Tony1

I couldn't agree more. My BSS is due in December and if they are making comments or raising common concerns about any aspects of lithium setups, we need to know the details asap. I'm hoping that since I use a B2B in between each lead acid and the lithiums, I have an additional degree of control over the lithium charging, and perhaps thus extra safety, but I'm no expert and I have no real idea.

If I've understood it correctly, the OP is exploring potential avenues to claim a refund of their mooring fees, based on a suspicion/hope/expectation that the mooring agreement was in some degree legally invalid, or technically incorrect.

Could I perchance tempt you with this bit of plastic frippery, Mr M? https://www.apolloduck.com/boat/faircraft-33-ac-for-sale/693332 Its only 3ft draft, and if you tweak the windscreen you could get the air draft down to about 6ft. It'll only do 8 knots, so you cant outrun any bad weather, but it could get across the channel no bother, and its pretty spacious inside. I reckon you'd cut a very dashing figure cruising through Skipton in this little beastie- perhaps with a couple of lady friends in bikinis sunbathing on the foredeck/roof thingy. Which is not to say that a couple of male friends might not also want to sunbathe in bikinis, of course. We'll have no bikini-ist discrimination here.

Here's a bit of a whimsical but potentially suitable craft: https://www.apolloduck.com/boat/sailing-yachts-motor-sailer-for-sale/716167 A 1960s 30 foot Broom GRP motorboat that's been converted to a motor sailer whose masts are easily foldable for inland waterways. Bit of a project, but lots of work apparently done, and only £17k. I bet by the time you've bought new sails and standing rigging, and done some upgrades to the accommodation and fixtures so that it was properly seaworthy, you'd be out another £25k at least. But you'd end up with a really unusual boat, capable of offshore crossings and also cruising wide canals. So you could take it over to France or Ireland for a few months on the canals, and then sail it back! All that said, there are some more modern 30 foot yacht designs with 'easy-folding' masts. I must admit, I like the sound of that idea. Keeping a boat seaworthy and safe to go offshore seems to be quite an expensive thing, with significant repairs and replacements almost every year. Not to mention the amount of knowledge and equipment you need to skipper an offshore yacht even as far as France. If all the OP wants to do is cross the channel or the Irish Sea, it would probably be cheaper to buy a 30-40ft canal boat and get it transported. That said, the transport is not an expense you would want to have every year.

Ah, my apologies, I misread your comment 'never have been, never will' to refer to any overseas travel, and you of course meant Ireland specifically.

There is a significant liveaboard community on the Irish waterways, so it must be physically possible, but I would guess that there isn't anything like the level of infrastructure that we have on the UK canals, with water points, elsan, rubbish disposal etc. Nowt wrong with England, of course- travelling certainly isn't for everyone. In fact I suspect a majority of UK travellers to Spain are more interested in the weather than in the local architecture and culture. But for some people travelling is quite a big thing, and Europe offers a huge variety of cities, scenery, sights, cuisines, and experiences- which is why so many UK people still travel there despite the restrictions of being a third country. Apologies in advance here- I don't want this to sound like a criticism in any way, although I feel it might- but to have never visited any European countries because being in England is fine (which it is), feels almost like feels like having a dozen restaurants in your town, but only ever eating at one of them, and rejecting the other places because you don't like the pictures of the food in their menus. The taste of the food in the other places might be really good. Its not about one place being better than another, but more about enjoying variety- and that said, I can understand that not everyone is attracted to the idea of a wide variety.

