Sea Dog
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Posts posted by Sea Dog
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38 minutes ago, Bargebuilder said:
The shell of the boat certainly, but surely not the bits of the boat that the boat safety inspector is interested in.
Coastal marina's are full of boats with affluent owners, but so are inland marinas, so both are likely to have well maintained boats. Even more coastal boats use swinging moorings or mud berths and are maintained on a tiny budget if at all, similar to many continuous inland cruisers.
Can fresh water boat owners really be less well informed over safety matters or less willing to take responsibility for safety or even less affluent and able to pay for professionals to do the work than owners of coastal boats.
Remember that the BSS is not there to protect boaters from dangers on their craft - it's to protect other boats and the general public from someone mooring a potential hazard nearby. This potential risk to others, rightly or wrongly, is seen as a greater risk on inland waterways than in the marine environment. Only the recently added CO alarm requirement explicitly targets boat owners' own safety.
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1 hour ago, Stroudwater1 said:
Have you contacted the club? A polite message may possibly point out the error of their ways and help sort it?
Particularly since it appears that there aren't any SIBC members on this forum. Perhaps issuing their bollocking here might be less than well-targeted.
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4 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:
My last BSS inspector operated my gas bubble detector, then sat drinking tea whilst asking me questions about my safety systems without looking for himself; useless!
Ah, I see - your earlier post appeared to be in answer to @Alan de Enfield 's question about Tom Keeling being good. Hopefully that's cleared up rather than Tom being given a poor review he didn't deserve.
3 hours ago, MtB said:Really?
I looked closely at the costs involved in getting qualified to be a BSS inspector and decided it wasn't worth the candle for the pitiful income stream that results.
I found the income from marine surveying to be leaning in that direction too, not least due to the high cost of indemnity insurance everyone thinks their "get out" clauses mean they wouldn't need. The more surveys they do, the more the insurance costs... and the liability doesn't stop when they stop trading.
The cost/reward ratio also explains why Gas Safe chit for boats is less common than one might imagine, I expect?
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1 minute ago, PaulJ said:
I hadnt noticed the colour match 😀 - the boat was actually matt black other than the roof so quite an unique paint scheme.
Matt black is a unique boat paint scheme? You need to get out more!
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9 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Good as in he is thorough and ensures everything is safe and compliant?
This ^^^^ in my (singular) excellent experience of Tom Keeling, but which was also similar to the experience of others around me at the time a couple of years ago - and two of those were given failures!
I had just changed my gas hose (on age - me being thorough, not cos it was tired) and although it was identical to the old one and met British Standard, it was the wrong British Standard! No problem: Tom had some in his van which he supplied free of charge. He also found the tiniest of pressure drops on the gas test, tracked it down and fixed it, again free of charge.
Thorough check by a thoroughly nice bloke. I'd use him again and wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to others - in fact, I most recently did so this weekend!
9 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:It's the latter for me and so far I've been lucky.
Since this is completely the opposite of my experience, did you mean former rather than latter? Or do you need to expand on your own experience for balance?
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22 minutes ago, IanD said:
Hopefully this will get more support in future as more boaters cotton on to what's going on, and have more time to plan any get-togethers/protests.
Although this hasn't seemed to work well for striking doctors, Just Stop Oil, et al, who's cries appear have fallen on the deafest of deaf ears. Let's not stray from General Boating into politics, but sad to say that a few more narrowboat horns, commendable though our cause might be, are probably not going to push doing a U-turn on CRT's long established tapered funding agreement further up HMG's current options list.
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I've noticed a significant number of dogs (not all, obviously) have trained humans to follow them around bagging up their waste - for free too. Perhaps we could extend the system?
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In the 70s my mate's grandad was a TV detector van man. He was quite a bright bloke with a telecoms background, not the sort that I'd have thought would have been content to spend his days idly driving around in a dummy* van, pretending to detect naughty folk's tellys. Maybe he was?
* It may have been a Bedford
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19 hours ago, MtB said:
Excellent. Another student of the "eggcorn"!
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-top-ten-eggcorns-9685844.html
Hmm, are you sure that particular newspaper is a reliable sauce? I think the once dependable Independent may be rusting on its laurels...
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2 hours ago, MtB said:
The universal ones probably work fine but you have to rig up your own method of fixing the control dial end in place as it is highly unlikely to fit into the plastic mouldings inside your particular fridge design.
Yep, I wondered how there could possibly be an agreed universal standard for that. Thanks Mike.
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18 hours ago, MtB said:
......you just need a new £25 thermostat.
A quick Googling found me "universal" fridge thermostats available for a little more than a fiver. Do you have any idea whether this brand of "universality" extends to Shoreline models?
I've long wondered whether my own fridge is performing quite as optimally as it should and throwing a fiver at a new stat is definitely a reasonable first step check. However, when Shoreline themselves want £48.90 plus p&p for a specific stat for the RR47 fridge, that purchase really needs to be as a result of accurate diagnosis.
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Awesome! Thank you to all involved.
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On 11/08/2023 at 19:02, magnetman said:
On the other thread linked to the sign was at Tardebigge.
Did something interesting happen there too ?
