TheBiscuits

It's probably cheaper and easier to just buy one that meets EN 12864:2001, Annex M or EN 13786 than roll your own compliant system though. (see the footnote in your image)

It's just Alan being naughty. Neither of his seagoing boats are on CRT waters so he hasn't got a standard inland waterways insurance policy. He is correct in saying he doesn't need a BSS or licence for his insurance because it's a completely different type of policy. My craftinsure policy won't cover me to cruise my boat from Wales to Ireland...

Rotate the Y-shaped or T-shaped fitting so the gulper pipe is coming in from the top.

It's probably sold by now.

Badly piped as @Tracy D'arth said. Does a basin or washing machine share the skin fitting with the gulper as well if the tub slowly fills up?

So did you just shout "Kent!" back at them as a shorthand explanation?

That's quite a flexible space though. If my boat was 8 feet longer I'd have one. Plenty of storage, or a spare lounge when you are getting under each other's feet. Easy space to convert into an office or hobby room by having a desk instead of a bed. Especially along the full length of the boat ...

No. 6300 sq cm is under 7 sq feet, so if well built with baffles suitable for about 27hp on Beta's recommendations. If you want to do high power river running, add more skintank.

Yeah, I read that after I'd posted the other bit. I'm not surprised you understood the concept, just making it clearer for others. Downsides to the idea are cost and time spent faffing. There would be a lot more mounting hardware, more panels, and a more expensive solar controller. It would have to be done in such a way that you weren't spending an hour a day opening and closing the panels too. It obviously only makes any sense if there isn't any more cabin roof length usable, otherwise just adding another panel or upgrading the existing panels to more efficient ones is far easier and cheaper.

Full belt for 3 hours is more like it, punching the tide all the way as you hit Astland Perch at slack water. It's uphill in both directions! The advice from CRT is that if your boat can maintain 5knots (6mph) in deep still water you should be fine but many that can't go that fast have done the crossing. Last time I helped someone across, one of the other boats didn't think they could manage it safely so paid for the tugboat out of Tarleton to meet them halfway - prearranged cost under £100 they said. They were the last boat of 8 out of Savick Brook and the third boat in at Tarleton ...

True, but if you have an electric powered boat, no genny and no charging points what other option do you have? In practice, most people who cruise every day don't tend to do it from sunrise to sunset, just for a few hours in the middle so they'd just need to fold/slide them more than a static. I'm not thinking of "butterfly wings" that don't do anything while folded, I'm thinking cutlery drawer slides so even when "closed" for travelling you'll still have at least half the solar panels fully exposed.

That's sort of my thinking - a standard domestic solar panel is usually about 990mm wide, so two of them not quite touching would be under 2m on a boat that's 2.1m wide at the gunwales. They wouldn't be wider than the boat, but would protrude either side of the roof, which is why they need to fold/slide in for transit. They'd be at risk in bridgeholes and tunnels on narrow canals if unfolded, but usable on broad canals.