Lister element in exactly the same way with the same torque and hey presto, no leak, so it certainly wasn't the way the filter had been fitted that was to blame.

Liveaboard experience? I wonder what the training day involves. "Right, grab that cassette put it on the trolley and wheel it to the elsan point. Remember to give it a good rinse after you've emptied out all my shit" 🤣

Bought 40 x 25kg bags of decent quality smokeless for £288 in August including delivery. Summer prices but the way things are going that's the cheapest coal I'll see for a while.

Yes ok I'll try that.