canals are us?

I'm going to look at a 25ft GRP cruiser shell on Thursday. As no outboard engine, needs to be taken out of the water and delivered 1 hours drive away to a new Marina and then I can get a BSC and license it and insure. Can anyone recommend someone or a company with a trailer or the means of taking the boat out the water and putting on a trailer and delivering it 40 miles away and either putting it in the water or on the bankside? Trying to get an idea of cost before buying and now going to find a mooring, hopefully Streethay Wharf. Many thanks. James.

How do they fix it properly? I presume dig out hole and refill with rubble, clay? Why not fix it permanently while drained and get it done once and right. CRT really do need in house repair teams and local knowledge of previous workers who can be called in on jobs in their area. James

Make sure it's got plenty of ventilation. It's amazing how much heat comes off them. It could be staying on as it can't get cool enough due to poor ventilation. Pull it out and see if it runs ok. Battery voltage very low! James

If it's one of the louvered windows 6.4mm laminated glass should fit. Available from glass merchants and can be cut while you wait. Just get the top and bottom edges edged/polished. If fixed pane with frame then 4mm toughened needed. Unless you can get 4mm laminated or Perspex. James.

Yesterday at 1 pm I unplugged the mains landline to my boat to see if my 4x Trojan T105 batteries and 380 watts of solar through a Tracer BN series MPPT controller could cope with the 12 volt fridge and the 12 volt under counter freezer and other items like TV, phone charging, mifi, and floor standing fan. I had the tv on all evening from 6-11pm and tried the tv on 12 volt and mains by a Victron combi and seemed to make no difference. Did note with inverter on and tv on standby, phone charging and mifi charging I was using 2.7AH I presume 1A was Inverter losses? Note if saving power turn inverter off. Needed the invertor on as had floor standing fan on all the time and charging phone/ using old Toshiba satellite laptop as battery dead years ago. Voltages remained quiet stable at around 12.5-6 and rose and recovered as fridge/freezer turned off. I was using 10-15AH per hour according to my BM2 and at night anything from 4-9.2ah for just the 12volt fridge and freezer. at 5am this morning the voltage was 12.4volts and rose with the sunshine. Believe I should not let battery voltage go below 12.2 volts. With fan, laptop and fridge going I'm now reading 12.8 -13 volts at the solar controller and Nasa BM2. Getting 11A from solar atm. I'm pleased with my electrical upgrade but may buy a new 12 volt fridge, to a larder fridge as it spends a long time on. At least 40 minutes in an hour period. Its an ancient inlander of either 1998 or 2002 vintage. A fellow boater has a shoreline which hardly runs and seems much more efficient. As I have a good inverter I could just buy a good mains fridge? Or as it all seems to work don't bother. James

And there was me thinking mrsmelly had gone into production of making water heaters! James

Indeed. Mooring fees aren't cheap for a wide beam around 3.5k a year. Would love a river bank mooring somewhere in the Midlands! Hopefully in a month or 2 I'll be out Cruising so may meet out on the cut James

I would like one! Could just afford a Collingswood sailaway 10 x 55ft and only 15k to start the fit out but would skint me out. Have to move from current Marina as not a wide canal and extra licence and costs. Camping in it while fitting out wouldn't bother me. Ideal really would be to have the boat on land at a boatyard as no licence needed and just storage costs. Love something 11ft by 55ft. There is a few used ones around 55k so probably easier to buy used. James

Get some sprouts or baked beans! James.

I totally agree! I wonder if they even hired a boat to see what life was like on board. If they did probably a pump out! I like my C200 loo. Sounds as if they did no research into boat types, bed designs and loos. I certainly don't have sleepless nights thinking of the boat rotting. I mean there is more to life than worrying what might happen. Enjoy "the now" I believe and worry about what may be when, or if it does happen! I do the regular blacking and do repairs myself. Like anything even bricks and mortar needs maintenance every now and then. James