I feel that liveaboard yachting would be a tremendously challenging lifestyle, but it might also also very rewarding (at times). A twin engined motorboat would be great in some ways, as you can just blat along the coast at 20-30 knots, nipping from one harbour to another even in slightly rough weather- so you are rarely caught at sea in bad conditions. But a properly prepared yacht can cross the Atlantic in reasonable weather, and sail power does have that romantic appeal- and wind power is free, of course- apart from the upkeep of the sails and rigging etc. But as you pointed out in another thread, mooring a yacht can end up being very expensive when taken over a year- and with the very changeable weather in the UK, you might end up seeking out a marina/harbour on most days. I've only tried sailing a couple of times, and that was 30 years ago, and I think I am falling into the trap of over-glamourising it. Its easy to underestimate how wet and miserable it can be at times- the sheer discomfort, the sleep deprivation when sailing solo, living in an even smaller space than a narrowboat, the critical risks of various kinds to you and your vessel that you meet on a daily basis, and the stresses of navigating a rocky coastline with swift tides and windy weather. For someone wanting a change from the UK waterways, it would make more sense to try the Irish waterways, or even France if you have an EU passport. But offshore sailing does have a unique appeal, no doubt about that.

I would not have thought it possible that roof could be less than 7ft off the water, that's like some sort of optical illusion. But to be honest this line of research, as fascinating as it is, is losing out to a more recent one, which is yachts. If I do get bored of the UK waterways in a few years, my next move might well be a yacht. I've always been fascinated by the sea, and I think I might quite like bobbing about and dodging whales. Since it looks as if I'll have a dutch passport before the year is out, the meditteranean would be open without any restrictions as a potential winter cruising area. I'm starting to wonder whether the hardships and the discomfort and the long sleepless nights of a solo sailor might really be so bad. I think I might need locking up tbh. That whole crowd will be up at Ellesmere Port for easter.

Thats why I mentioned those- they look as if they could cross the channel or the Irish sea in calm weather, although personally I would want a decent engine if I did that, and of course that could get very expensive. But all that is a very different nautical beast to the OPs 70ft barge idea. This is why I think some signficant compromises are needed. I watched a youtube video of a yatch where the owners took the mast down, lifted the keel and cruised the french canals. Not that I'm imagining we'll be seeing too many yachts with lowered masts cruising the L+L any time soon. Not wanting to be a negative nancy in relation to this admirable enterprise, but that wheelhouse does look a tad high (and wide) for some of the canal bridges on the L+L?

Thanks for the clarification David. I've seen overplated and heavy boats struggle in some places, in fact I dragged myself on the ashby and elsewhere (and I'm only 2ft draft I think), but the OP is not interested in those sorts of places. Also, the fuel boats must even deeper and they manage to get around. So 3ft would be a reasonable max draft to get around most of the wide waterways.

A few years ago I spent a good while reading old threads here in an effort to determine whether a boat type existed that could cruise all of the UK wide canals and also be capable of some offshore work in calmish weather. There are a few big constraints, as has been pointed out. These include the shallow draft that is needed to cruise many canals. Some boats of 2ft 6 inch draft seem to drag along the bottom in some stretches. There are people on here that will know what would be the maximum draft that would work, but I suspect it would be less than 3ft- so that is an important constraint when selecting an offshore capable craft. Another thing is the air draft. A lot of the canal bridges are quite low. Again I cant remember the maximum air draft on the various canals, but they are generally much lower than you see on typical offshore craft. I remember finding a 35ft long Dutch-built GRP motorboat that had a shallow enough draft to cruise canals, and it had a radar arch that would fold down, plus folding windscreen etc, and I think it had a low enough air draft that it would have been possible for it cruise most of the wide canals and rivers. The beauty of the GRP design is the hull was quite seaworthy with a deep V shape, and it could cruise at 20+ knots, so was capable of making a relatively fast dash across the channel or the Irish Sea even in moderate weathers. There are some larger Dutch barge designs that are rated as category C and have some degree of offshore capability, but they are large and heavy, and not generally very fast moving, so you might need to wait longer in order to find a suitable weather window to make your offshore crossing. There are also some smaller dutch motorboat designs, of 30-40ft, with V shaped hulls and reasonably powerful engines, but with some of them you might have to chop off the roof of the wheelhouse and replace it with a fold-down structure. There are also some Broom boats (and similar designs) that might possibly do a lot of what you want. I find it a fascinating area to consider, and I've never totally stopped pondering it, but one thing is certain- some significant compromises would be needed to produce a genuine all-round 'go anywhere' boat, and all of the examples above will fall short in one aspect or another- it boils down to where you want to make the compromises.

