Arthur Brown

As much as packing a stern gland needs greasing, However tight, a greaseless bit of jute will not keep water out (it will wear the shaft into grooves though) . Do you grease the gland? Every trip? There could be a grease nippple or a refillable greaser on the tube, or a remote greaser on an extension pipe. A bilge pump is an item that can and does fail so a spare in a cupboard is a great idea.

Do you have a charged house battery? Is it the same voltage as the starter? Can you jump start the engine from the house battery?

Your nice switch mode charger will be connected to the battery and the mains and any switch mode electrical noise will be dumped down the mains earth also connected to the battery and the hull by the negative earth bond.

An album of faded prints clearly showing the vendor and the boat proves that there is history connecting them, which may say more than most other things that he has the right to sell the boat. Oh! there are things like a bill of sale for his purchase of the boat, mooring payments, service invoices, The more things that are missing, the more problems you could have later.

Remember that there is no boat equivalent of the car "log book" There is no one piece of proof of ownership, and no proof that there are no leins or loans secured on the boat. Actually it's better to keep looking for the owners history with the boat -have they anythings going back a long time relating to them, the boat and their cruising?

12v appliances include the really bad and the expensive sometimes both.

As it was stated before that the boat (while missing from it's owners) moved in response to comments on here, through places already searched particularly. It's likely that the resident of the boat during that period was familiar with this forum, so any comments posted now by anyone who knows (rather than guesses) is likely to prejudice the legal proceedings if any. Probably the owners of the boat are among the about 50% of the forum's members who post very little.

Are you really sure that you have read the instructions, installed and operated that Drok meter correctly? Something that only reads current one way is spectacularly useless on a boat where the balancing act is to monitor current in and out of the battery ant to keep the battery charged.

The advantage of a battery system is that they will support high currents for short periods (if properly charged!) probably in the order of 200a for minutes, but a power supply may well close down (nicely or badly according to price) on a 10% overload. Yes you can buy a switch mode PSU from RS (or ebay) that turns mains into 12(ish) volts steadily. With a charger like this probably a system voltage if about 13.2 to 13.5 would be good so that the battery approaches fully charged then goes to float, but doesn't gas, and the appliances are never stressed by 15.7 periods of fast charge or equalising.

If you keep up with electrical consumption over the next few months then it's fine! If not then it's not!! However I'd always want a spare charger if I needed to use 12v and had mains. Make certain that the starter battery gets some charge so that the engine will start when needed.

I don't think the smartgauge is accurate(!), but it is the most accurate simple SOC indicator available that can simply be read. Other forms of indicator and meter readings can be taken but all need some calculation or experience to determine SOC. I'd also suggest that many people don't get close to 100% SOC for their charging regime. If you can charge by diesel in the morning then perhaps a solar panel will allow the final charge to progress at a slow rate over noon, when some power is usually available even in the winter.

You should discover that cruising is essential! a weekend away cruising should charge the batteries then two hours a day should delay the discharge a little. You will need to buy and fit a Smartgauge and charge the batteries fully a couple of times before it gives a reasonable reading. The fridge will use enough electricity to kill your batteries easily so as soon as the local temperature goes down to less than 10C you could turn the fridge off and keep food in a cool place. Batteries are a consumable! They will last three months with a moderate charge regime, two years if you care for them but they can be killed in a week if left flat. Find the nearest place to recharge overnight from a shoreline, find a generator charger and find and fit solar ASAP. 200w of solar is good for an electrofrugal life in summer. 1000w is much better. You will get about 10% of rated power off solar in the darker four months of the year. A mooring with a shoreline will provide all the comforts of home and is probably well worth the money.

Draw out the charging circuit that you actually have, check what wires really go where, follow wires carefully through bulkheads etc, follow wire colours. Once you know what you really have it's probable that the fault will be blindingly obvious -something wired in the wrong place.

Electricity from static generation usually costs about 10x the price of mains electricity so there is a lot of benefit to having mains available from the shoreline. 1/ you need the correct cable from the post to the boat, and 2/ you need an appliance inlet on the boat feeding a consumer unit and the existing sockets via a changeover switch from the inverter, Once you are on mains you need a charger for the batteries. The downside of an all mains boat is that any heat that came from engine running isn't available so think about hot water and any radiators, however running the engine for charging is limited to 8 am to 8 pm and if you are working this makes sufficient charging difficult, so having nicely maintained batteries done silently overnight is great. Half of spring's boating woes go away when the engine starts. In an all electric marina, having blacking done better and more frequently could save a lot of metal loss due to galvanic corrosion

Study some of the vids of The Arnold Company on youtube. OK he's using epoxy and sometimes selected carbon fibre, but there are examples of how he cuts openings in structures and makes the cut out piece into the door for the hole. The only real problem is that you are unlikely to recreate the right shade of gel coat on the infil work.

30mA 50 mS RCDs are common and are probably the best compromise between fast protection and nuisance tripping. If the bollard has an RCD then having one on the boat would simply confuse locating any fault,

When the slot is full to the top the bottom planks must sink under the weight of the exposed top planks or there is no way of sealing the bottom cill. If each plank has some ballast then you don't have to crane in the last plank with the lead ingot secured. BUT the lower planks must float so that they can rise up the slot and be easily removable. You will be buying a fair amount of timber to ask for a good price, measure the old planks and see just how much you need and how much it will cost.

I'm thinking that 2 minutes with a Bernzomatic/Rothy should see all those eggs well fried as perhaps max doesn't need 1000 extra mouths to feed over winter.

Everything that's amusing, educational and interesting of the forum has been concentrated into one thread by Max, two cats and a dog.

Having walked the cut, I'm horrified how many engines are putting out 20% mist of pure diesel. Some boaters seem to risk all to avoid maintenance.

Miss spelled it, sorry. Fitchett & Woollacott Ltd, Lenton Lane in Nottingham, Phone 0115 993 1112 Does seem to have changed hands, does seem to still be a timber merchant. Add it to your ring list, they never disappointed me when I lived in Nottingham. Do your existing planks have any ballast? (An odd bolt or ten? A lump of lead.) You need to get the planks to sink without too much effort not bob about like balsa.