Haven't a Clue

#13 You rang, Sir.....?

With the untimely demise of Ziggy, it was inevitable.....

Bit of a hijack, sorry, but what's the difference between monocrystalline and polycrystaline panels? I understand one can work partly shaded and has a lower output....but which is which? Ta in advance.

Mike, speaking as a confirmed and lifelong arachnophobe, you are NOT making any friends around here....... ( I durn't care 'ow it's spelt, I knows what I mean). The rest of your posts are very insightful and useful....keep up the good work. Miss Max, welcome to the world of boating and well done for taking the plunge, I doubt very much you'll regret it.

Interesting thread. 1st, defib pads are not (or should not) cost more than about £15 to replace. Our ITU next door to theatres pays £12.68 for a set. 2nd, think about the incidents that are likely to occur ie cuts, sprains etc. Statistically, unless you have specific diagnosis re your health, cardiac arrest is fairly low down on the list and as someone said upthread, dealing with man overboard is rather more likely. 3rd, get a book on 1st aid or do a course, St Johns free handbook is well regarded, it will stand you in good stead and hopefully give you the skill and confidence to recognise, interpret and deal with what may come your way. Just suggestions from an anaesthetic tech of 31 years. Having said all that, you are to be congratulated for trying to look and plan ahead; prior planning prevents piss-poor performance and all that!

Re the licence, I'm guessing that you only need one if you expect payment for the batteries, otherwise our local council recycling centre must be making a mint in fines out of the poor saps who drop theirs off.......oh hang on though, this IS the council. 'Spect a summons will be in the post for the last lot I dropped off then. Bugga, dint fink that through, did I.

Yup,fitted one to my Beta BZ482 (13hp). Flash memory, responsive, backlit and reliable. Recommended without reservation.

I too have used the Maplin widget to run my Dell laptop on board. The sales chap at Maplin asked "what for" and when I replied Dell laptop he said "oho, well here's your top tip - set it to 19v NO higher and turn it on, if it works, you're all set, if not, bring it back for a refund." Being at the time a (non) techno geek, I did as I was told and all was well. In fact, it's still working just fine. PS I really mean it about the 19v....NO higher.

Re Wreckferret's post about being too long for some parts of the system....and thereby 'drifting' from the OP's thread, what is the maximum size of n/b that will fit anywhere, length AND beam, as this will have a bearing on what we will be looking to purchase in a few years' time? Ta in advance.

Posting a thread in the wrong place, this topic should obviously be in the 'Lounge'.....buggerit, millenium hand and shrimp, wrong forum....... I'll start again, shouldn't this be in the virtual pub? (ducks, runs for cover, smacking in a new magazine and fumbling for a grenade). Looks in vain for a suitable smiley.....add yer own ( )<here.

Don't know if it's any help but when I had a saily boat with a Beta BZ482 (13hp) the control panel didn't have a tacho/hours counter, so I purchased a Tinytach from tinytachUK with an internal flash memeory (so no battery) and it did the job just fine, being waterproof and an LCD display. Very happy with this solution I was and can thoroughly reccomend them. Not too pricey either.

OK, being at the moment a lumpy boater, I'll see if I can add anything helpful to the debate. As of last July we're running a Merryfisher 805 semi-displacement hull with a Volvo TAMD 41 200hp shaft drive (with a skeg and ropecutter, saves a few worries). Nice boat, sleeps 4, two in forepeak bunks and foldout double in main cabin. Sticking to displacement speeds (c 7-8 knots) we trundle about using about I think 1 - 1.5 gallons per hour. Get up on the plane and that goes up to about 5-6 gph at 14 - 18 kts. Missus prefers the destination to the journey, so about half and half re displacement/planing. It has a sea toilet, so discharges outside rivers/ offshore. As some upthread have said, shaft v. outdrives is a contentious subject, i prefer shaft, as generally speaking in my experience, cheaper to maintain. Draft is about 0.8 m and it sits nicely on our semi-tidal mooring on the Hamble mud. However, you will be lifting out for antifoul every 12 - 18 months otherwise you WON'T get on the plane. Fully enclosed cabin/ steering position withsliding French doors to cockpit and full cockpit canopy. Previous to that we had a Colcic 26 bilge keel motorsailer and i taught myself to sail, not difficult providing both teacher and pupil have a few braincells! Re standing rigging and sail replacement costs, we got her with the sails she had (that had been up and down both sides of the Channel a few times and were still serviceable when we sold her last July, so not much expense there. Motoring with a Beta BZ482 (13hp) we recorded a humungous 1 litre per hou at hull speed (6.2 kts) in flat water......boy, do I miss THOSE costs!) and of course free when the wind blew in the right direction. Only a brief summary but might give the OP a few ideas. Ian

Ta v. much. Only just looked in here again, been wandering around the various threads, what a great place this is.

Hi, just cruising around the forums and saw this post. My experience is as follows 4 years ago I had a sailing yacht and had just replaced the batteries and associated wiring, overdoing it to err on the safe side. It occurred to me that having an inveter on board might be occaisionally handy, but being skint, I looked around and found on the Towsure site a 2kW peak, 1kw continuous modified sine wave inverter for £99..... they're now £89 incidentally. I used it to run in order of preference, an 800w kettle (nice for a quick brew sailing on Soton water), a1/2kW fan heater (only on the low setting with the donk running) and a Tesco cheapie 700w m/wave....AND.. a Dell Laptop via its' mains charger. If it did all of that without going phutt, I'd say it's good enough. In fact I'm going to buy another one this week for our Merryfisher. 'cos it's a lot easier to make a brew on the move with the 'leccy kettle. So I'd say not all the cheapie ones should be dismissed too lightly. My tuppence worth. Ian

(Stands on thread bank, looking in, takes deep breath, pinches nose and jumps...:-) Interested in this one 'cos we're thinking the same...well, obviously not the stag bit (no WAY!. Me, I'm game for a few locks etc and would like nice scenery and perhaps a pub garden or two to moor up at days' end.....however, mrs Haven't a Clue absolutely insists on a nice modern and above all, spotless boat if we're going to do this. We are looking at...'arf a mo'....March 22nd to April 5th, a 4-5 day jaunt in that period. We're in West Sussex and she'd prefer not to have a 3-5 hour drive before we start, 2-3 hours ok. What might we be looking at cost wise and what sort of area. Not a complete novice at boats, we've a Merryfisher 805 on the Hamble, but she wants something without the bleddy Solent chop and tides, so inland it is. Also, as explained on 1st post in "new to boats" (?) we'll be looking to buy one in the fullnes of time ourselves. Ta in advance....oh and hi to Richard 10003...nice 'ere, innit....

Well, thank you very much everyone for your replies. Will now get on the net and investigate. Ta very much

Well hallo. New to here (really?!) but not new to boating, as we have a boat on the river Hamble. We are looking to get into canal boating in a few years time when I can collect a pension from the NHS and we'll be in a position to add to our boat collection! We will be downsizing to pay for it and have decided that, nice as sailing is (my view is VERY nice, other half not quite so sure!) we should seriously explore the option of inland boating. My first question, bearing in mind that we live in West Sussex and won't be moving far from here is where can we go to look at some boats up for sale to get an idea of what to expect. Our only experience of inland waterways is a week on the Thames in the summer of '76 (wow, what fun that was) and we feel that a week on a narrowboat might be a good idea? I'm on A/L this week ('till the 16th Feb) and don't mind travelling for a couple of hours by car, but would like to visit somewhere that has a few for sale to see some variety. We have had a mobo, a yacht an dnow back to a mobo for the next 4-5 years, so not complete novices. Ta in advance, Ian and Julia.