Apologies, not meaning to contradict, as I know you've forgotten more about electrics than I'll ever know, but I seem to remember reading advice somewhere that it was normal to use a fuse rated at about 50% more than the charger/MPPT? So that would mean a 45 or 50amp fuse in this case?

I'd love flexible panels I must admit, but that is a bit steep if you're on a budget... I have no figures, but my feeling is that adding another 1kw to my panels would only extend the useful solar season by perhaps a month of each year. It would pay for itself eventually I guess, but the faffing around on the roof would be significant, and I do like having some spare space for coal up there. I think 1.4kw of panels is a good overall compromise for my 50ft boat, but if it was 57ft I'd probably get a few more up there!

Tell you what though, you do get a pretty decent stretch with 1500 watts of panels. Maybe its because I've been in more open moorings this year, but I found the very poor period was only about 3 months. I even got solar hot water today- on 10th March! Nothing like a bit of solar bragging 🤣

If the OPs budget includes batteries, I think they'll struggle to afford 3kw of panels plus MPPTs. But in particular I wouldn't go wider than 1m on any part of the roof for flat panels. Obviously you can use wider ones if you get the bendy ones, as you can walk on them. The OP has indicated they like to cruise around, so they'll be doing plenty of locks, and having got the 1m wide panels myself, I can say that walking alongside them feels a bit risky, especially in the rain. I'd use 1m wide panels on the front part of the roof, and 80cm on the rear, or wider if using the flexible ones. The flexi ones do look much nicer and they really keep the lines of the roof, but I dont know if they perform quite so well as the rigid flat ones, and for me personally its all about the performance you get from them, not the aesthetics. But then maybe the fact that you can use the full width of the roof and get wider flexi panels makes up for the slightly lower yields that you get from them? Horses for courses, and all that.

Does the 3k budget include lithium batteries? A recent thread gave some examples by Fogstar and others, where you can get 460Ah of batteries for under £1400. That would leave you £1600 for the MPPTs and panels. A brace of victron MPPTs (the 100/50 model) will cost about £600, which leaves £1000 for panels and any fixtures. The victron 100/50 will handle up to 50 amps each, so you want about 1500 watts worth of panels, maybe? I use one victron unit with each set of panels (the larger set it 750 watts), and they seem well matched. Another option would be to use three cheaper 50 amp MPPTs, and see if you afford even more panels. One thing I would do if starting over would be to use 1m wide panels on the front half of the boat, because I seldom have to walk on that part. But I would only use 80cm wide panels on the rear half of the roof, as I walk on that part more often in locks, and my 1m wide panels dont really allow quite enough space to place your feet alongside them, so it all feels a bit sketchy. Be sure to leave enough roof space free at the rear that you can jump down onto the roof, i.e. dont place panels right up to the rear edge. Tilting panels are a nice to have feature, but it is very debatable about whether they give you enough of a charge boost on enough of the days days to be worth the extra cost. I've got tilting mounts on my rear panels, but not on the front. And between march- sept, with that many panels you wont ever be tilting them anyway- its more of a winter thing. In terms of real world yields, we've had the best solar day for a long time today, and I've had 1370 Wh from my rear set of panels. Previously it was closer to 500/600 Wh most days. With 1500watts of panels they'll start being useful in mid-Feb (depending on how overlooked you mooring is), then you'll have the odd day where you get hot water from them in about mid-March (and by May you'll have hot water most days), and they tail off towards being almost useless by mid to end Nov. So the very limited period is say mid-Nov to mid-Feb, with of course the occasional half decent day. e.g. I did have a day in late Jan where tilting the rear panels got me 1200Wh, but those are rare.

