Detling

I was in Dover today on a Sea Safari in a RIB and the driver was the coxwain of that rescue shown in the first post. in answer to the question how much power, the answer is 875 HP inboard diesel. puts my 42 HP in it's place doesn't it.

"stainless will not take the rough and tumble of canal life!" Depends on the stainless, battleship armour plate could certainly take the rough and tumble and it was stainless

I use 3 pay as you go and recently have found 'peak time issues' 8:00 am is much faster than 8:00pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00am is rubbish till midnight. I suspect that since Giff Gaff changed their rules a lot of people have migrated to 3 and their servers can't cope with the increased load. Hopefully they are going to upgrade them soon but likely cities first and out in the sticks sometime.

If it's the voltmeter on the engine panel it will probably be showing the engine/starter battery voltage and not the domestic battery voltage. Mine always shows just over 13 volts except for a few minutes after starting the engine.

When I had my 110 Amp alternator with no wire on the B- i.e. using the chassis as the route for the negative via the thick bonding wire from the battery bank neagative. I measured 0.6 volts between the battery terminal and the alternator mount. This needless to say meant I was trying to charge the batteries with 0.6 volts less than the alternator gave out, and indeed charging was poor. connecting the B- to the battery bank negative directly with 35mm cable my batteries charged in half the time so a massive improvement. I would suggest you do run a seperate cable to the battery bank and although it is only a small piller on the alternator I just used some oversized washers to clamp the terminal and had 8mm terminals both ends of the black 35mm cable.

As I traverse the canal system I see many boats which seem to be defying all naval architecture rules by staying the right way up, despite having everything from coal heaps to gardens on their roof. I am boring I only have a plank a boat hook and a long shaft, occasionally a Nicholson's guide before it gets blown into the cut. I was wondering who has the most useful/junk on their roof.

I am trying unsuccessfully to find a solar controller/charger for about 200 watts of panel with two charging outputs. one for domestic batteries and one for the engine battery. Would it be possible to use a single panel to feed into two controllers in parallel, as they seem to just have a simple input with no sense or feedback from the panel, so surely like paralleling light bulbs.

Sadly the Romping Donkey is no more and the cafe there is also closed I think they are going to be demolished probably to make way for posh houses.

I have a DAB mini Hi-Fi system and I found that without an external aerial the LED light or the TV caused interference, reception was a bit iffy also in some areas. Put a roof mount (magnetic) aerial through a hole by the TV socket and wired to Hi-Fi (just cut Hi-Fi wire lead and connected to centre core of coax all problems gone. Great reception so far, and no interference.

"As well as Tony's suggestions it may be a faulty alternator (blown diode or regulator) but testing as suggested then comparing to voltage at batteries (which ideally should be the same) will show up the problem." I had a similar problem with a 110 Amp 12V alternator only providing about 10A at 4000 RPM (cruising speed), it had a 'dead winding' and so was not putting out much, Fitted a new one all hunky dory now but it was a puzzle. A clue was after fast running above 6000 rpm for a 5 minutes it got very hot, too hot to touch and it didn't add much to the battery either.

Open at 5:00 pm when we came through.

Wilst in Audlem yesterday we heard that after delicate negotiations she was finally in a position to start work next week and expects this to take 5 weeks. so early April is on the cards.

Got back to boat, today it took 12 seconds before key turned to start engine. It was about 7 degrees today about -3 when problems occured. This suggests that the interlock thing is in the key switch. Not worried by 12 seconds.

Thanks for the ideas, mainly seem to agree with my thoughts, but I can't seem to move the key till light goes out. A friend has suggested that whatever is the sticky bit will be in the control box and therefore not warmed by the engine but maybe by current flowing to yellow bulb. I am off to the boat tomorrow so will have the top off and play. It was brass monkey weather when the problem occurred.

