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larryjc

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Everything posted by larryjc

  1. I guess I'm lucky with a pram over the hatch and only the stern gland to worry about. However, previous owners weren't so careful and there has clearly been quite a lot of water in there in the past. Which I why I have some fertran, bilge paint, wire brushes etc all ready for me to make the effort to paint it all out as soon as I can find the motivation!!!
  2. Or do what I do and keep it dry!!
  3. This really winds me up. A CO alarm can only be used for the internal safety of those on board. I was repeatedly told by the examiner of my boat this year that the BSS is there to prevent my boat causing issues to others like catching fire, so like others have said here, this seems yet another example of nanny state mission creep. BUT the one thing that can really ruin your day and of those around you is if the boat blows up because of an internal gas leak. I come from the yachting world and have never sailed a boat in recent years without a gas alarm. They are cheap and easy to fit. I normally put the sensor as low as possible and near the cooker. When I mentioned this to the examiner he had no idea what I was talking about. The reality is that all the incredibly detailed BSS gas safety precautions can't stop a leak happening if it wants to. The only way to find out is to light a match (not a good idea) or fit an alarm. Heres a simple one: https://www.force4.co.uk/pilot-single-sensor-gas-alarm-12v.html?sqr=gas alarm& I'm not trying to widen the debate or suggest that BSS should adopt these merely using it to illustrate, to my mind, why the BSS is losing its way.
  4. Did Hillmorton a few weeks ago and the female lockie at the bottom lock was so interested in her gardening that once we were in the lock we were given a stiff ignoring. The other two locks were manned but they only helped crewed boats and ignored one poor chap who was on his own.
  5. Yes but mine are in parallel as I don't want shadows on one stopping both working so the voltage is only about 36.
  6. I did this when I fitted my tracer - all I use is a standard battery isolations switch - fitted in the plus line - like this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Techniks-BS01HD-Battery-Isolator-Switch/dp/B009CRM34I/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1531917286&sr=1-1&keywords=battery+isolation+switch
  7. Mines even easier - I have a great big hinged hatch over the tank in the bow and just lift it up and look in!
  8. Got exactly the same problem with the hatch over my water tank I thought about getting fancy replacement hinges but saw another solution on another boat. I'm going to angle grind off the bits that take the hinge itself and replace with a bought in hinge that I will bolt on on - drilling and tapping a thread in the metal either side. As the metal is quite thick there will be plenty of depth to take a thread. Midland chandlers do a selection of hinges. https://www.midlandchandlers.co.uk/store/category/midland chandlers/cabin and deck/cabin fittings/hinges.aspx
  9. Ditto - hence the narrowboat!!!!!!
  10. That will have been with Lieutenant, later Commodore and even later SW Police Commisioner Tony Hogg I suspect. Good bloke. I flew the Wasp but not at sea thankfully surprisingly I also flew one last summer with my co author who owns an airworthy example. A great machine to muck around in on a sunny day, night deck landings off Iceland maybe not so much!!
  11. Not advertising honestly! I have a book about the Wasp helicopter coming out in the Autumn and there is a section on the Cod Wars with a remarkably similar ramming photo in it that I got from the Flight Commander of Andromeda. I personally missed out on that fun and games although had some 'fun' a few years later.
  12. But that's my point, there are far more sea going yachts than inland waterway craft in this country and to use your metaphor - they have no referee at all - and yet they don't seem to have a problem with that!
  13. This whole subject makes me wonder where this world is going to. Yes yachts are built to the RCD nowadays but are never required to be inspected again. There again, I expect nearly everyone who owns a yacht goes out and buys a gas sensor alarm and fits it if one isn't there already - yet the BSS does not require one. My BSS examiner wasn't even aware that they were available. They do however require a different size of drain pipe from a gas locker depending on the size of the gas bottles, which is daft as the size of the drain should be proportional to size of the leak (although god knows how you would measure that!!) and that has nothing to do with how big the bottle or pipework is. So we have the situation of inland craft having to pass a 4 yearly MOT and yachts, which are generally much more expensive, operate in a far more demanding environment and are packed into marinas where millions of pounds of other far more inflammable vessels are moored, do not require any sort of checks at all. And then there are the wrecks you see moored on the towpath with a valid licence that can barely float, which presumalby have passed inspection.
  14. Plenty of K&A locks have gate paddles in the top gates and no deflector plates to stop the water coming in almost a third of the way into the lock if you open them too fast. I'm amazed more boats haven't been sunk. Note in this photo we've barely opened them.
  15. Only a slight drift - but what about when you see 'no mooring' signs on the towpath side. I can think of several palces where we've seen them. The ones in Rugby are pucka CRT ones so are presumably there for a reason but further on just before Hawsbury there is a stretch and I 've seen quite a few in other places Aynho on the Oxford springs to mind.
