IanD
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Posts posted by IanD
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7 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:
Not one to feel left out, I’ve put two on ignore 👍
one’s rude, the other’s a bore.
How predictable, coming from you. If the hat fits... 😉
DFTT.
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8 hours ago, MtB said:
It seems people feel like its a badge of honour to have few if any on ignore.
For me, anyone consistently posting provocative shyte instead of intelligent content about boating goes straight on ignore.
I find it makes the forum a much more tolerable place to read.
And anyone who thinks that repeated personal attacks -- usually because their posts have been shown to be wrong by actual facts or rational opinions -- are a substitute for reasoned debate.
It's always the same few people who do this, and like Donald Trump there's little point trying to reason with them, or in severe cases reading what they post -- and definitely not replying to them.
The usual label for people who make posts deliberately trying to be provocative and stir up divisions rather than contributing anything useful is a troll. DFTT... 😉
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21 hours ago, dogless said:
It always seems odd to me that some people seem to believe that everyone else will be, or should be charmed, entertained, enamoured and will instantly fall in love with their dogs and their children too to some degree.
I like dogs ... probably more than people 😁
I like children too.
But I currently have neither through choice, and find it unappealing to have either forced upon me in pubs, cafe's and restaurants.
However it becomes increasingly difficult to find such premises with neither.
Rog
Surely the issue is noisy badly-behaved dogs and children?
Quiet well-behaved ones are certainly much less annoying than some of the loud badly-behaved adults you sometimes find in pubs... 😉
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Just now, Battle Cruiser said:
We will do Tony, I'm just waiting to see what they say to IanD when they replace his unit for a second time. I'm now just curious as to how the control system works - when it works!
Mine's now due to be replaced sometime this week...
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16 hours ago, Jerra said:
To me that is the Catch 22. THe fees would provide the money but there would of necessity be a time lag before improvement was noticeable, in that period dissatisfaction and complaints would soar.
Welcome to the real world, as opposed to the imaginary one we wish we lived in where things working badly could be improved instantly instead of over the longer term... 😉
See also NHS, social care, rail and roads, sewage, housing...
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2 minutes ago, peterboat said:
3.3kw is my deep water cruising speed, 2 kw past boats seems right and it stays in a straight line
That's what I'd expect for your wideboat on bigger canals, about double the 1kW I use passing moored boats.
The 6kW was for cruising at 6-8kph as reported, which faster than I assume you cruise at on UK canals... 😉
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Just now, peterboat said:
Yes the rubber metal mounts are the same, I used the old ones of my diesel engine as it very few hours on it.
You really want smaller softer ones for an electric motor since it's much lighter than a diesel engine. No big problem though, the originals will work but might let more motor vibration/noise through than the correct ones.
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9 minutes ago, MtB said:
Indeed, a point made in the link I provided.
So let's argue then. I imagine you agree the start of the curve (i.e. the boat licence tax is free) CRT income will be zero. And upthread a couple of people have suggested if the licence went up to £5k they would leave the canals so putting aside the likelihood a richer person would buy their boat and pay the £5k, lets take £5k for a licence tax as the upper point at which CRT income falls back to zero.
I propose that the top of a Laffer Curve so drawn might show a licence fee of about £2.5k would maximise CRT income. Where would you put that point?
I'd put it higher than that, because as you say even at £5k/year some better-off boaters would still carry on. But it would drive a *lot* of people away and effectively lead to social cleansing, definitely not good... 😞
My guesstimate of 50% increase in total boating cost for the top of the curve would be about £3.5k/year license fee, or about a 250% increase on what CART charge today. That would drive some poorer boaters off the canals, so CART income wouldn't be 3.5x higher, it would be about 2.5x higher -- that's the way the Laffer curve works.
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2 minutes ago, Peanut said:
There are some good resources for the French rivers, in a post on YBW forum, which provides helpful information.
