Alan de Enfield

My campervan has been away at the local garage having a cambelt and new clutch fitted. He has had it since mid November and the 'domestic battery' was down to 10 volts, I put it on charge for 3 days and got it back up to 12.8+ but the next day it was down to 11.8 volts. I've had it on charge again today and it has spent several hours at 14.4 volts, so I've now switched it off. Come the morning when it has had chance to stabilise I will start a discharge test using a car headlight bulb (55/65 watt) it'll at least give me an idea of the actual capacity.

Thanks, the figures are from a Collingwood boat - my fingers decided to type something other than my brain cell was telling them. (I washed my hands tonight and now I cannot do anything with them !) Are you looking to be a CCer (ie move every few days) or a CMer and move when the enforcement officers move you on ? Surely you will be moving every few days, no need to keep going back 'to the lock' to fill up. We would normally pass at least one waterpoint and elsan station every day. (If you are in London then all rules go by the board).

Not saying you are wrong - but a 2000 litre fuel tank on a canal boat would be highly unusual. I'd guess that 500 litres would be nearer the norm. My offshore cruiser has 2800 litre fuel tankage and thats enough to take me from the UK , right around Portugal and Spain and into the Meditteranean, and I have Two x 6 litre 'straight 6' engines, not a paltry 65 HP Edit to add - according to the Colecraft collingwood website their widebeams have a 400 litre fuel tank and a 350 litre water tank. Was this a special build ?

There is a difference between voltage and capacity. You can have a 12 volt battery the size of your finger nail, or one the size of a car. They are both 12 volts but their capacity (how many Ah) they have is the difference. A lead acid battery needs to be recharged every day (ideally) to 100% state of charge, this can take 3-4-6 hours of engine running depending on how much you have used. If you do not recharge it fully then it becomes clogged up with lead bits'sludge (it is called sulphation) this reduces the capacity of the battery. The next day you do not fully charge the battery again and it gets more sulpahtion, same next day, same next day and your battery that when new had a capacity of 100Ah now has a capacity of (maybe) 20AH. Think of it like a 3 gallon bucket. It holds water (voltage) and has a capacity of 3 gallons of water (amphour) Put some mud in the bottom and it is a still a bucket and holds water (voltage) but it now has the capacity of 2.5 gallons, add more mud and it becomes a 2 gallon bucket.. One a battery starts to sulphate then you will find that it charges quickly (because it takes less to fill it from empty) - think filling the bucket with water when it is already half full of mud. And because it has a lower capacity it goes flat very quickly. Are you running your engine every day ? If so for how many hours ?

Sounds like a Sid James TV programme as a follow on from 'Up the Khyber'.

Let C&RT take it out and 'sieze it' then pay the charges and you get it back (sans the lift out problems & costs)

It is coming ! Already a requirement in some countries. My boat was built with both Grey & Black water tanks for 'future-proofing'.

I will repeat an earlier question : do you know that it was C&RTs decision not to renew the lease ?

And no coal / wood fires, no discharging of grey or black water, and no diesel engines. Fully 'leccy boats only.

But there is a statutory requirement to 'satisfy the board', and if 16 miles on a canal is insufficient than 14 miles certainly is.