Are your batteries getting hot? My original prestone 30 amp charger fan ran continuously and the cause was a shorted cell in one battery. Removed hot battery and the charger after an hour went into float and fan off! Did this a second time after 4 more months and second of 4 dud. Ended up with 2, then had boat 2 years and ended up installing 2 Trojan T105's used on shore charger but thought old charger would keep them healthy. Wrong, needed a regular equalisation charge and a higher bulk charge than regular batteries. I managed with help of this forum to do several equalisation charges over 2 days and took regular measurements using a refractometer to get rid of some sulphation on my existing batteries to add 2 more. The original 2 T105'S are 3 years old now. I did a electrical upgrade recently. New victron multiplus inverter charger, Voltage Sensing relay, NASA BM2. Tracer MPPT 40A controller and a 12 volt freezer to go with the 12 volt fridge. I plan to get out cruising at some point to try it all out. I quite like my NASA BM2 battery monitor. I have a victron inverter charger and when on only see 0.4-2amp going into the batteries at night, being charged by the victron. I have 380 watts of solar. The nice thing with the NASA battery monitor you can see what power items take and I never go below 12.2 volts. As my charger is on it's generally reads anything from 12.9-13.2 volts at night and anything up to 15-16 volts in sunny weather. Don't rely on the state of charge display on the BM2 as you really need to see low AH being shown on the monitor to see that the batteries are fully charged. Think its 4% of battery total capacity. It will be confirmed or denied on here. Earlier today around mid-day I unplugged my shore lead and the solar is running my 12 volt under counter fridge and freezer, floor mounted fan and my Toshiba laptop and charging my phone. voltage on my MT 50 meter is 12.7 volts and currently 3.7a discharge depending if fridge or freezer cuts in. The solar in spring/summer is a great way to get the extra charge into your batteries. I'm mostly Marina based and can't understand why more boats don't get solar energy. James

I have a similar design on my bow deck. I slipped before buying them and slid stepping down and my back hit the old bow locker diesel tank edge. It hurt! Water does run out underneath but did find rust last year and ground back and treated and re painted. Paintwork at least 7 years old. Fitted these mats 5 years ago and no issues since. James

The new logo looks more of a sewage or water companies logo. What was wrong with the C&RT? Seemed sensible. Have cart rebranded to do a phoenix? Awful waste of money. James

Great news! Pictures are mandatory once finalised. Steve was great when he did my boat, glad the recommendation worked out and that Steve was able to do your boat. Happy boating soon! James

As you have the rads and fuel feed, then easy if good at DIY. The wiring with the kit is simply plug and play and all pre wired and labelled. My heater is on one side of the boat and batteries the other and battery loom was right length. From memory 4 metre loom from relay/fuses to timer and 3 metre from webasto to batteries. The heater is plumbed in using SAE heater hose to connect the heater to your heating pipework. Fill with inhibitor/ antifreeze mix with 25% strength antifreeze. Screwfix is the best stuff and cheap. James

I bought an MP&H webasto TTC heater kit. I had it pack up due to coking after a short time, but didn't bother sending back as had the solid fuel stove. The coking up was possibly due to 5 year old diesel and needed commissioning at my end. I tend to run it for no more than 2 hours. I sent it back to the seller 10 months into the 12 month warranty at the time and 10 days later was returned and fully working. No cost to me apart from postage to the seller. I was dubious about the warranty but he does stand by his guarantee and the heater has worked fantastic since. The only thing in the kit to be aware of is the exhaust isn't a gas tight one and have changed it to the mukini 22mm one piece exhaust, on the advice of NMEA. http://www.mikuniheating.com/Details.cfm?ProdID=105 If a cruiser stern the non gas tight probably fine providing no route for fumes into boat in engine bay. You also need the exhaust skin fitting and official 2mm internal copper fuel line. It's a good price and works very well. 4 Rads and hot water lovely and hot. I use it as 2nd form of heating to my solid fuel stove with back boiler when not worth lighting the fire. James

Voltageist. wattageist and Ampageist are it's brother and Sister! their electrifrightning! James

A priest needed? Seriously has anyone had a boat that's haunted? James

Indeed. Done my last 2 boat safety inspections. Comes on time, friendly and reliable. I would find your own surveyor and dock it at either Barton Marina or Streethay or Shobnall Marina. James