Arthur Brown

The really big issue will be getting your boat BSS certified for a petrol engine -may cost real money. The second issue will be getting petrol on the cut. After that sailing down the Tames should be easy. I did hear once that Thames transits must be under power (not sail) can anyone confirm. Good luck, write the book! Added; If you really like sailing then try the canal across the Pennines and then down the east coast.

While a board may pass through one door, be sure that there is enough space to man handle it through the next bend(s) in the corridor!

I'm looking for a 12v security system able to report incidents remotely. Possible GPS reporting, but certainly tamper reporting maybe with vid or stills picture reporting. Who knows a good system? Likely on mobile broadband or a text message system.

As a retired airport fireman. A 1kg firex is OK for what it's made for -small fires. Keep a few so that with one used, you are still within BSS. If you have expired extinguishers that cannot be retested then PLAY! Get a small fire and try to put it out. Most people are more scared by the rush from a firex than the fire, so they misuse the extinguisher first, then there may not be much left for the fire. Real wool is good because it's really hard to keep burning. I do like modern fire blankets, they are totally reuseable. The sand filled fire bucket is the cheapest extinguisher,ideal for small site fires. But I doubt it's BSS certification!

As far as canal boats go, they represent too small a lobby to be effective when compared to the big diesel users, road cars and trucks, and without trucks England would starve -no-one uses horses to get food to consumers. However most boaters could help the situation by not running fume belching engines. I was on a towpath near a Tesco, to collect something from a member and a neighbouring boat was pouring a diesel mist over the water and neighbouring gardens, a clear example of a diesel not actually firing on one cylinder so one fire and one atomised diesel fog coming out. What always interests me is the constant publicity of how bad the pollution is, the air today is so much cleaner than when cars did 24mpg, but the new standards seem to ensure that we CALL it worse. With coal generation decreasing where will all the electricity come from? Shall we buy some more from France?

Half of spring's problems end when the engine starts! keep it charged! Does the charger have a "spare" output for a starter battery?

There certainly was a Brit sub on display with some opening hours and tours in Chatham dock yard. It was a post war design so had probably spent much of it's life off Norway watching and listening to Sov Bloc activity.

Having had to dry out a boat long ago, be ruthless! Unless the wet time was really short there will be lots of things that will swell or go soggy, and these may as well be thrown out wet as dried out at cost. This weather a dehumidifier will be greatly aided by some serious heat.

Maplin did once have a 12v microwave -needed a lot of current off 12v to be useful otherwise I've never found or seen one. Maplin have long sold out of them. Bad thing is the high current needed, good thing is the short duration -usually. How soon you need to recharge depends on the state of and size of your batteries.

VHF is the official contact system. Mobiles are usually personal so depends on who is on duty today and I know several people with several mobiles each.

The bigger the water the more useful the VHF set will be. Read up about each river to see where your boat length needs VHF

Feed the boat from one supply, plug in a table lamp and see which setting lights the lamp and label it :|| til you've identified three. Beware earthing! Mains arrives with you with earth referenced to neutral Travel power is IIRC earth referenced to the centre tap of the voltage -which is totally non compliant Inverter may or not be earth referenced The British safety system with single switched live and an RCD really needs earth referenced neutral, you may be able to reference the inverter, but you can't do the TP. One earth reference and all is fine, No earth reference and the RCDs may not work, two earth references and the RCD on the boat or bollard will nuisance trip.

Reliance Engineering was the name of an auto electrician company with lots of employees in Nottingham, (Canal Street IIRC) So I doubt that there was another unrelated company doing boat building.

A friend has a 6KVA diesel Honda genset. picked up second hand for less than £1000, it purrs gently in the background. BSS regs make petrol hard to use compliantly, so it's hard to come by on the cut (Easier on the Thames).