In winter I set the absorption at 14.4v and for I think 6 hours. The idea is that the MPPTs wont often fill up the batteries enough anyway in winter, so I have them charging flat out, and eventually the BMV712 switches them off when they get to 85% full. If the BMV712 fails to switch off the MPPTs for some reason, the 14.4v setting means they will get up to maybe 99% full before they go into float (which I set at 12.75v). Getting them up to 99% full is not what you want to do on a day to day basis, but its ok as a one-off. And bear in mind you'll want to get them up to 100% SoC every few weeks anyway, to re-synchronise the BMV712 and keep its SoC reading accurate. If I wanted to be less aggressive I would set the absorption to 13.9v, but there's no guarantee the MPPT will go into float at 85% or even 90%. On a summer day for example you might get 90amps of charge in, and the voltage will rise more quickly than if it was a winter day and you only had 15 amps coming in. So at 15amps charge and 13.9v absorption voltage, your batteries might get to 95% full before they go into float. But at 90 amps charge at 13.9v setting, the batteries might only get to 80% full before the MPPTs decides to go into float. Thats why I like using SoC as the criteria to decide when the charging stops- it removes the variable factor of the charging current.

I thought I would set and forget two years ago, and I'm still fiddling around with the settings almost daily, although as you say that wont be the case in summer. There comes a time in Spring or summer where there is so much solar power that you can set it and forget about electricity until October, but I still find myself checking the voltage and SoC on my phone app at least every hour, just out of habit! How early in the year the solar will supply all your daily power does depend on how many panels you have, as you'll know. In my case its been supplying 60-70% of what I need since mid Feb. Even today, in the snow and drizzle, I've had 1140Wh (and counting), although I wont get much more now. So I'm almost self sufficient for electricity already, even on the poor days- but the price of that is having your roof covered in panels. In case you haven't considered it, I would have a look at using solar to heat the immersion and thus get hot water in the summer. If you only cruise one day per week or so, the solar hot water can be a real bonus, as it saves you running the engine for hot water, and less engine hours means less diesel etc. And you really need some hot water to shower on those awful sweaty summer days. I know its childish but I still get a surprise when I look at the MPPTs on a summer day giving 45-48 amps each for most of the day. If I had any space I'd get an aircon unit tbh, there's certainly enough solar power to run one in the oppressively hot days of June-August.

I can totally understand not wanting to waste the limited solar power that we get in the winter, but I suspect a complex charge controller device might not pay for itself. What happens in reality is that the solar never actually gets your batteries up to 90% anyway during the poor months (or not often). In Dec and Jan the panels spend the limited daylight hours putting in a few amps, and quite often not even keeping up with what your fridge and laptop are using, so overall the batteries are usually discharging all the time, until you start running the engine. Where its more of a thing to consider is in say late Feb, or early Nov, when there is some half decent solar. But all you have to do is manually adjust your upper SoC limit from 80 or 85% up to say 90 or 95%, so the panels wont get switched off by the BMV712. I find that scenario doesnt happen on enough days to be worth an automated solution- ultimately there are so few amps on offer in those periods it doesnt make a massive difference to your batteries- you are mostly relying on the engine/genny anyway. But yes, come late March it becomes irrelevant anyway- in my case with 1.4kw of panels, you have to start switching off the panels in mid afternoon as the batteries are already full by then. But it does depend how much solar you have. Even despite the snow and cloud today, I've had 950 Wh of solar so far. I got my panels in autumn 2020 before the prices went up, but its still worth getting- of all the changes I've made, the extra solar panels is the only thing that will more than pay for itself with the next year or two, in terms of saving on diesel etc. You gotta love solar panels!