  16. Sounds like b****cks to me. Your CRT licence allows engines/gennies until 2000. I would have told him to sod off (politely of course).
  17. We were there recently and its a shame the drone didn't get a shot of the guy who came out of the stop lock with loads of throttle on and we all assumed was going down the Coventry arm, as he seemed to make no real attempt to turn hard. In fact he made no attempt to turn at all and rammed the base of the bridge at quite a speed. The bow left the water and I saw it later with a massive dent in it - no mean feat on a reinforced bow. God knows what damage was done inside. He then made a complete horlicks of turning north. There was considerable damage to the stonework as well. Which all goes to show that one of the best boating pastimes is to safely moor your own boat and then sit outside a pub with a beer and watch others cock it up!!
  18. As I understand it the problem is glazing the bores if run under light load and steady revs for too long. When I had a brand boat with clothy flappy things and a Yanmar, the running in instructions were to run hard for the first 50 hours and vary the revs to avoid this. However my Beta in my narrow boat is often run for an hour or two at 1200 revs to use the washing machine but I do vary the revs occasionally and have had no problems. When pootling I normally use about 1200 revs and would vary that every hour or so except that within every hour you seem to have to slow for moored boats, slam it in reverse because some idiot tries to come into the bridge hole you are already in or I make a complete cock of mooring!
  19. You can't win!! Mind you when I was sailing, my boat had 4 Trojans with solar. I had them for two years and I know they were still going strong 8 years on. My experience of motorhomes is that they use too few and rubbish batteries as they most always plug in every night. I can't see that there is much difference between keeping a charger on all the time or solar as long as the float volts are correct for the type of battery.
  20. I have Trojans and left the boat with all 500w all winter with a float of 13.5 - they were fine when I got back. I might look at upping the reconnect figure as a way of not having to regularly and manually up the float amount to get the last bit out of them.
  21. Yeah I noted that although in instructions it uses the term 'boost' rather than absorption although I guess they mean the same thing. I might have a word with Bimble - if I get an answer I'll put it here. On another note having had some previous advice here I thought I'd recheck the wiring. When I got to the earth lead from the batteries to the shunt - the one I paid a professional chandlery to make up for me - I discovered that the crimped fitting on the shunt end had almost pulled out. Having re-crimped it properly my volts and amps are all starting to make sense again. If in doubt - do it yourself!!! Edit - just checked my emails as I had a dialogue with Bimble last year. The problem then was that the controller was holding the volts at boost even though the batteries were well full (after 6 hours motoring) - so I reduced the boost time to 10 minutes which is probably why they seem to go to float too early now. It would seem that rather than an intelligent algorithm for swapping from boost to float it simply uses a time delay. I shall fiddle with this to get a compromise. Mind you of I was not on shore power and not using the engine it seems to me that 180 minutes is far too little.
  22. Yeah - I've been ruminating on that and realised that point about volts and discharge.. The NASA is correctly wired as I did it but maybe I should look at its zero current setting. I have noticed that can wander off over time. As I use about 50AH per 24 hours on 440 AH of batteries I'm not too fussed. Maybe a delve into the wiring might be worthwhile idc. However I still say the Tracer goes into float too early.
  23. Hmm - I think that Wotever might be right. Pretty sure my wiring is OK as I redid it all recently. If the panels are holding the volts up at 13.6 I don't see why you still can't draw current from the batteries and anyway by putting the volts up to 14.6 makes the tracer use the current that the panels are clearly capable of producing. As I said its not really an issue I was more curious than anything else.
  24. No the voltage stays the same but the extra 5-6 does not appear and my BM2 shows a discharge as it does not output the extra amps that the panels could give. I have to manually up the voltage to 14.5 to get a positive current output again.
  25. Not sure if this is a silly question or not but I'm sure someone will tell me if it is!! There was an earlier thread talking about Tracer MPPts and I said that I felt they tend to go into float a little early and that I often up the float voltage manually to 14.5 volts (normally set to 13.5 - I have Trojans). At the end of a days motoring my batteries are normally topped right up (they're often full in the morning with 500w of panels and good sunshine). So the Tracer quite sensibly goes straight to float. But if I turn my inverter on or the Tele and draw 5-6 amps (recharging laptop takes a lot) then the Tracer seems to ignore the need to supply more amps and I go into discharge. However, if I bang the float up to 14.5 I will be positively charging again. Surely if the tracer sees a net discharge it should put in more amps irrespective of the volts its set at? I have the number of key strokes to change the float value down to a fine art and its not really a problem - just wondering.
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