Felshampo

Thanks Alan

Has anyone got any clever ideas how to seal a leak from my skin tank? I have had a leak below my skin tank for some time. I have finally found it is coming off the drain fitting at the bottom of the skin tank. This is a brass tap. It is in the bottom corner of the skin tank in a difficult to get at spot. It is wet around the joint between the steel pipe and the brass tap. I guess it's a compression fitting. I managed to get an adjustable spanner on it and gave it a bit of a tighten. Ideally I should drain down the system and remove and put it back with a lot of ptfe fluid. Is there any other way I could seal it. I'm reluctant to put more turns on the spanner incase it breaks it and I end up with a bilge full of coolant.

The AGM's are supposed to have a CEF that rises for the first 5 cycles then goes down like others LA batteries according to the manual. This means the BM has to be calibrated to account for this. I suppose knackered is relative but my batteries could not fire up the central heating in the morning even though they had been charged up the day before. They had only about 10v having self discharged over night. So I got some new ones. Hadn't realised thy shorted. I now understand that smart guage is measuring voltage to determine SOC. How does the smart guage know how much damage has been done and what the new lower capacity is? Let's say you you don't recharge the batteries properly and you permanently sulphate 20% of the plates. Does the smart guage know this purely on the voltage?

So the CEF determines how much "extra" needs to be put into the batteries to get them back to 100%. AGMs are supposed to have a CEF of 94%, which goes up and then down as the batteries age. The smart guage is more accurate at measuring % discharge as it uses voltage as well as AH to determine SOC? Hope that's right. One last question please. As the battery ages and the lead becomes damaged I presume the capacity goes down. Do the guages take this into account, does it matter? Or is it just CEF that governs the life of the battery. In other words why does a knackered battery loose its charge so quickly? Is it less lead or too much sulphate or both or something else.

The manual isn't clear on this but it slowly lowers the CEF down to 70% as the batteries cycle. At this point it claims they are "dead". How accurate this is I don't know but that allows it to calculate SOC better I suppose. How does a smart guage differ that makes it more accurate?

I know this is a can of worms. I have a mastervolt inverter with a mastervolt bm. It is supposed to be able to tell the amount of consumption and adjust as the batteries cycle (peukert numbers left me baffled). You can cycle through a plethora of menus which supposedly tell you all you need to know. This had to be set up when I got the new batteries but after then, according to the manual, was self calibrating? I know it probably tells lies but when ever I check the SOC with a multi meter it looks about right. We are in a marina for winter and so get to fully charge the batteries. Its when we are cruising that the BM gets looked at most.

I have 160 AH AGM batteries and after inheriting some old knackered ones never let their expensive replacements go below 90%. The C rate is set by the battery charger? I have a Leece Neville 140 amp alternator which I always thought was a good thing. If it's giving off 70A that's 0.43 C. Is this a bad thing then. Although it usually falls down to 30A quite quickly.

Will it take longer but need the same amount of input or more input? I presume all things being equal its about the chemistry. How far into the lead is the sulphation that has to be converted. If its all close to the surface then in the bigger battery bank it might use less energy. The smaller battery bank might use deeper lead which uses more energy to remove the sulphation? What's the C rate about?

That's the one cheers! That's two votes for b.........

I have two questions about battery charging. I have tried to find the answer by searching the forums but can't find answers. If this has been covered before could you point me in the right direction please. 1. I remember someone had posted a very detailed article that explaned battery charging and chemistry. I think it was pinned somewhere but can't find it. If someone can tell me where it is that would be great. 2. If I use 100 AH from my batteries. I then want to recharge them back to 100% until the charging current is, let's say, 1% of battery size. Will it take (a) longer (b) the same or (c) less time to recharge a battery bank that has 4 x 100AH batteries compared to 5 x 100AH batteries. Battery chemistry is still a bit of a black art to me.

Is this connected to the pressured change when going into neutral, if only briefly, when changing gear. On my hydraulic gearbox the pressure drops from around 275 psi in gear to 50 psi in neutral. This I understand was only introduced by prm in 2010.

Thanks for your advice.

I will be using a 1/2 inch brush. I will stir it a lot more. Is it a good idea to put a coat of plain Raddle on top after you've got the texture right?

I don't really have an issue with it but the gunnels are textured and give that extra grip. Just thought it would be a good idea.........

Oh..........

Yep, I wondered if I hadn't stirred it enough. I'll try that. I have seen a couple of boats with textured roofs that looked really good which is what gave me the idea.

As someone who walks on the roof of the boat to get in and out of locks I thought it would be a good idea to use a textured paint when I did the roof. I have got some Craftmaster textured deck paint which appears to have a fine material in it. I have tried a sample patch on the roof and it doesn't look too good. Some parts are fine but others seem too textured. Am I being too optomistic? Is this one of those jobs I should have left to a professional and just used ordinary Raddle red? Has anyone any expert advice to help me do a better job. If you have used Craftmaster textured deck paint on the roof and it turned out alright what are the tricks of the trade.

Thanks for that confirmation. Maybe the dementia isn't progressing as fast as I thought. The problem with reading books is you often think that's really interesting and then six months later have no idea where you read it or if you are misremembering. Any votes for returning to that system, just for the W&B, maybe starting on the 1st of April.

I was asked today why boats pass each other on the right. This made me think I once read of a canal that had the opposite rule, historically, of passing on the left. Have I made this up? The Worcester and Birmingham came to mind for some reason. I'm probably making it up but don't mock its my age.

That's sort of it. We don't end up with an argument more of a "your better at it than I am, you do it" I'm sure if I wasn't there and she had someone else to show her she would do far better. That was certainly the case when she came to an outdoor centre I worked at in a previous life. I think your right. Although funnily enough I did teach the kids to drive but they refused, point blank, to go out with their mum.

I want the qualification for the insurance but we mainly want the training to give my OH more confidence. Try telling that to my OH!

I've been using trad controls for a lot longer than three years. I think you have misunderstood my post. Thanks for all the replies. I think it went off topic from the start which always seems to happen. If anyone knows of an instructor who can use trad controls then please dm me.

We have had the boat for three years and have lived on it for most of that time, experience is not what I'm after.

I agree that trad controls are more sensitive especially with a large prop. Getting used to the prop effect allows you to control mooring and entering locks but it doesn't always work. Also the ability to go quickly into reverse with a hydraulic gearbox can be a great help in an emergency. I am sure we would learn a lot of other things from using a trainers boat. However I need the trainer to use our boat to give my OH the confidence to steer our boat on her own. We have a Gardner 2LW by the way and I love how it sounds, sorry. So true, especially the emergency stop, don't ask me how I know that.......

No but you are. You didn't read my original post where I said I had a boat with a trad stern and speed controls.