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Denizen of the Deep

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Everything posted by Denizen of the Deep

  1. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  2. Thank you David. I think I had a bit of a technical issue there... The story with that butyl bag was that it failed after only a year or so. Found it swimming in water in the bow cavity. I suspect that one of the welds around a fitting had failed. The remedy was to remove the bag, write it off as a well intentioned failure, and ask the great guys at Candle Bridge Fabrications (now based at Braunston Marina) to clean out the integral tank and paint it with a food-grade epoxy paint. The tank is now in service again at full capacity. Modern boats seem to be built with cuboid stainless or plastic tanks, offering lower capacity but vastly improved quality, reliability and accessibility (usually slotted under the foredeck, I think), and that's what I would look for in a new boat. For integral tanks, butyl liners seem dody and tricky, and cleaning and painting (to protect the inside of the hull) seems the best choice to me. Again, apologies for the inadvertent radio silence and thanks for the interest shown! :)
  3. After a false start when I inadvertently twisted the liner when tightening the outlet nozzle against the bulkhead, the water bladder is now correctly located and connected. Here it is filling up. Meanwhile the pleasure of running water is restored to nb Flag Iris after three months of living out of bottled water. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone!
  4. My new water tank bladder took about 4 weeks to manufacture. They used the fittings salvaged off the old liner so that re-fitting to tails will be straightforward. On a fine morning, we decided to fill the liner outboard and make sure it's watertight. So far, so good.
  5. It seems as though the material is indeed certified by WRAS for contact with human consumption water. It's nylon-textile reinforced EPDM 1.25mm thick sheeting. I took my old, punctured tank liner to their factory and we discussed how they were going to produce a bag to similar shape, and the aluminium skin fittings they'll use to pass the inlet, breather and outlet tails. Manufacture time is about 4 weeks. It's a bit of a drag living out of bottles, but tolerable as we're on a marina berth. Probably going to have to do a bit of hole enlargement in a steel bulkhead to accommodate a slightly higher outlet pipe, but otherwise can't wait to get the new liner fitted!
  6. Update: I've had a quotation for making a custom bladder from a reinforced EPDM material from Butyl Products Ltd of Billericay, using the old leaking liner as a shape template. Am now in the process of double checking suitability for potable water use before going ahead with manufacture.
  7. Thanks for joining the conversation! Yes, I'd thought about that. The thing is, the outgoing (leaking) bladder tank was actually just so simple, and I feel really reluctant to install a more complicated (e.g. linked tanks) system until I really have to! With linked tanks I guess I'd need to be introducing another two or three 'weak' points (junctions) into the whole system, and adding complexity rarely feels good. Still, considering all options, so thanks
  8. I just spoke to Sam at Tilley regarding the products on https://www.tidel.biz/flexible-tanks/ She explained they are only really able to make the 'pillow' tanks (top picture) to custom specs, and not -- disappointingly -- what she called the '3D' tanks pictured at the bottom of the page and which are the sort I had in mind that could make best use of a narrowboat well deck space. Anyhow, think I'll measure up and draw the space I have to play with and see if there's a 'pillow' configuration that might work.
  9. Thanks for your reply, Furness Yes, Duratank may have been the only show in town, but now they're out of it and concentrating on their hovercraft business, I think. I've seen some 'off the peg' bladder tanks such as https://www.tanks-direct.co.uk/160-litre-flexible-water-tank-potable.html . Issues I see with these are that they don't make the best use of all the available (non-cuboid, non-triangular) space, and may need some imaginative seating to keep them from sloshing, moving around and tugging on the port fittings when the boat's in motion, smashing into lock gates etc!
  10. Grr! The big bloated flexible water tank liner in the boat I bought three years ago sprang leaks in a few places including, apparently, around the inlet port and filled the bow cavity with water that was luckily contained there and which I spent an energetic morning bailing and pumping out. The bag seemed to be the custom shaped type designed to fit the space in my Liverpool boat quite well. A previous owner had used 1" thick polystyrene slabs to seat it on and insulate it, I guess. I called Duratank of Southampton, who may well have made this leaking tank, only to find that as from September this year they are no longer making these custom tanks as "it's no longer profitable". I don't think I want to look at repair not least because I can't see how you'd remedy a leak round a port, and also because the liner may be up to 15 years old already and a replacement of some sort seems wiser. * Does anyone know of companies still manufacturing custom-fit flexible drinking water tanks? * I may need to look at rigid plastic tanks too, but I haven't got much of a hatch space to fit one through and it might mean cutting a slightly wider hatch in the deck.
