peterboat
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Posts posted by peterboat
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Just now, BoatinglifeupNorth said:
😂remember 48hr’s then £10 a night 😂😂
Not even there moored at top pond next to showers and toilets
, not down until Saturday. I wonder if the guy that's run out of diesel is paying 
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Just now, MtB said:
And all because your licence costs perhaps one third of what it should be.
Put it up 2 thirds and the canals would be empty and derelict in a couple of years
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5 hours ago, Naughty Cal said:
It's exactly what is going to happen.
Pricing new boaters (who tend to start with smaller cheaper boats) off the water will eventually lead to the less and less boaters on the water, no "new blood" to replace those leaving due to ill health and old age.
Why maintain the waterways for a diminishing number of old folks in narrowboats?
You are right, I came up Tinsley flight today it was a nightmare, 5 people to open Rotherham lock to start, Smith and i couldn't shift a gate so 3 passersby helped one in high heels! Then the weir had a huge mud bank blocking it which means you have to scratch your boat by going through trees! Most locks only have one paddle working both ends, this will eventually cause people to shun this journey. I then learned that CRT senior management and Trustees are having a series of jollys around the country at our expense! So we know why they need more money it's to fund Jollys and the extra senior management posts and their cars!!!
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3 minutes ago, MartynG said:
I don't think doing something stupid can be described as ingenious .
Of course it can, you have never been to war, many stupid things are done but we survived to tell the tale
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8 hours ago, David Mack said:
Foolhardy I would say!
If you drop the stern on the cill the boat is at least supported on something substantial, but trusting your life to the adequacy of a couple of chains and a few bollards of unknown strength and foundations seems more like a death wish.
I ain't saying it's not stupid, just ingenious
3 hours ago, Pluto said:Wooden gates are generally more suitable for 18th century canal locks as they tend to distort to accommodate any misalignment of the quoins over the years. Steel gates do not distort and thus can cause pressure points on the seal. The current problems with sills on the Wigan flight may well be the result of using steel gates since the 1960s in an area affected by subsidence.
New concrete locks perfik for the job, remember they are very large and not suited for wooden gates, maybe a complete go through of all locks to this size to future proof the canals for real freight moving boats and moving water around would be best
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9 minutes ago, MartynG said:
Fair enough if locks are considered to be of such interest that they are listed then traditional means of construction appropriate to the original date of construction should be adopted.
When our waterways were upgraded in the 80s the gates are all steel construction, still in good condition and working well. Honestly I can think of no reason to keep wooden gates, these are working waterways and should kept modern and low maintenance. We can't afford to waste money on heritage when they are milking boaters dry, a lot can't afford the licence rises, so to waste it on wooden gates and repairs are a nonsense
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17 hours ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:
Glad they’re putting on lots of varnish to keep them waterproof and to offer them some protection from narrowboats ramming them👍
I was just going to say the same! Never seen varnished gates before?
5 minutes ago, Tonka said:Saw a guy once put chains across a wide lock on the GU from bollard to bollard. Then put boat over chains. Then drained lock. Was then seen to be blacking boat from a dinghy
Ingenious to say the least
15 hours ago, magnetman said:Also steel gates can cause damage to the lock structure because metal does not absorb shock. When gates are slammed there is nowhere for the energy to go.
Wood is more forgiving.
Rubber seals on the gate edge wood absorb the shock
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1 hour ago, Naughty Cal said:
On this day 2018
Burton Waters, Lincoln
Great sky pictures
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4 hours ago, PeterF said:
The webinar was not the insurance industry view on the insurability of boats with lithium batteries but a presentation on the general subject of lithium batteries, it just happened to be hosted by an insurance broker (not an underwriter). The subject matter was presented by 3 technical people, a fire investigator, a marine surveyor and the owner of a marine equipment company selling and installing amongst other things lithium battery systems. The fire inspector and the marine surveyor had some experience with inland waterways and canal boats. The marine equipment man was solely offshore and large systems based and had no understanding of inland boats / canal boats. He worked with lithium battery systems that make Victron equipment look cheap! and he was one step away from detailed systems engineering so he made a number of technical errors during the presentation.
Battery Chemistry
The overall view provided was, as we know that LFP are very safe compared to all the other main stream chemistries such as LCO, NMC etc. although LTO was not really mentioned much. It was accepted that these were very hard to damage and generally if damaged did not overheat and combust and thermal runaway was very unlikely. The fire investigator confirmed that nearly all battery fires were chemistries other than LFP and ones where LFP were involved may well have been due to other issues such as poor installation / failed shorting equipment but you could not always determine the root cause. The marine equipment man only works with LFP. This of course was all said with the insurance broker present so hopefully the message will diffuse throughout the industry.
