Bee

Two things, you say the engine speeded up a bit then died, that can happen if you run out of fuel, but you have plenty you say so maybe its sucking in air? dry off all the unions then with a fingertip just see if theres a little drop of diesel leaking out after a few minutes. Secondly, Easystart. you say it started but a bit noisier, that noise is all the innards shouting NO! at you.

Mangle. Moorhen. You're right, its difficult innit.

Nice engine and very nice layout all round. Jealous of engine, boat and workshop.

Tightening the ring often helps.

You're ALL wrong - Its midges!

Mine does odd things sometimes as well, almost certainly a connection somewhere. Also for the last 10 years it 'chirps' when the batteries are fully charged and the engine is running, tried everything to find out what and why but after 10 years I reckon it can't be too much to worry about.

I'm not sure if I'd bother, in fact I wouldn't, it won't make any real difference to keeping things warm and it will get dirty and horrible and be a sod to paint. Being a nervous type when oil and diesel and heat are close together I wrapped my foam sprayed calorifier with a thin steel jacket as it was only a couple of feet from the engine (if you drill out the pop riveted seam and unroll it the inner side says 'Diversion ahead' in black and yellow but don't tell anybody)

Funny stuff water. Years ago had a leaky wooden boat at that place near Manchester where the water is bright orange, water in the boat was not orange though. As for your problem the chances are that it is a leaky pump or plumbing somewhere. dry it out as best as you can, leave for a while and repeat. Water will continue to appear for some time as it drains down so don't panic for a while.

I've got one of them. It's very good. But sometimes its very bad indeed. When it goes bad again - and it will - I will replace it with something very simple, sort of one step up from a galvanised bucket. No pumps, electrics, vacuums, pressurised wotsits, warning lights, bendy pipes or anything. I am going back to basics. I will learn to embrace my effluent.

S'all relative innit. I reckon I am enjoying the 'Good old days' right now, in France, not crowded (underused in fact) interesting boats, nice people, still some commercial boats on the small canals, hell of a lot cheaper than the UK canals, kind of got it all really but unfortunately always worries about canals closing. Others who have been over here longer than me will probably think the best days were back in the 60's, 70's etc. but that's just life. Anyway, the good old days were when the only 'product' for men's 'grooming' was Brylcream. So There.

Dynamite. Then get a cassette.

That's not good. I have a much more recent version but to avoid frightening others I wonder if there are early signs of wear? presumably the front bearing and oil seal would suffer before the crank failed and might throw oil out? As for belts, take the old belt to any bearing shop and they should find one of the right section and length.

A good many quite large and awfully expensive Dutch cruisers are 4 or 5mm plating, us Brits favour great thick slabs of steel and never bother to paint it. The Dutch like lots of curves and tricky plating and having sweated blood to get all the shapes so pretty and flowing they look after it better. (Just a little generalisation there)

Its a tricky question as a new boat is not going to be like a new Ford Focus, it will not be identical to all the others, it'll be a bit longer/shorter, have windows in different places, Isuzu /Beta / Nanni etc, PRM gearbox or something else and many differences in wiring/lighting/heating from all the others that look identical bur aren't, that means that the fitters have had to use skills or ingenuity to successfully put the whole lot together, Think TVR instead of Ford. Some of that will result in difficulties later on (and as for plumbing....) The shell and steelwork should be completely trouble free but I wouldn't be surprised to find a few problems with the rest, boats are complex. As for a surveyor, personally I would not bother, there is a good chance that he/she will not spot all the problems, they have not got x ray vision. Life, cars, boats, people, none of it perfect

I would guess that this is prop singing, usual cure is apparently filing the edges to sharpen them but when I had a singing prop it just went away eventually, I think that when the prop grew a coating of what is probably metal deposits from the anodes and hull it changed it just that little bit. I try not to think about that too much.

That's not rot - it's heritage!