With links to the French river authority, https://www.vigicrues.gouv.fr/
and to a source for PDF Guides, https://www.french-waterways.com/guides-downloads/
And the Dutch Barge Association, the DBA Waterways Guide, https://www.barges.org/?view=article&id=347&catid=9
Lots more advice in the thread, read through. https://forums.ybw.com/threads/canal-flooding-in-france.458363/
Having seen the German rivers in flood, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near.
I don't think you'd want to be out on *any* big river when it's in flood, regardless of country.
But the big Continental rivers (e.g. the Rhine) are even bigger and scarier than anything we have in the UK...
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5 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Except, as we have discussed in another thread, CRT don't really maintain the canals at all any more. They don't have the means to do so. They hire other companies to do it for them, at whatever rate these companies feel like charging. Logically, these companies will charge whatever the market will bear, which, as the government is paying, will be in excess of any sensible economic rate. They have no interest in whether the rates are sustainable, as they have no stake in fhe survival of the system.
And I do wish people would stop banging on about "supply and demand" being an economic law. Stick three economists in a room and you'll get four different interpretations of it, none of them any use in predicting outcomes.
All economists agree on supply and demand and the Laffer curve for obvious reasons, any disagreement is about the exact shape of the curve -- but for sure the CART license fee is well down the left hand side.
Regardless of the methods CART use to maintain the canals, are you seriously suggesting that they wouldn't do better if they had more money to spend on them? That just makes no sense... 😞
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1 minute ago, MrsM said:
We found the approx £5k/year was quite accurate for us as leisure boaters that cruised a lot but paid for a marina mooring, but wouldn't the figure for continuous cruisers be much lower?
That figure was also what CCers on the forum have usually come up with, they don't pay for a marina but spend more on other things including fuel/gas/repairs (and living expenses in general) because they spend a lot more time on the boat.
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16 minutes ago, Momac said:
So would most other folk.
Charge too much and there will be too few customers.
True, but basic economics says that you need to look at what this does to the total cost of boating, not just the license fee.
Estimates for typical total boating cost usually come out around £5kpa, typical license fee is less then 20% of this (£1kpa).
Doubling the license fee would increase annual boating cost by 20% to £6kpa, which is unlikely to drive many people off the canals any more than 10% inflation did.
Multiplying it by 6x (an extra £5kpa) would undoubtedly make many people quit boating by doubling the annual cost, just like @LadyG said.
This suggests the "maximum revenue" point for CART is a license fee somewhere in between these two figures, maybe around 3x-4x what it is today, which would make canal boating about 50% more expensive.
You can argue about the exact numbers but this really is basic supply and demand in action, which says that CART are charging much less for license fees than they should do to extract the most money from boaters to maintain the canals -- failure to do which is what everyone is complaining about... 😞
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1 hour ago, Onewheeler said:
Our boat in France averages about 2.5 L diesel/ h with cruising at around 6 - 8 km/h including hanging around for locks. That's an energy of around 25 kW into an inefficient diesel engine. What's that at the prop? A bit over 10kW? I've no idea!
Depending on engine size and power level, efficiency is likely to be between 20% and 25%- so around 6kW into the prop.
9 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:Yes indeed. The Thames and Trent are pussycats compared with those big continental rivers.
In which case you do need a more powerful motor, as I said. Still doable with electric, but costs more.
1 hour ago, David Mack said:But not the way to endear yourself to any boat following you, unless you are on a wide enough waterway for overtaking to be easy.
I agree, which is one reason I don't do it.
But the electric evangelists who ignore this and say "I can cruise on 1kW and only need solar!" (or 1.5kW, or 2kW...) are being "economical with the truth" unless they also admit that they're going more slowly than most diesel boats.
I know how fast my boat -- efficient and with a well designed hull and prop -- goes on 1kW, it's the speed I slow down to past moored boats with pretty much zero wash. That's too slow for most people to cruise at, as seen by how fast some pass moored boats... 😉
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2 minutes ago, Amaya said:
And you are either young or naive to think that won't change.
The change on privacy and rights have become none existent with the age of technology.
You believe if something is approved in Europe, we won't end up having imposed here?
Jeez.. waste of time talking.