Apologies, I've not picked up on what you're aiming for there. Are you saying that when the SoC is between 60 and 90, you would like to have the MPPT charge the battery, but not at its full rate? You want the charging to be done at a rate that is slightly lower than the load/consumption, which would have the effect of gradually reducing the SoC? Then when the SoC has fallen to 60%, the MPPT would change so that it was charging at its full rate, and that would result in the SoC going up again? And the reason you want to do that is to slow down the charge/discharge cycling process? Have I got that right?

And congrats, you are now only the second person on the entire waterway system to set up an automated SoC control thingy with a BMV unit. Now I only feel half as barmy as I did before.

Somehow with the victron kit I had a spare red wire with a fuse and holder already within it, so I just used that. Maybe you could unscrew the fuse holder in the BMV712 pos wire that you already have, and see what size that fuse is? PS - since SoC is a derived value and can drift, I would advise always checking both SoC and voltage together. You can guesstimate the resting voltage by adjusting the observed voltage (to take account of any loads or charges), as per above. And I cant say I'd be over the moon about letting someone used my boat, even for a few days. There is always that risk of a newbie sinking it in a lock, but of course there is other damage that can be done to boat systems by careless use or abuse. But the person is a long term waterways enthusiast, and may never be able to purchase their own boat- and might even struggle to fund a canal holiday at the moment- so it would be a nice gesture, and an experience they would really love.

I find that for a liveaboard the batteries are never truly at rest, because there is always a charge or a load of some sort happening if you liveaboard. Even the BMV712 unit draws a tiny but constant current. So you never really see the true resting voltage, which is what the charts use. But to get an idea of what the resting voltage would be, I've estimated that for every 2amps of load, the resting battery voltage seems to be reduced by about 0.01v. But that only works up to loads of about 10 or 15 amps, and after that its not a reliable method. So I sort of estimate my resting voltage by taking account of the load at the time, and adding on 0.01v for every 2 amps of load. I can then assess that 'compensated' voltage against the SoC, and make sure that voltage and SoC are broadly consistent with each other. I never just look at SoC on its own. For charging, it seems that for every amp of charge, the resting voltage increases by 0.01v, so the effect of charging on the resting voltage seems to be roughly twice the effect of a load. I've also noticed that at more extreme states of charge, a 2 amp load will produce a slightly different amount of change in battery voltage (as you might expect). All this behaviour may vary from battery to battery, of course- this is only my own set. Exactly the same for me- I had automation in mind when setting it up, but I never stop fiddling with the values! That said, at least I know that if I have a fridge full of food that I dont want to waste (eg by simply switching off all the electrics), and if I need to leave the boat for a few days, I have the option of setting up the SoC monitor so that the batteries wont be roughly treated, and the fridge/electrics will still work ok from the panels. It was also done with the idea of a guest being able to use my boat for a few days without having to worry about managing MPPTs and batteries. All I need to do is show them the SoC monitor, so they can keep an eye on how much charge they have. In summer there is so much solar that there is nothing they can really do to run it down other than switching on the immersion heater, but I'll ask them not to do that!

Yes, with those settings the MPPTs (and B2Bs) will switch off once the SoC rises above 90%, and they will switch back on when the SoC falls below 60%. In winter I tend to fiddle around with the settings every few days to get the most out of the limited solar. But in the high summer- with a steady 80 or 90 amps available all day long- I'll probably set 75% as the daily max for the SoC. When you know that there is never going to be a shortage of power you can be a bit more liberal with the settings, and on some days in summer the batteries are so full that the MPPTs dont even come on. To be honest it was all down to Nick helping me. Once I realised that most MPPTs and chargers now come with a remote BMS control input, I asked about how a BMV712 could be set up to switch them on and off based on SoC, and Nick explained that I could use the low SoC function to do it, but in reverse. One thing to bear in mind is that SoC accuracy can obviously drift over time, so the bulk charging voltage on the MPPTs doesnt want to be too high, as that is the backup to stop the MPPTs charging at an appropriate point.

Just to add that the way mine is set up, the relay is normally closed, and it is not inverted.