If you think it's what you want to live in, then go through the basic working on paper. How much length do you want to add? What will that do to the seaworthyness of the product, What will it do to the weight for being craned in and out? What will it do to the possibility of moving the boat by truck? Where do you hope to get the work done? Which marine architect is going to sign the design off as safe -no jobbing welder can be expected to do so! Where an how will you get it blacked every two years? What is the maximum dimension that your qualifications will let you drive on your bit of water -sooner or later your navigation will demand more than recreational skills of boat handling. Will extra length mean you need extra things (life-rafts radios etc) on your home water?

Antifreeze (glycol + corrosion inhibitors) is a dense liquid given the chance antifreeze put into an empty cooling system will largely settle at the bottom. As you put antifreeze mix on top of old coolant then you should be OK. Were you able to run the engine for a while to warm and circulate the coolant?

Silicone sealer, Builder's white mastic, for bodge jobs. glass, resin and gel coat and lots of polishing for a really good job. resin work is best done in warm weather.

In the first pic you posted in this thread there is a black rubber hose running centre to right, that shows a green spiral band. IMO and only that! that hose is the top connection to a skin tank and the one below it is the other connection. Do you run the engine often! It's likely that a daily engine run hour will keep it hot enough to prevent freezing in night frosts- OK not of it's -10 all day! 10 litres of fuel is a lot cheaper than a replacement engine!

Among the "things you could do" are 1/ Buy a house, -pay the full price of living in London, My house has increased in value about 5x over the period of my mortgage. 2/ Move out of London and pay the full cash and time cost of commuting. 3/ Make a serious investment to provide enough cash in your "golden years" to facilitate your care without relying on a local council, -currently over £1000 per week for residential care. You could of course tell CaRT to ...... off and find another mooring for more money and with the permanent risk of being as you see it, done for council tax. and proper fees.

If your engine has a closed circuit of cooling water through engine ans skin tank it needs antifreeze and lots of it because of the volume of the coolant. If it's got a heat exchanger built onto the engine then the engine coolant needs antifreeze but the raw water circuit cannot have antifreeze -it's just canal water. It the engine swap used the same system as before then raw canal water can be passing through the engine and out again into the cut, this system cannot be antifreezed because it will flow into the cut, AND there is a risk to the engine if internal water freezes. You really have to determine what your cooling system is.

With the CEEform range of connectors there is a design for each voltage and frequency. So there are several for different voltages DC (usually white) 230v AC is blue. 400v three phase is red etc. each only mates with the correct pairing connectors for safety. It's poor form to use the wrong connectors although it does occasionally happen.

For a residential mooring in the London area to fall in your lap so easily and cheaply, you complain? There will be a queue of people willing to move to a full residential mooring any time you want to leave/get pushed. Ultimately local councils will push mooring operators to collect as much council tax as possible because the council ends up picking up the cost of people's care of the elderly as life becomes more demanding then their abilities can support, with council income being slashed by central government they have to ensure that they collect all the possible council tax.

In pic 1 there are clearly two rubber pipes leading to a swim shaped plate one up and one down so I suspect that either there is a skin tank on the starboard side, or the boat takes in raw water from the starboard side. Personally I think it's good to look further, Is there a heat exchanger in the engine unit? is there a skin tank, could it be a really raw water cooled engine? Til you know for sure then it's a good plan to run the engine daily to keep it just above freezing, or to install an electric heater. Does this engine have a position for an installable stud heater that actually goes into the sump oil to keep it warm? -it's more efficient to heat the engine directly than to heat the air near it. Was the boat sold to you with any log books or drawings or description, does anything say in writing what cooling system is used. ALL antifreeze is toxic to marine life so you do need to know where you are pouring it and disposing of the waste.

Buy a genuine Anderson connector. OR identify and source the correct CEEform connector for 12v DC. and pay a fortune for both parts. Mains ceeform connectors are used in huge bulk so are cheaper than the less used styles. -it's white,but seems rare as rocking hors.......

Antifreeze used to have to cope in a system made from cast iron and copper, Now there are iron, steel, mag alloy, aluminium and plastic parts so it's hardly surprising that the corrosion inhibitors need to be appropriate for the engine. And maybe a vintage engine with cast iron and copper pipe needs the old antifreeze!