  11. Two years ago a pilot from Portishead to Sharpness cost about £150. I only attempted it after I'd had my boat nearly a year, had addressed an intermittent fuel supply issue, felt that I knew what she was capable of, got trained and qualified on VHF radio in case of serious breakdown, and found another boat to travel in convoy with. Even then, I didn't have as much engine power to spare as I would have liked. And yes, it was daunting, all the way. In your deck shoes I'd take the canal route or hire a crane and truck!
  12. Thanks very much for all your thoughts and replies. Re-thinking
  13. Hey boaters. My boat has a Mastervolt 12-2000-100 mass combi unit and a 70A alternator charging the service batteries. The Mastervolt's 'smart' 3-phase charger requires mains level voltage to operate. I am wondering whether it's possible or worthwhile inserting some gizmo between alternator and Mastervolt so that the Mastervolt can be offered high voltage from the alternator (some kind of transformer?) that will trigger its smart charging function and save me some engine running time when recharging batteries. Any ideas?
  14. Thanks Mr Fox. I already have a name for her that doesn't yet appear on Jim Shead's list. The only question is the right moment to apply it
  15. For the record, the OP (moi) joined 2 or 3 years ago at the time when I bought my first ever boat. It was pretty scary. I learned quite a lot and was encouraged by reading through forums such as this one, and later dared to make the odd comment or pose the odd question - I forget what about. I sold that boat last summer, thinking I was through with boating. Turned out I wasn't. So I just spent best part of 4-5 months hunting for another boat, found one, and thought I'd dive back in here with a light-hearted comment. I'm not remotely superstitious, really - but I really do need to re-name the boat I'm buying and I really do need to choose the moment to do that. Search engines. Absolutely adore them. Try entering "name boat" as a forum search term and see what happens. "Bow thruster" is more productive. Hey! Mrs Squirrel says to Mr Squirrel, "Darling, do you love me?". Mr Squirrel says, "You drive me nuts! How many times have I answered that question before?"
  16. On the plus side, the boat had a repaint recently and her name has not been painted on: she's a blank canvas!
  17. Thanks for this Ange. I'll probably wait till she's out of the water. Poor boat will have been through several name changes. Two names ago her name was a Grade 2 Toe Curler; the current name I'm inheriting is just too darn long - she'll go to the bottom before I've finished the mayday call! It's rude to ask someone what century they live in
  18. I've heard that boats should only be named or re-named when they are out of the water, otherwise the curse of a thousand sand eels causes the boat to sink slowly from an untraceable leak, or else her crew become sad beyond telling, then dwindle and fall into the deepest of melancholy torpors, and stuff like that. Is this true?
  19. I viewed a 1987 (unverified) Harborough boat today and saw that it had a wet bilge - channels emerging at extreme P & S into stern bilge from the interior. Can anyone say what happens between the bow deck internal drains and the stern bilge i.e. are there normally channels for the water down either side of the cabin area or else is the whole cabin bilge exposed to the draining water? There's no inspection hatch in the cabin floor so there are no further clues.
  20. That's a rather vindictive thing to say, don't you think? I'm a dedicated and considerate cyclist. I make a point of it, because I recognise the tension that simple bad behaviour causes on the towpath. I dismount when necessary to give way to people on foot if the way is narrow; I cycle past slowly and with warning if there's space to pass abreast. Punctures - mostly from thorns from hedgerow trimming - are a pain that I put up with for the pleasure and usefulness of being able to use the towpath to travel between my boat and 'civilisation'. I don't seek to blame anyone for placing thorns in my path. I'm pretty fed-up with the passive behaviour of just a few walkers and a fair few boaters when I approach (at a slow pace) on my bike. This behaviour includes conspicuously *not* stepping aside when it would cost nothing to pause for the few seconds it would take me to pass without dismounting (and, by the way) a mounted cyclist passes more quickly and occupies less towpath space than one walking their bike!); it has also included (Braunston couple - you know who you are) the above plus petty tutting and muttering as I cycled slowly past on a double-track width segment.
  21. Instead of a folding bike, consider a lightweight mountain bike with a quick-release front wheel. I can stow mine easily in the forward well deck by slipping off the front wheel and propping the forks against a locker lid. Takes maybe 30 seconds from riding to stowed. For the great majority of towpaths I've encountered - muddy and rough - a small-wheeled bike would be unusable.
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