magnetman

My brain is degrading quite quickly now. Anyway it did get the OP back into the conversation so all is not lost. It is interesting how the stern tube has been put in. I guess this is one-off home build. The narrow side decks are common when it was originally a wooden top but could also just be a lack of knowledge on the part of the person making it. They may just not have known how wide to make them and guessed.

Oh right it was two different out of water pictures. I do apologise Sir.

I bought a Boat with a hidden vice once. It was in the bilge. A Record metalworkers vice. Quite a nice one actually. Ballast I assumed.

It is interesting that in France there is the vice caches 'hidden defects' rule. So if someone were to sell a Boat with hidden defects the buyer has significant protection and can even reverse the sale. French Hidden Defects Law The French 'vice caché' laws provide legal protection to buyers against hidden defects in properties or products. According to Article 1641 of the French Civil Code, a seller is obligated to deliver a product or property free from hidden defects that make it unfit for its intended use or significantly reduce its value. A hidden defect is one that is not apparent to a buyer during a routine inspection and would not have been discovered without additional expert advice. For a defect to qualify as a 'vice caché', it must meet three main criteria: it must not be apparent to the buyer, it must be sufficiently serious to affect the property's use, and it must have existed prior to the sale. If these conditions are met, the buyer can seek either the annulment of the sale or damages from the seller.

It's definitely two different Boats. It's quite funny in a way because the galvanizing thing appears to refer to the underwater part as someone is pointing at it but the cabin picture is clearly not the same vessel. Maybe it was a test to see how awake people are. If it was a test it worked quite well !

Classy Boat that. One I always did like.

AGM are far better as starting batteries than FLA. Infernal combustion engined road vehicles which have the slightly ridiculous auto start stop function are routinely fitted with AGM batteries because they are more durable and can handle the work. It is the right way to do it. Flooded lead acid are a waste of space.

Yes they were cotton lines but I bet the operators had other terms for them. The man with the horse was like 'I say, it looks like we need a new cotton line here old boy'.

It is also quite amusing to consider the correct terminology. Is it a rope, is it a line or is it a hawser. One imagines there would have been other more colloquial terns for these especially when towing with animals. Cable perhaps. I recall with some amusement a gentleman describing the mooring lines as 'sheets many years ago. I think he was a sailor.

I had two different narrows which had quite a pronounced propwalk effect. One was a 1980s 55ft trad which had a RN DM2 with a large propeller and a lowered skeg. That one would drift across to the left slightly in forward. Not much difference turning. The other one was a 1880s motorised full length horse Boat. A little swim had been made and a very large prop with a lowered skeg to accommodate it. That one would turn nicely going to the right but it would go really wide if you turned to the left. I ended up in the trees above King's lock having come out of the Dukes cut/weir stream. It just would not go round. No problem getting round to get in. Could be partly weir stream effect. A Maggie Thatcher Boat.

That seems likely. If it did wash out where the end of the piling is then one could argue that the piling was a significant factor in the failure because it created a weak point where it ended. In the street view picture with the bench it really does look like there is an abrupt end with a block of concrete across the towpath. It also gives the impression of being slightly lower there. Maybe just a camera angle but if it was lower then that's where the water would start going over in a flood. That concrete part almost looks like a little overspill weir could have been underneath it as originally installed. If there had originally been some sort of flood water relief system which later became blocked that could cause quite big problems over time.

The 60/40 thing is very silly.

The triangular shape of the swim and a flat base is obviously going to cause the starn to come away from the side in reverse because of where the water goes. A more ordinary Boat without this swim shape would not have the same problem as the water would be passing under the vessel rather than being ejected sideways.

Oh right. I thought it happened exactly where the piling ended. I have not looked into it closely but had assumed perhaps wrongly that it blew out the side where that concrete part is which is presumably the end of the piling. Effect of passing Boats' wash could have dug out a hollow area. I probably got it completely wrong.

Ponies seem quite likely given that the animal was a consumable. It's basically just an interaction between humans and quadrupeds. Obviously these days there is all the airy fairy thing about caring for the animals but at the end of the day as the aim was profit it seems likely that the animals used would have been locally bred, small and fit ponies which were disposed of once they were no longer useful for the purpose. We had ponies including a Dartmoor who was going to be culled if we did not take her. She was a fit animal. Obviously wild or semi wild ponies and horses are much more rare these days but going back 180 years there may have been a lot more of them and quite easy to get hold of. Traditional images of shire type horses plodding along don't fit with the bridgehole designs.

On my first residential narrow I had a lovely little black and white telly. 12v (do not get the polarity wrong). Snooker is always better in black and white as it concentrates the mind. The picture would get smaller gradually from top to bottom of screen indicating that the batteries were discharged. Happy days.

Inner East London used to have almost as many pubs as brothels most of them gone now.

A long time ago there was the Britannia tavern where the A13 crosses Limehouse cut. A lamp post there is still called Britannia.

UK decline partly related to Brexit. Not being negative but this country is on a downward trajectory. That is reality no pessimism no optimism just realism.

Yes. It was rather obvious in the case of the Bridgewater breach but it also did last over 50 years which was interesting. I guess that steel piling is driven by economics rather than suitability for the job.

@Gibbo did an awful lot of testing to develop the Smartgauge. I think he has probably shuffled off by now but was a very knowledgeable fellow. I doubt there were many people who knew more about lead acid battery behaviour than Chris Gibson (gibbo).

Assuming those are 12v/18v panels you can wire them in series or parallel. If they are 36v nominal it should be parallel as the voltage of two can get up to 75V Others will know more but I think series is slightly better if it is an option.

Input +/- Output +/- Load +/- The smaller Victrons have a load bus which means you can run things like automatic night lighting. The larger units do not have this feature. The 'Smart Solar' units have Bluetooth and an app. The 'Biue Solar' units do NOT have Bluetooth. VIctron is widely viewed as amongst the best consumer grade products for this. There are others but Victron do seem to be pretty good for the money. If you have a small DC system using less than 20A in total (for the MPPT 100/20 you can of course wire your whole system from the controller and set it to switch off the output at a certain voltage to protect your batteries from going too low.

Personally the way I would do it on a narrow would be either a single large panel and a 15 or 20A controller or two large panels each with their own controller. I have several Victron controllers and prefer the smaller ones really. In fact my favourite is the 100/20. I know this limits the charging output but generally speaking one has a surplus in summer anyway. It is nice to be getting something in winter even if not much and having two separate controllers means one could stop working and you still have a controller available which can be wired to both panels if needed. Yes that is sensible if you want to walk on the cabin top. It depends how you operate the Boat.