Toys
Both the surveyor (who also does loss adjustor work for insurers) and the fire investigator said that mostly battery related fires on boats were not from the boat batteries but the "toys", e-scooters, e-bikes, e-surf boards, diving power pods (not sure this applies to canals though). Some of these and their charging units are not designed as a full system and some of the 12V adapters can get very hot. With these, the view was that if you are charging something like this, do not do it in your escape route, there was a recent case with a flat where the bike / scooter was charged in the hall and the occupants could not escape. There was another on a narrow boat with the charging happening in the engine room at one end of the boat but luckily the occupants could escape from the other end of the boat. People mentioned that e-scooters especially were prone as the battery pack is low down below the board and easily damaged if not in a rugged case. Charging bags were mentioned, a flame roof fibre glass bag which could contain to some extent a lithium battery burning. However, encasing a battery in an insulating bag during charging will mean the battery warms up more.
Hybrid (mixed) LA and LFP banks
At a high level the marine equipment man was quite comfortable with mixed banks and he believes that the idea is sound. He called them Lithium Extension batteries and mentioned a German company, I believe this is Bos AG who sell a very expensive lithium battery system to add to your lead acid bank. These are designed for the top daily consumption going into your lead acid for deeper discharges. This is similar to the hybrid method advocated within the canal boating world. However, when questioned about "hybrid" systems he had trouble probably because we were talking about different things. It was interesting that it was not discounted out of hand.
System installation
Fusing was discussed where it was noted that LFP can have a very high short circuit discharge current, especially in large offshore or propulsion systems, much higher than LA. They suggested Class T fuses capable of 20,000A @ 12V fault current (expensive) on large battery towers and ANL fuses capable of 6,000A @ 12V fault current for battery strings. They did not mention MRBF fuses which can be mounted on battery terminals with a 10,000 @ 12V fault current. This is probably one area where canal boats probably fall short by using mega fuses or strip fuses, most likely by retaining these from the lead acid install. If you can not fit fuses very close to batteries mention was made of short proof insulation sleeves for the cables. Other aspects were system communication systems (CAN), emergency shutdown buttons, fire protection plus isolation on both positive and negative leads.
A lot was made of professional vs self install with some discussion of the generally poor wiring in canal boats. The surveyor said most electrically based fire claims he made were due to poor installation with issues such as loose wiring where positive and negative high current cables chafed against each other causing shorts (and by inference inadequate fusing) causing something nearby to catch fire. The same was true for not having properly covered terminals on batteries and equipment. This situation with LFP batteries would be worse than with lead acid due to the higher fault currents.
Other bits
The issue of low temperatures on LFP was discussed and acknowledged, as well as high temp for people travelling to sunnier climes.
They agreed that now LFP was cheaper over the battery lifetime than AGM.
They suggested that DC-DC or alternator to battery chargers were one way of overcoming installs with legacy alternators to avoid expensive alternator modifications.
Conclusion
This was very positive, it showed that lithium batteries are viewed as being very safe and entirely practical for boat domestic systems and low power propulsion systems and was not a witch hunt. It was fairly relaxed about some of the more novel ways of adding lithium to your system as long as they were properly managed and had safety systems. The biggest area of concern was around DIY installs which have the risk of being less safe.
The video of the webinar will be uploaded to Youtbe at some point at https://www.youtube.com/@HavenKJ/videos
I have the fuse at the batteries, manual cut off and an ignition controlled battery cutoff, my BSS examiner was impressed by what I had done. Like me he lives on a boat so we can't be to careful with our homes
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37 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:
And, hopefully, they've not minded re-valuing it in the light of your investment. To me it's purely a value thing and not a safety issue.
No purely on replacement if it sinks catches fire etc
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6 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:
So my only reason for a conversation with my insurance company at renewal (fast approaching) is that the value of all the off-grid kit now on board has increased the overall value of the boat considerably and I'd like to be in a position to claim in the case of, say, damage or theft. Consequently I'd only mention the replacement of 5 LAs with a dozen LiFePo4s because of the significant increase in value. Then there's the panels, MPPTs and a master and slave pair of inverters in place of the knackered old 2 kW square wave jobby. The (professionally installed) wiring is pretty extensive and employs a couple of Lynx Distributers and a Lynx BMS all controlled by a Cerbo GX and touchscreen. A wee bit frightening when you start totting it up costwise ... rather than that I have any concerns about it going BANG!
Same for me I have a significant investment in technology on my boat, they haven't devalued it since I told them
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20 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:
Who do you insure with?