It's not approved in the EU and is very unlikely to be, they have stronger data protection laws than the UK because they believe more in the privacy of the individual -- where do you think the GDPR laws came from?
If you believe what you're claiming then car speed limiters are the least of your problems. Maybe your tinfoil hat will stop you being infected by 5G microchips... 😉
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10 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:
I agree in general though Google Map's traffic density overlay must be receiving data from mobile phones even if it is merged anonymized data.
That's the point, data protection laws prevent anything else unless you specifically agree to it voluntarily.
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I just checked the numbers -- while travelling average DC power (propulsion) was 2.3kW (13kWh/day, 1.3kWh/mile, 1.9mph average including locks), total power used (including domestic and losses) was 3.3kW (19kWh/day). Only about 25% of total power came from solar (autumn/spring/lousy summer), 75% from the generator -- but this was travelling every day averaging just under 6h/day.
11 minutes ago, magnetman said:15m long 4m wide you want a Diesel engine. About 75-90hp with a good driveline and a sensible size propeller.
Electric is going to be a nuisance. i am a massive fan of electric Boats but thats going to be too big and too costly to sort out if you want it reliable.
Sorry but that's BS, a hybrid can deal with this perfectly well as multiple people have shown, because on canals and most UK rivers you don't need anything like that much power for a wideboat -- 30kW/40hp is fine (2x narrowboat power).
If you want to go out on lumpy water with strong currents then you need more, but not for inland waterways.
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14 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:
Have you calculated your kWh consumption in terms of kWh per mile? My own reading on the subject led to a figure of 0.7kWh per mile at a speed of 2.2 mph.
Another interesting post on this subject is a short blog entry for a Mothership hybrid serial narrowboat that travelled from London to Bristol mid summer on solar and batteries alone in 20 days. On arrival in Bristol I think the overall solar/consumption balance was down a net 16kWh over the whole voyage domestic consumption included.
Yes I have, and it's a bit more than 1kWh/mile -- and an average speed of more than 2.2mph, including locks and slowing down last moored boats...
That stacks up with what I expected from many years of hiring various diesel boats and knowing what rpm I typically cruised at -- very small wake, no breaking wash. It also stacks up with measurements from multiple hybrid boats in the Ortomarine trials.
If you go more slowly then you use less power, and this is what many electric/hybrid boats seem to be doing, including many of the published logs claiming solar only power.
No problem if you want to do this, but then it's not an apples-to-apples comparison with a diesel boat, is it?
Over 4 trips so far I've never once seen as low as 0.7kWh/mile averaged over the trip.
Bear in mind that when I say "energy use" I mean "supplied by solar or generator or shoreline" not "power from drive circuits into motor", because it's the energy you have to provide that matters -- and this includes domestic use, not just propulsion. There are also losses in charging and motor drive circuits which increase the input power needed for a given motor power.
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Just now, Amaya said:
You must be living under a rock. This is the near future.
Although since brevity we aren't confined to European laws. The fact is. All new cars are being fitted with such. Including abilities to prevent speeding. So controlling how we drive.
As has been mentioned, and frankly obvious. Brexit means nothing. Car manufacturers are not going to spend money altering cars for Britain.
We will have European approved cars.
The car knows where you are, what the speed limit is and whether you're exceeding it (amd can stop you doing this). Transmitting this data to the police is illegal for all sorts of reasons, including data protection and self-incrimination.
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6 minutes ago, Paul C said:
Let's not lose sight of the "issue" raised here. We're talking about speed limit enforcement. The data provided to a satnav service provider is not able to be intercepted by police and used for law enforcement of speeding offences.
I'm not sure what "sat nav service provider" you mean -- the GPS unit (or smartphone) knows where it is and this is used for navigation and mapping in the car, but the data is not normally available elsewhere, though it is used to download mapping data.
Unless you install and use some tracking software which tells someone else where you are, in which case it's your fault... 😉
3 minutes ago, Peanut said:They are coming to get you. 🙂
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/103530/speed-limiters-now-required-all-new-cars-know-rules-and-how-they-work
That means the car knows where it is and what the local speed limit is and stops you exceeding it. It doesn't tell the police where you are and whether you're exceeding the limit, this would be illegal under GDPR laws.
