Water Nomad

Hello Everyone. Sorry to jump in on this thread, but do you know were I can get a bubble tester for 10mm pipe? My 10mm pipes had a bubble tester on them, but it was a 3/8" When I smelt gas I checked the nuts were tight enough, but I ended up just ripping the olives off as they were just gripping on the very edge of the pipe. So be very careful to get the right size fittings. John.

Hello Everyone. I have my mooring lines tied tight enough so that my boat doesn't move unless the passing boat is going very fast or close. But one thing is that because my boat is only 200 metres from the Three Locks there can be a regular drop in the water level. This makes my lines go loose and then my boat swings around all over the place. This is all ways a pain as there is no point re tying to lines. But I must admit it does not really bother me, I'm on a boat after all. The strange thing is like this morning, the canal had dropped at least a 18 inches and my boat was on the bottom. No matter how fast the passing boats went my boat did not move at all. John.

Hello Everyone. Thank you for the replys. At the moment I'm just looking at repainting the 3-4 inch wide strip of new steel that is just above the water line, with a full hull repaint in a couple of years. All I need to do now is try and work out the best paint to put on my existing two pack paint. John.

Hello Everyone. When I had my boat overplated just overall year ago I got them to paint my new steel in two pack paint. I must admit I was not to happy as they only put one coat on and it was in the water 18 hours later. Any way my boat is coming out again in 2019 for new skin tanks and a repaint. The only thing is that one marina has told me that I can not put another coat of two pack on top with out the boat being grit blasted. I was told that I will have to cover the two pack in bitchium. I'm not sure if that is correct, but I was hoping to just keep on topping up the two pack. John.

Hello Everyone. Thank you for all the replies. When I get some time spare I will be looking at the pdf and trying to find the bleed screw on the pump, it is a very tight spot. There might be a lever on the pump, but there is little chance of me seeing it. There might of being a pump on top of the filter, I have a round silver disk on the top that seems to be missing something. The engine stop is a push button on the console. The engine is quite new, it was bought be the last owner in 2004 and has only covered 645 hours. I have taken the battery for the engine off and I put it on charge at work, to get it ready for me to try again when I get back from my weekend away. Once again thank you all for your help, I will be busy next week trying to sort it out. John.

Hello Ian. No I don't have a primer pump on the filter. I have fitted a hand primer to the fuel line just after the tank, to try and save using my battery to much. John.

Thank you for the replies and the link to the PDF, I will give a look over. I have tried loosening the injector pipes off the injectors, but no fuel comes through. Strange you say a Beta 38, as the boat was sold to me as having a Beta 38, but the engine plate says Beta 36. John.

Hello. Thank you for the replies. Good point on the engine make, it is a Beta marine 36. I have looked for a bleed screw on the pump, but its not in an easy place to see. John.

Hello Everyone. As the title says can any one give any idea how I can bleed my engine. It run out of fuel the other month and I have tried all I can to get it running, but no luck yet. I have fitted a hand primer to the fuel lines and I have got fuel to both fuel filters. But I can not get fuel to the injectors. I have now got to the stage were I need some to come out to my boat and get the engine running, my batteries need a good charge. Does someone know of a good mobile mechanic near Milton Keynes ? Thank you for looking, John.

Hello Everyone. With regard to a portable shower that it what I'm using at the moment, until I get the water system fitted. I bought my shower of a well known auction site for about £13. It has a submersible pump on a long hose to a shower head, it also has a long lead with a water proof switch and a connector for a 12v socket. I heat my water in a kettle on the log fire, it takes a while, but you just have to think ahead. I boil the kettle two or three times putting the hot water in a thermos to keep it hot. John.

Hello Everyone. I when I got my boat it was fully insulated around the water tank, it was crammed full of Rock wool. Not a very good idea as that stuff loves to soak all the condensation is can, all I was left with was a very soggy moldy mess. I now have solid foam slabs around the tank, such as celotex/ kingspan. John.

Hello Everyone. My 1979 Harborough Marine has a wet bilge. Here are big steel beams running port to starboard, to rest the wood floor on. These steel beams rest on smaller steel beams welded on the base plate running the full length of the boat, from front to the back. John.

Hello Everyone. I have that problem of my boat sitting a bit low after it was over plated last year. I have moved as much stuff out away from the back as possible, but I still need to remove the rotten floor in the back of the boat to get more ballast out. At the moment the water is only about 3 inch's from the top plate. The one good thing is that I'm happy it is secure, because it has the usual T bar on the top and it also has a bolt on each side. The bolts really make sure the top plate in in the right place and you are not just relying on the T bar. John.

Hello Every one. With regard to Solar panels I bought a 250 w panel a few months ago, this cost me £135. This panel is the same as the one's that get fitted to the roofs of houses. The company I bought it of is based in Oxford and they were selling the panels cheap because some of the solar cells are a different shade to the rest. I know it is a long way from London, but there might be other company's selling there panels cheaper as well. The other thing I have found is that that big panel starts to work sooner and keeps on going for longer in the evening compared to the smaller panels that I also have fitted on the roof. The main thing to look out for with the big panel is if you have enough room on the roof for it, as it is approx 1.5 m x 1 m. John.

Hello Everyone. I all ways let my fire die out over night and I do not relight till the next evening. At the moment I'm using seasoned semi split logs from a very good friend. As already said these do not last long and you go through plenty, but they were free. I normally add about three or four pieces of smoke less fuel a night, just to help keep a nice and red base to the fire. I have one window hopper half open, mainly because it has the wires from the solar panels coming through it and in the morning the windows are only slightly condensed. When I first got the boat last August it had not being lived on for a while and it felt damp. Mainly because of the rotten floor, but most of that in the front of the boat has now being ripped up. John.