The ebb and flow of life on a houseboat | The Spectator In the spring of 2021 I took a man to a pub in Hackney and bought him a drink. Perhaps he should have been doing the buying, since I had just handed him a large sum in return for his narrowboat. But I was in an exultant mood. No London flat, I reasoned, could ever be as cosy as that low-ceilinged, teak-panelled interior with its coal-burning stove and narrow cabin bed. And outside it lay a pathway to adventure through the hidden districts of the capital, their parks, nature reserves, railway bridges, gasholders, locks, warehouses and waterside pubs. Such thoughts, amplified by a sub-genre of YouTube and Instagram accounts, tempt scores of idealists on to the canals each year. They quickly discover reality. On day one the shower sputters out before you have rinsed the shampoo from your hair, and you remember that you are dependent on an onboard tank for your water supply. On day two a cold snap descends, and after several attempts to light a fire you shiver through a miserable night, eventually falling asleep at 4 a.m. to dreams of shipwrecks. On day three the toilet overflows and the nearest emptying point is out of order, though rumour has it it may reopen as soon as next month. By day ten you trudge home down streets of lighted windows to your freezing vessel, slightly smaller than a Tube carriage, half-submerged in diseased, rubbish-choked water, wondering what possessed you to abandon the ordinary comforts of civilised life. Nobody discusses this subject more eagerly than the tradesmen who work both on land and on water, and like to drive home the rashness of the latter choice. Our mechanic, a man of profound generosity who undercharged us for a superb job, crouched in the engine bay firing off insults against marine engines and their owners. ‘I think I heard a screech from the alternator belt,’ I ventured. Him: ‘No, that was me.’ Me, brightly: ‘This is our first marital home, you know.’ Him: ‘Hope it isn’t the last.’ .................................... .................................... Increasingly this community senses a threat, as licence fees rise and more of the waterways are marked ‘No mooring’ or designated ‘eco-moorings’, which demand an extra fee. Whenever the Canal and River Trust announces some such change, boat-owners protest: they fear a future of soulless, shiny waterside flats overlooking canals where nobody ever runs an engine or sits out on their roof. The Trust always responds that it is merely trying to secure the future of the canals for everyone. Yet it is the boat-owners who, by loving the waterways on which they depend, give them their character and a link with their past.

Speculation is not productive, but what we do know is that IF C&RT are taking the eviction route as they have publicy said times without number, it is because not to do so is not within their remit, and, will open the flood gates for 'me too' claimants.

A council is seeking "urgent discussions" with the Canal & River Trust after a plan was revealed to remove most towpath bins across Yorkshire and the North East. The charity said it faced "soaring costs" and the move would save money to pay for waterway repairs. The trust hoped other agencies such as councils could become responsible for providing or maintaining bins. But Bradford Council described the plan as "a concern" amid its own pressures. It said cleanliness in the absence of bins would depend on those who walked and cycled on the towpaths carrying litter, or dog mess, away with them. The charity said it spent £1.4m nationally emptying bins and clearing fly-tipping from canals in 2022. A statement said the trust already had many miles of canal where it did not provide litter bins, "including many that have achieved Green Flag Award status". "Where there are proposals to remove bins, we are first seeking local funding options to adequately service the bins and hope that local partners will step up to help." 'Urgent discussions' A section of the 127-mile (204km) Leeds and Liverpool Canal, with a popular towpath for walkers, joggers and cyclists, runs through the Bradford district. Bradford Council officers have suggested the local authority might not be able to spare staff to traverse the towpath to empty bins on a regular basis. "This is obviously of concern to us as it will be to residents so we are seeking urgent discussions with the Canal & River Trust," a spokesperson for the local authority said. At a recent council meeting, Stuart Russo, a senior technical officer, said the move could put a strain on waste services, which he said were already suffering budget pressures. "We're happy to look at if we, as a council, can take bins on," he said. "But if a bin is going to be half an hour down the towpath, I don't think that's something we'll be able to take on." Marcus Dearden, a Labour councillor for Bingley, said: "People will think these are council bins that are being removed, so it will be us that gets stick from the public." Concern over Canal & River Trust plan to remove bins from towpaths - BBC News

Is that what actually happened, or did C&RT not get offered the opportunity to renew the lease ? Was it C&RT or the Local Council who evicted the boaters ?