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3 hours ago, MtB said:
Well that's good.
So some fag packet estimates... I think IanD says his NB draws about 2kW cruising at 3 knots. So this 3.5m beam barge (I think the OP said) might draw perhaps 6kW at a guess. So a day's cruising of say seven hours will use 42kWh of energy each day. A shore charging point will probably have a limit of about 6kW too so than will mean seven hours sucking on the shoreline to recharge daily. Easily managed as an overnight charge.
Solar on the other hand might contribute say 3kW on a sunny day. So there might be a day or two or three moored up recharging from solar for each day cruising when a shore charger can't be found.
About 3kW when cruising is typical for me -- others who go more slowly report lower power than this. Depending in length of day and how much time you spend in locks and passing moored boats, daily energy use for propulsion can be 15-20kWh, with several kWh on top for domestic use. For a wideboat these numbers will be higher (maybe double?), again with a strong dependence on speed.
On a narrowboat you can expect about 7kWh per day from solar on average in the summer -- more on good days (>10kWh), less on bad ones. A 14' wideboat can average closer to 20kWh/day in summer because it has maybe 2.5x the roof area if it's covered with solar.
So even in summer you can't cruise all day every day on solar only, unless you go more slowly than most diesel boats do. A few hours cruising per day, or all day every other day is possible.
In spring and autumn solar yield maybe halves, and drops to maybe a fifth in midwinter -- at which point a generator or shoreline charging becomes essential.
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20 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:
But Jim Mitchel's post 2 hours ago post said that the 12V supply is to charge the 12V battery by the BT, and that 12V battery drives a B to B charger for the 24V batteries.
Only if it's a 24V BT, I believe the OPs is 12V...
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Just now, Ferg said:
It's not a hybrid I'm looking for just a straight forward electric barge.
A previous poster has suggested that the mounts for most diesel engines are the same as those used for electric motors so I'm thinking this part at least might be hard to screw up?
A hybrid in this case means a series hybrid, with a generator on board for when the solar can't keep up in the middle of winter.
You might be OK without one in sunny France on a widebeam, depending on how much power you use onboard -- assuming you don't move too much.
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Unless you have plenty of knowledge and are aware of all the gotchas of getting everything installed and working properly -- and TBH it doesn't sound like you do -- the safest route is to get an individual or company to specify and do the installation, using kit they're already familiar with, so that they are responsible for making it all work.
There aren't many boatbuilders/fitters doing this properly today for electric/hybrid boats -- from what I've seen there are quite a few doing it not very well at attractive prices, but there's an obvious problem with this... 🙂
Many of the respected hybrid boat builders would rather build and fit out new boats because this brings in a lot more money and is less hassle than trying to retrofit into an existing boat, and they don't want to get a bad reputation with a bodged installation -- which is one reason that they will charge a lot to do it properly if you can persuade them to do it at all, because the technical bods are probably already busy 100% of the time...
You could try Mothership Marine, someone suggested recently that they might be supporting conversions -- but don't expect it to be cheap, if you got away with less than £30k including a generator it would be an absolute miracle... 😉
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36 minutes ago, jddevel said:
So perhaps the one party WHO SHOULD HAVE AN INTEREST and possibly could act on behalf of the boating community is the CRT after all as a major contributor to their coffers should our interests and concerns likewise be theirs?
Why should they? CART don't buy or sell boats, it's none of their business, they maintain the canals.
It would either be down to boaters or brokers. Brokers don't care, they either insist on RCD or not depending on their viewpoint, no skin off their noses.
The only people who need/want to know are boaters, so if money has to be spent to challenge this in court it's boaters who'd have to fund this.
Chance of that happening -- precisely zero...
Where’s Tracy?
in General Boating
Posted
Sometimes the old ways -- often based on years of real-life experience -- are still the best.
But other times new solutions which weren't available at the time are better. Plenty of examples of this in boating, as in many other areas.
Refusing to acknowledge this is being closed-minded, not superior... 😉