Hello. The paragraph above is the one I saw on the BSS website. My fire extinguishers are 1 Litre each, the strange thing is that the 'A' rating is different on some of them. I think two of them are rated 5 'A' and the other one is 3 'A' , so a total of 13 'A' . But my narrow boat is just under 15 meters long, so I need a rating of 21 'A'. I have now bought two 2 Litre fire extinguishers, rated 15 'A' each, just to be on the safe side. John.

Hello Everyone. It is very sad to hear of any boat fire, especially when there is a loss of life. I think one thing is to make sure your are happy with the equipment on your boat and that it is safe. My Narrow boat that I bought last August has a BSS, issued in 2013, but I still checked things over myself to make sure it is safe. I have found that although I have three fire extinguishers in the boat (that do look a bit old) My length of boat should have nearly double that. I have also found out that my gas locker has a vent near the bottom, but it vents straight into my bilges !! As a temporary measure I have my gas bottle outside. I plan to move the gas box to a safe position as soon as I can, but at the moment I can not move it because it is trapped in by a steel beam supporting the floor at the back. So does that mean the gas box was moved only a few months after the inspection and trapped in place with a steel beam ? Either way stay safe and make sure you know what do if the worst happens. John.

Hello Every one. Again thank you for the comments. My solar panels are just over 400 w, is that right that the thinking is that they are only 5-10 % efficient ? The thing is that I was working out the input as watts / volts, so if they charge at 15v then 400 w / 15 v = at least 20 amps. Then multiply that by 8 hours = 160 amps. But it sounds like I might have got this wrong, at least now it is sunnier the battery's are getting more charge. The other problem is that I can not run the engine longer than 30 mins because my skin tanks are very leaky, so the engine starts to over heat. Possibly I need to run the engine more often then. John.

Hello. Thank You to the repilys about my battery's. The thing is that they never have showed more than 12.5v unless the engine is running, then they would go up to 13.7v. But they went straight back to 12.2-12.3v as soon as the engine went off. I'm not sure how I abused them, I worked out my maximum draw would average 70 - 90 amps over a 24 hr period and my solar panels would be putting in some were around 140-180 amps a day in the winter month's. I also run my engine every 2-3 day's for half an hour, which has a 80 amp alternator just for the leisure battery's. John.

Hello. The other option that I used last year is a nice and big grassy field at the end of Sycamore Avenue in Bletchley. There is the post code for the church at the top of the avenue : MK2 2JE, the grassy field is next to the bridge over the canal. John.

Hello Alan. My laptop charger runs off the 240v supply, but the input is only 18v/ 4.7amps. So that means that my laptop charger has a similar output to yours. I have tried using a 12v charger, which then steps the power back up to 18v but they do not seem to work. John.

Hello Everyone. One way to check the batteries is to see what voltage they are before you load them. Then put a load on them, such as the TV, and then check what voltage they are showing when the inverter starts to complain. Normally the inverter will start to complain at about 11v, so if they were 12.5v or similar at the start and they dropped 1.5v in only a few minuets on a 50w draw that is not good. I have a similar problem at the moment, the only thing is that my 3 x 110 amp batteries are only 9 weeks old !!! The other day the batteries were showing 12.3v and after running the inverter for 30 mins, to charge the laptop on a 10-15 amp draw, the inverter started to complain and my batteries were down to 10v !!! But the batteries soon sprung back up to 11.3v after I turned the inverter off. Luckily the batteries have a three year warranty, so I'm hoping to send them back soon. John.

Hello Everyone. That over plating and painting sure does look good. I must admit I'm a bit jealous as I had mine done last year, near Milton Keynes and I have all sorts of problems. One of the most annoying thing is that I was told it would take 2-3 weeks to complete the job and it took 7 weeks, because they did not start the work till week 5. Then they just rushed through the job to get it back on the water for more boats coming in the yard. I must admit the welding does look good, but they had to weld up a few leaks in the bilge once it went afloat. They never had time to paint the rest of the black paint above the water line as promised. The new steel that was fitted only got one coat of paint, at 4.30 pm in December in the drizzle and it was on the water by 11 am the next morning. To top it off I can only run my engine for 30 mins because my skin tanks are leaking very badly, I know that is not there fault. They said the best option is to have external skin tanks fitted, but they do not have the time. So now it might have to come out of the water again to get that problem fixed. So be care full not all over plating is the same and my welder came highly recommended, maybe he is just to busy at the moment. John.

Hello Everyone. When I got my boat last year I went on the BSS site to if my extinguishers were ok. The site was help full and listed how many you need for your length of boat. I found out each extinguisher has a 'A' number on it, one of my 1 Litre extinguishers is rated 3 'A' and the other two are rated 5 'A'. I'm not sure why the rating is different, but my boat being 49ft long should have a rating total of 21 'A'. My extinguishers are all looking old so I bought two new 2 Litre ones, rated 15 'A' each. My thinking is to leave the old ones in the middle of my boat and put the new ones next to the exits for me to use on the way out, hoping I never have to use them. John.

Hello Everyone. As all ready mentioned Boat mail can offer you a fixed address, for DVLA and the bank ect'. They also offer mail forwarding and emailing your post onto you. To find out more just search Boat mail. John.