blackrose

. You don't need to tell me about pop rivetting again. I just said I changed my mind and I'm not doing it! I don't think you can be reading my posts - I'll repeat: half of the holes in the cabin sides aren't full holes so there would be nothing to tap. It's the way you tell 'em... 🫡

I will use nuts on the inside, but it's just a bit tricky to hold the allen key on the outside and wind the socket on the inside at the same time. I've worked with lots of stainless nuts and bolts and never encountered that issue? Good idea about the string around my wrist if I end up having to do it on my own.

I've changed my mind! 😆 I bought what looked like a heavy duty manual pop rivet gun, drilled out one of the holes to 4mm and put in one pop rivet yesterday as a test to check the size was correct in terms of what they call the grip length, etc. The plan was then to order the more expensive stainless mandrill rivets. But I'd forgotten how much pressure one actually needs to apply to get the mandrill to snap off! I probably needed longer handled rivetter but the one I had should have been up to the job. Also I didn't like the finish either - you get left with a snapped off steel mandrill which slightly protrudes from the centre of the rivet head and I imagined walking along the gunwale wearing shorts in summer and scratching myself. I know you can tap those jagged ends in with a punch but in the end I decided to order a load of A4 stainless dome headed screws and flange nuts. I'll use a small socket on the inside and an allen key on the outside to do them up - maybe I can rope in a neighbour to hold the allen key.

Really? I got a hard copy when I had my boat inspected last year. Perhaps it's changed since then but l it doesn't sound like the OP has had his boat inspected very recently, so whoever the owner was at the time may still have been given a hard copy.

Yes, I generally look at the expiry date on the certificate. I must be missing something here, is the original hard copy of the certificate not available? My annual EA river licence renewal requires details of my insurance and also when appropriate my BSS certificate, so I use that as my reminder.

Vactan can be applied over damp (not wet) steel which might makes things easier too if you've just rinsed the dirt out and you're not sure if it's completely dry yet. Sorry, not sure how I managed to quote Alan?

Yes, some people remove the worst of the rust mechanically, vacuum it out, rinse and wetvac it out. Then they apply Vactan to convert the remaining rust without putting any bitumen on top. It's obviously an easier job and even easier the next time you come to do it because you won't have a thick layer of bitumen combined with rust that needs to be removed. However, using Vactan only does require that you check & re-do the job more often, perhaps every 2 or 3 years at the absolute maximum. I definitely wouldn't leave it any longer than 2 years personally.

Well I've been to the forests of southern Sweden in summer and the midges are really bad there so actually I DO know what midges are like. Perhaps it's you that has no idea what repellents are like? 🤣 I'd give it a try.

Why not just use some mosquito repellent? It must work for midges too and will probably look a bit less ridiculous than hanging a set of net curtains attend your head. I've just returned from Asia and East Africa and I just bought the local stuff which was about 11% deet and worked fine. The 50% deet stuff I took with me from Boots was unusable as it's far too strong and horrible to have on your skin, so have a look at less concentrated versions on Amazon for example..

In other words about 4.5 ft x 2.5 ft = 11.25 sq ft? Too small for a 75hp engine unless the engine is just idling along the canals. But in that case why would you need such a big engine in the first place?

You talk about the skin tank as though it's singular. Is that correct? What size is the tank (L x H) ? Does it run along the curve of a swim or some other orientation? For closed loop cooling a 75 hp engine will need a minimum skin tank area of approximately 15 square feet, possibly more. So if it is a single tank I suspect it may be too small and the missing header tank cap might be a red herring. By the way, my external plastic header tank cap has a small hole in it. Once expanding coolant has activated the engine's header tank pressure cap, the coolant which has expanded into the external plastic tank is no longer pressurised.

You obviously have a very good social life. Either that or you're thinking of going into the people smuggling business?

It depends on the lock. If it's leaking significantly some locks can be impossible to fill with only one paddle and you'll never be able to open the gates.

That's the thing a lot of boat owners fail to appreciate. Things like trip hazards on decks and gunwales, slippery gloss paint on cabin roofs or excessively long tiller handles might be ok for someone familiar with the boat who knows about them and remembers the hazard is there, but safety on boats needs to account for the occasional visitor too. Not necessarily. It depends where the controls are in the first place. The arc of my tiller means I can't reach the controls from the end when it's pushed hard over to starboard (to turn to port), but if I hold it halfway down I can reach the controls fine.

Ah yes, there's a PRV on the top of my calorifier too of course, plus a few gate valves in various places.

Apart from some isolation valves and one L-port valve between my calorifier and gas water heater I can't think of any other valves in my freshwater system? There's a NRV on the cold feed to the calorifier.... All are approaching 20 years old and operating perfectly.

Not if you hold it in the middle when pushing the tiller away from the controls. Just because it's long doesn't mean you have to hold it at the very end I agree with that. I tiller that extends beyond the profile of the boat is a bad idea.

You're gonna need a bigger boat! I usually use both paddles as I can hop across the bow of my widebeam, but using one would be less hassle - does it take much longer to fill the locks? My bow ropes are kept on either side of the roof so that they can be grabbed from the bank if necessary. When I enter a lock going uphill (single handed) I generally throw a stern rope up and then jump up onto the roof to throw a bow rope across. Sometimes I can step from the roof to the bank and secure both ropes, other times I have to go back to the stern and use the ladder. I don't particularly like carrying ropes up ladders as the potential for trips and accidents increases. Likewise if I'm jumping from the top of the lock onto the roof (going downhill) I throw any ropes onto the roof first and then make a very predetermined jump - often that's safer than going down a slippery ladder, but if I am using the ladder I won't be carrying a rope. I obviously didn't jump from the top of Bath Deep Lock!

After prepping the engine room floor, swims, uxter plates, etc, with a wire wheel on an angle grinder I vacuumed it out, wiped over with a damp cloth and used a coat of Vactan to convert any rust that hadn't been removed mechanically. Then went over it with a couple of coats of a Hammerite type direct to metal paint - I can't remember the brand name but it wasn't Hammerite itself. I know that wasn't the best choice of bilge paint but it's what I had so that's what I used. In hindsight having done all that prep I should have bought a can of Jotamastic epoxy. Anyway, about a year later the rust was bubbling back in places where condensation sat around. Perhaps there was a reaction to the xylene thinners in the paint, I don't know. The tannic acid rust converter in Vactan is fine, but I think that the water based polymer matrix is its weakness. It's not a good metal primer which is in effect what it's being used for. It hasn't. I opened it up to have a look last autumn. Epoxy doesn't just peel off unless it wasn't applied properly in the first place.

If it were me with my integral tank I'd just use the water from the tank as usual until it was almost out and then wetvac the last bit out through my access hatch. However, most stainless tanks don't have an access hatch because they don't require cleaning or painting. I think the OP needs to clarify exactly what type of tank they have.

That's because it's not part of the BSS inspection - at least as far as I'm aware?