Bee

Yeah, wouldn't it be nice to see a boaty programme that didn't have a couple of pillocks pratting around and pretending to be hopeless at everything. I suppose its done to appeal to viewers whose attention span fizzles out without 'humour' Grrrrrr.

Down here in Ironbridge the old coal fired power station is now closed and redundant. There are various discussions as to what to do with the thing, turbine house , great big chimney, cooling towers etc. I wrote a letter to the local rag suggesting that they run the thing in reverse, suck air in down the chimney, take out the CO2 and them puff the nice CO2 free air out of the cooling towers. Bung a big wind turbine on the top of the chimney to power it. After all its burnt god knows how many tons of coal over the years. Don't think it was ever printed and it was half in jest but as a last resort it might just come to that.

My Beta 43 has a little drain tap on the block. I turned it on to drain the coolant and nothing came out, prodded a wire coat hanger up it and a whole load of rusty antifreeze /water stuff came out. It was probably 5, maybe 6 years old. Since then it gets changed every 2 or 3 years.

So it could rise by 5 degrees or so in 50 years time. That's pretty bad but of course then it stops doesn't it? Or does it just keep on accelerating until there are just a few scorpions wandering around in the dust. I have grandchildren just a few months old. Its a bit sobering to think that they could actually see the end of meaningful life on Earth. ( I was going to write the beginning of the end of meaningful life on Earth but I guess that's us)

Bleedin' obvious when someone tells yer innit.

I suppose if you added in the Greenland ice cap, Siberia, Canada, all the glaciers , Norway and that little bit in the shady part of Ben Nevis then that could well do it. If you're going to see Venice best do it very soon. On the other hand if you're Donald Trump then its all some sort of conspiracy. (Science or Trump? now which one to believe?)

Its a bit of a very ancient anchor winch. I can't get the computer to co operate but if you google Humber keel anchor winch you can sort of follow it to get a couple of good pics.

Unrelated but just a bit interesting. There was a wooden Thames sailing barge called Swift, houseboat at Lymington upstream of the railway bridge. I expect its disintegrated by now.

I've never thinned bitumastic. I've always thought it unnecessary on steel, I do thin varnish on wood so that it hopefully soaks in (Blasted stuff still falls off though) That looks like a very thick coating in one of the pics. Maybe the more recent coat reacted with the older stuff? Bitumastic always seems pretty forgiving stuff though.

Personally I would make do with some sort of Perspex secondary glazing, even cling film apparently works. Saves a lot of expense. I have double glazed glass units in the wheelhouse of my Dutch tug but that is because condensation can be a sod in wheelhouses and I built it myself so therefore cheap (ish) As far as the frames are concerned you can probably etch them with ferric chloride (Check that, I'm not too sure) Its lethaly poisonous and if you put it on brass it actually smokes but it doesn't half etch the surface well, its cheap and is / was available on e bay. Then paint to whatever colour you want.

Quite possibly. Over the last few years there does seem to be a fashion for shotblasting hulls and even taking topsides back to bare metal. I would only ever consider doing that in pretty extreme circumstances and so long as the new paint is keyed to the old I reckon the new paint is adding another layer of protection.

This is a bit like those 'How much it costs to have a baby' etc. We had 3 children, according to those 'how much does it cost' stories it cost us about twice our income. Its much the same as running a boat. Learn to do everything yourself and chuck out at least half of the complicated electrical stuff and just have fun doing the actual boating bit.

Its the white powder bit that's the puzzle. I am ( most certainly) not an expert but there is a type of bacteriological corrosion that does that. (google microbial corrosion), I have seen a boat with little patches of what could have been that but I don't really know for sure. You say the blacking also came off above the waterline too. I use some sort of cheap and cheerful blacking above the waterline (epoxy below) and its been applied with poor preparation, poor skill and in poor weather and it only flakes a tiny bit here and there. So, sorry, no answers but maybe the paint was a bit badly mixed at the factory?

They certainly do, and also twin rudders, the rudder on our boat is an aerofoil section, I think almost anything is better than a flat plate of steel but trying to test it with lots of calculations looks like a mathematical nightmare. I would imagine a bowthruster would be the best way of tightening a turning circle. It would be interesting to fit a bow rudder, cut away an aperture just behind the stempost and pivot it in that protected area. ( interesting but hardly practical as it would be ineffective at low speed and collect huge amounts of weed) Or, best of all, lots of fenders and say sorry when you bump things.

I've no idea when the fuel filter should be changed but boat fuel can be pretty horrible sometimes so mine gets changed once or sometimes twice a year. I use Kubota oil and fuel filters from the local agricultural place.