I'd suggest reading the BSS requirements (available on the BSS website - I have them but they are too many Mb to post here), once read, phone the BSS and explain your plan and see if they agree, and if so, get them to confirm it in writing as any future examiner is likely to give you a BSS fail. Any other course of action (including taking advice from some random guy on a forum) could result in a BSS failure and the cost of resititution My reading is that apart from the drain hole, the locker must be gas tight up to at least the height of the top of the cylinder 'handle / ring' Putting stuff in the bottom which could potentially move and block, or partially block, the drain is forbidden. Is your boat post 1998 ? If so then it should have been built with a gas locker to the ISO 10239 "Small Craft Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Systems" and comply with the following : 8.3 Cylinders, pressure regulators and safety devices located below decks or in cockpits shall be mounted in cylinder lockers which, when closed, are vapour-tight to the craft interior and vented at the bottom by a drain of not less than 19 mm inside diameter or the equivalent area if not circular. The cylinder locker shall be openable only from outside the craft interior. Cylinder lockers located in cockpits may be openable from inside the cockpit if the locker can be opened only from the top. 8.4 The locker drain shall be run outboard, i.e. to the outside of the craft, and shall be ⎯ without sumps which can retain water; and ⎯ with the outlet at a level lower than the locker bottom and as high as practicable, but not less than 75 mm above the at-rest waterline and above the waterline at a heel angle of 15 degrees when in the fully loaded ready-for-use condition. The BSS requirements : The sides of every cylinder locker must extend at least up to the level of the top of the cylinder valves, or other high-pressure components where these are higher. Up to the level of the top of the cylinder valves, or other high-pressure components where these are higher, the bottom, sides, and seams of every cylinder locker must be free of any: • holes, e.g. caused by drilling, rust or cutting; or, • cracks, splits or de-laminations; or, • missing or damaged welds at seams; or, • other signs of damage or deterioration… …. that can be identified by visual examination to penetrate the locker to the interior of the vessel

It didn't work on the G&S and ended up with boaters having a restricted licece and then (I think) Licence revocation. Mr and Mrs D are liveaboard boaters, based in Gloucester on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (G&S). As they do not have a home mooring they are subject to the Trust’s continuous cruising requirements. The Trust was not satisfied with the boat’s cruising pattern and decided only to allow them, on renewal of the licence, to have a restricted six month licence. In making their complaint, Mr and Mrs D said that the Trust restriction did not take into account the fact that the G&S is only 16 miles long, and that to cruise further meant taking their boat onto the River Severn, which they regarded as potentially hazardous. The Trust’s evidence showed that the majority of the cruising had been within a 15 km range, although there were two periods when the boat was sighted outside this range, which were at the end of April 2016 and in the middle of June 2016. The Trust said that the 15km cruising range did not meet the requirement at the time which was that the cruising range should be not less than 15-20km over the period of the licence. While it accepted that there two periods when this range was exceeded, it did not meet the requirement that the stated range should be met or exceeded “over the period of the licence”. As to whether allowances should be made for boaters on the G&S because of the geographic limitations, the Trust said that while it did accept that there were some difficulties in cruising away from the canal, it did not accept that the difficulties were of such a nature that it was prepared to reduce the maximum cruising range. That is a policy matter for the Trust which I cannot influence. The Trust’s key point was that no matter how frequently a boat moved, it could not remain on the G&S for the licence period and be compliant. It said that compliance could be achieved only if the boat left the G&S. It added that in this case the time spent away from the G&S was not sufficient to achieve compliance.

Do you have a combi charger-inverter, do you leave it switched on, what make is it ? When you have a land-line power failure it could be trying to keep the battery charged (or the fridge running etc etc) by using the battery which will flatten the battery PDQ.

The transfer to C&RT took place in 2012. Lets say that the BW Lease took place 'just before' in 2011. 21 years would take us to 2032.

Hirst and his fashion designer partner Maia Norman, mother of his three sons Connor, 27, Cassius, 22, and Cyrus, 17, paid £160,000 for the 77ft boat in 2006 and moored it on Chelsea Wharf as it was ‘the closest thing to the beach in London’. But the barge, which has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and is believed to be under offer, has been listed with agent River Homes for £80,000 - half the original price before renovation. Signe Maria began life in the 1940s as a custom dock barge designed by Vickins. After Hirst bought the yacht, Norman was entrusted with its decoration, hiring designer Mike Rundell to give it a radical makeover. He redesigned the boat in a prosaic duck egg blue, installed underfloor heating, insulated its tongue-and-groove walls, and decorated it with stripy rugs, colourful cushions, and Mexican artefacts. The couple separated in 2012 and Hirst now lives with his girlfriend Sophie Cannell, 28 years his junior, and their three French bulldogs, Pablo, Chapo and Blanco, at his £36million 14-bedroom home in Regent’s Park. Damien Hirst's houseboat could be yours for a knockdown £80,000 as he puts 77ft vessel up for sale | Daily Mail Online

Are you suggesting that this is the source of the 'dead animals' ?