simon boden

in my opion you are wasting your time and money.Our boat has a 10mm bottom which has never been painted in the last 15 years, the sides have been painted every 3-4 years. Upon a recent hull survey by a qualified surveyor the hull sides which were orginally 6mm are now down to 5.9mm to 5.7mm in places even though been painted. The base plate originally 10 m is mainly still 10 m going down to 9.7 on the stern thus proving to paint the sides is really for cosmetic reasons although must have protected the steel from some sort of corrusion over the years.

we are about to have a new narrowboat and are wondering wether anyone could advise us on the size of propeller required. the boat is 62 feet in length with a beta 43 engine with a two to one reduction gear box. It has been sugested to us that we require a 16/17 inch prop. it has also been mentioned to us that there are numerous types i.e the basic prop or a high efficiency prop. does anybody have thoughts or experiance of the high efficiency one. Hope you can help me!

Can any one please advise me where to get a recording of a proper narrow boat vintage engine. The reason for this is a friend of mine who has just purchased a narrow boat, has gone to great expense to quieten the engine noise so much that you cannot tell that it is running even though it is on full tilt. For a laugh i thought i could give him a cd with a recording of a real working boat engine. I have been searching the web for weeks and found some engine noises but have been unable to download them Please help me??

we are in the process of having a new 62 foot narrowboat built, and we have decided to put a Beta BV1903 43 hp engine on flexi mounts into it. Could any one give us some advice on whether to fit a centra flex coupling or to go for the more expensive aquadrive. e.g. does the centraflex take out as much vibration as the aquadrive? Thanks for helping Simon Boden