I've had a few very nice breakfasts in the little cafe by the top lock, but I'd have given those occurrences a far better than one star rating.
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3 minutes ago, HenryFreeman said:
I'd find the sloshing of turds going back and forth in their tank quite soothing, personally.
Ah, of course - those with macerators would miss this bonus. Also those with boats on flat calm canals, I suppose...
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22 hours ago, Peanut said:
But you will need to sleep on top of a large poo tank
I've heard this often but I've never really understood how sleeping above a completely sealed tank that most rarely even see is somehow worse than the horrendous interactions described in your post and others above.
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19 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Maybe, but the guy who left the few bolts he bothered to put back into the coupling loose apparently has about thirty years experience of servicing the engines of boats supplying the oil rigs. So probably an engineer, as the word is defined as someone who builds or maintains engines. Unfortunately, you can't just define an engineer as someone who does a job properly. I can count the number of jobs finished competently on my old tub over the last thirty years on the fingers of one hand. Not including the thumb. Two blokes have been excellent. The rest have cost me more money putting their errors right (couldn't do anything about the selfdraining deck except fit a better bilge pump) . I just got used to it and factored the extra cost into my personal estimate.
The comment in another post as to using hire fleet engineers/mechanics is true too. They probably get more experience of all sorts of repairs and if they mess up it costs them money and probably their job.
The problem is that you really can't tell if anyone's any good until it's too late. And often, because of where you are, you've no choice anyway.
Whilst you appear the be disagreeing with my post, I think you illustrate my point very well. If you were to ask me what evidence I have to support my claim to be an Engineer, I could point you to my Charter which was hard earned and granted not only based upon my academic qualifications (which don't always prove much in the real world) or my long experience (which many people do not really learn much from) but also having evidentially proven success in my field, underwriting my ability to apply my knowledge and experience. The same thing goes for other levels in engineering, but if our professional bodies do not defend their profession, and allow anyone to call themselves an engineer, technician, mechanic, or whatever, then you're back to pot luck. The medical profession, as a key example, don't allow it.
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15 hours ago, robtheplod said:
OK, now done a test patch and have to say, impressed with results! I used a lint free rag to apply it and also a clean one to clean up/buff it after 20 mins..... hope you can see the patch! it seems to remove the chalky streaks also which is nice... will monitor it for a few weeks then if it still is half decent will start doing the boat........
That looks good Rob. I've been wondering about Owatrol for a while now (the gel coat name issue was a bit confusing, but this thread has cleared that up). The acid test is time though, as a lot of products look great immediately after application.
I've done mine previously with Autoglym products which involved lots of hard work, but looked fantastic... for about 3 months. I now use a silicone-free, cheap wax wood polish spray which takes minutes and lasts about 6 weeks before needing another wipe. Of these two, from both a bang for buck and an effort/reward perspective, the little and often approach wins hands down. However, it may well be bettered by Owatrol if it lasts and has no other downside.
With that in mind, I'm sure many of us would be grateful if you could provide updates regarding longevity. In the meantime, my fingers are crossed for you!
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7 hours ago, magnetman said:
Obviously if it was stainless welded to mild steel its ideal...
I wouldn't have thought Magnetman would have found stainless steel particularly attractive...
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1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:
And if an "engineer" has done anything , don't forget to tighten up all the bolts after he's gone, because at least half will be loose. Or missing.
Fixed that for you. If the job was done by a proper Engineer (in this case it would more likely be a mechanic), you'd have checked and found it had been done properly. Sadly, however, the professional bodies in the UK allow the term "engineer" and "technician" to be used willy-nilly so the terms are practically meaningless.
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6 minutes ago, Wizzer said:
Quite. I despair.
I sympathize and recommend you regain your composure over a nice pint. I believe there's a great pub in either Nantwich or Northwich...
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8 hours ago, magnetman said:
Is it a gull?
Possibly a fish he-gull?
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29 minutes ago, rusty69 said:
Yes. The sun.
We tried that last year. We went through 11 months of rain in mucky sheets and when the sky cleared and they finally got washed they went on the line in a heatwave and burst into flames!
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3 hours ago, Bacchus said:
apart from a handful of minted "boomers" who are relishing the interest rates on their vast savings...
Anyone relishing an interest rate 4-6% less than inflation isn't very good at finance...
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Thank you all for your input. Just to update this thread...
With the new loo onboard I got the old one out to find that, apart from 2 short-ish lengths of 38mm Flexi, my system had been done in Floplast solvent weld pipe during build.
Useful info for future reference:
1. 15 year old Saniflo Premium flexi is still allowing absolutely no smell through.
2. Contrary to some expectations, it seems that standard white Floplast pipework is up to the job.
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Boat Safety Survey coming up...
in Boat Building & Maintenance
Posted
Do they need a control experiment? Clearly a boat with (insert name of realistic BSS failure here) is less safe than one without the hazard. There are plenty of hazards identified in BSS checks which would otherwise have continued unchecked.
(I'm not suggesting that all BSS passes or failures are infallibly correct)
A lesser justification of a greater imperative which would otherwise be outside of the remit, surely? As I think you also allude to when you say "Far fetched?"