Hi, My boat has an nice Isuzu 42 nice big diesel which runs fine, I now have a new problem when starting. When I turn the key to the 'preheat' position (yellow glow plug light on) it now takes forever (about 80 seconds) before I can turn the key to start the engine. The engine starts fine only cranks for 1-2 seconds and fires and picks up as a good engine should. Even if I stop the engine after running along the canal for 2 hours (engine well warm, battery showing 13 volts) the time required before I can turn the 'ignition key' to start is still well over a minute. I would expect a few seconds with a warm engine. So I have two questions really 1, what controls the key ie unlocks it so that I can turn to the start position? 2, any ideas as to why? AFAIK the battery volts are good and engine turns well on starter motor when I can get there, The engine is 4 years old has only done 300 hours though. It used to take about 10-15 seconds when cold not the age it does now.

Looks very nice. Loo looks as though straight out to sea, not sure of Thames regulations on that, they can usually be diverted to a holding tank for river use or sealed and use a cassette loo. Are the masts in tabernacles? if not you will probably need a crane to step them not a job for a trip of a few days below tower bridge. All the best

The breaking strain of the rope is not usually the major issue with modern synthetic rope. You need to be able to pull on the rope without cutting your hands, pulling several tons of boat against a 2-3 knot current, in order to recover your anchor requires a lot of heaving on the rope. If the anchor refuses to come up and you need to use engine power to try to break it out, again you need a good grip, although you will have taken a turn around a bollard/T post you should never tie the rope off when doing this. Anything under 16mm diameter will hurt/cut your hands, 18mm is better.

A typical large charger say over 100 Amps will require up to 1500VA on full belt, but that power need will rapidly fall off as the bulk charge phase of the battery charge is completed, often in under 30 minutes. Then the charger will take far less power during the later stages of charge. The time taken to fully charge the batteries will depend on the batteries and not on the size of charger or the output of the generator. To fully charge your batteries you will need charge them for over 8 hours, in the last hour the charger will probably use less then 20VA.

In the past I have found the information in the boat list to be very useful when researching a boat to look at with a view to buy. It tells me if it is licensed, length, age etc. which although stated on the vendors advert don't always match the boat list information, thus suggesting further investigation required or just forget it. As there is no way of checking if the boat you are buying is owned by the vendor, anything like no license or wrong particulars is a warning flag. The loss of this information increases the risk when buying what is frequently the second largest investment in most peoples lives.

When we were last in about 10 days ago the discount card was available after spend in excess of £1000.

We had a boat surveyed at Venitian marine by Peter Tindall he was recommended by R J Marine on 01270 528787 for more details, he did a good job for me.

I have a spare pair of wires going to the front well (they were for a cratch light) I would like to add a 12V socket for charging phones etc in the centre of the boat. On rummaging in the trunking near the centre, I can see 4 pairs of 12v red and black wires going forward towards the front. I know 1 is horn, 1 is headlight and 1 will be the front ceiling lights so that leaves the unused pair as the 4th. How can I find out which is which without cutting the wire, and either do a continuity test or just find out what is no longer connected. I do not want to cut the wires as this will lead to a joint when I 'repair' the wire and any joint is a potential point of failure so the fewer the better. If they were AC mains wires I could us a voltage detector, as used to find wires in the wall at home, but these are DC so no alternating magnetic field to pick up. I know they go to their own switch and breaker in the distribution panel as there is a label for same, but again this id 20 feet and several obstacles away. There is a convenient gap in the trunking in the middle in a cupboard and this is where I can see them all and want to divert the unused pair for a good use. Any ideas on a simple solution, all the wires are same size and paired red/black.

Thanks for the ideas 6 inches was a guess could be a bit more, but it is tight and when I was grovelling down there this last week it was b** cold as well so my memory may be faulty. The midland chandlers bottle though looks good.

On my boat the batteries are located under the deck of the cruiser stern, and so have about 6 inches (150mm) gap between the top and the steel deck. I can get my arm in to remove the electrolyte filler/checker but no way can I see down the hole to check the electrolyte level. Short of disconnecting every battery and removing it how the devil can I check if they need topping up? sure a funnel and hose will enable filling but when do I stop as I can't see in? Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks for all the help, will see what I can do this weekend.