Craftinsure and they know its electric drive and its lifepo4s, they weren't concerned at all premium didn't change
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12 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
Yes but you have an electric boat and I didn't lie
Its for people who are interested as well it seems
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2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:
Well they are not very choosey, they let me straight in
Same here
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3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
I will see if they let me in
I had to join to get in, great little forum. The problem is battery bank isnt big enough and solar could do with being bigger as well
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4 minutes ago, IanD said:
Always nice when someone else clears the way for you -- Midnight and friends obligingly did the Rochdale for me, they got razor wire and a mattress, all I got was a couple of carrier bags... 🙂
I had similar years ago, boat pushing me so I pulled in and let him pass, next bend he has a mattress on his prop! We cruised past and got the last mooring further on, another boater asked had we seen so and so boat as they were going to dinner with them.............
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So I asked the Question and I know why they are using a lot of diesel see link and decide yourself
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1780973312362190/permalink/1805218013271053/
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3 hours ago, mrsmelly said:
Would your preference have been a diesel internal combustion engined gennie or a petrol internal combustion engine?
Some solar would have been good as well as a 600cc diesel generator, it was so energy dependent a drive engine was never going to be enough
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2 hours ago, system 4-50 said:
It is time somebody put some serious work into researching why so many relationships fail. Our kids endure so many years of education, and how much of that is focused on helping them to make successful partnerships? Almost none? If more were successful there would a need for less individual housing units. Perhaps less liveaboards? A government initiative to encourage long-lived three and four-somes might even eliminate the housing shortage at the cost of encouraging 72ft narrowboats and more fatties?
Be
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1 hour ago, Tigerr said:
Often there is a tragic tale behind the sale of someone's dream. It is sad to see something that clearly involved a huge amount of effort, attention to detail and expense up for sale. Even if the hull shape is a bit awkward. It's a very comfortable looking living space by any measure.
We shouldn't rush to judge.
It may be that there has been illness, bereavement, divorce, bankruptcy, or some other life changing external event that has derailed a dream.
Mind you, where is Whitefield these days? Now that was a truly badly conceived project mounted by someone full of the overconfidence borne of ignorance.
I remember Whitefield sitting at new and used boat company when I bought my widebeam, had a look around her she really needed to be electric with lifepo4s and a generator to make her work properly.
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19 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
For what it's worth, I personally think Corbyn was a terrible mistake, and a dreadful leader of the opposition. Most of his economic policies were middle of the road standard Labour - they only looked hard left in contrast to the current ones and in the misrepresentation of the papers. Neither of us knows what would have happened if Labour had won - I suspect he'd have been replaced in a week(you won't find many MPs sorry he's been booted out). Why we're discussing this in the boaty bit I dunno, really, except that it started as the cause for people moving on to the canals , and you can't keep economics, and therefore politics, out of that.
When I moved onto the boat it was for economic reasons, and the same was true for all except one couple on my mooring at the time (about 20 of us), divorces being the usual reason. There should be no such things as "leisure" or "residential" moorings - just moorings at prices reflecting their facilities, same as houses do. Then you just need decent policing to stop junk on the towpath and boat dumping elsewhere. There's plenty of room for everyone.
Same on our moorings most livaboards are there due to divorce or failed relationships, both sexes.
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1 hour ago, system 4-50 said:
True fat fingers on a phone.
We really enjoy going out with our campervan, often its only 16 miles to a pub opposite chatsworth estate, good walk around the estate nice meal in the pub and come back home. Nice Saturday and Sunday
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2 hours ago, system 4-50 said:
not?
Not what?
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7 hours ago, Bee said:
Seems to be 4 - 5 lived in motorhomes within a dogwalk of here now, No doubt there are some sort of rules and regs being broken and they are "getting away with it". "It" being council tax and all the other things that ccers are "getting away with". What is it that gets boat owners so upset about people buying boats to live on? Those boats are still floating around the system somewhere whether there is someone on board or not. Why should a boatowner have a mooring? We only have a winter mooring and nobody turns a hair that we are entirely without a mooring for the summer and we might end up in Holland, France or Belgium for the winter. There are more insufferable rules about how long you can stop for on CRT waters now and the more expensive it gets the more those who can pay hate those who can't and the more those who can pay demand more rules to keep the rest in line. If you encourage authoritarian organisations they just get worse until there is no pleasure left in anything. The boater with a battered Springer is not the enemy, leave him alone.
Do they move? If so as long as they are causing obstruction of the highway they aren't doing anything wrong as long as the vehicles are road legal. Cornwall recently had to explain its actions with a freedom of information request on campervans second time of asking they eventually provided the required information. Afterwards a series of prosecutions had to be reversed. We park on roads etc using various apps we have never been asked to move on. We use lots of very cheap car parks as long as we are allowed.
Licence increase announced 2024-25
in General Boating
Posted
Saturday fingers crossed