PeterF

Do you have power consumers taking some of the 15 Amps so in actuality the charging current is lower, which is why the voltage will not rise. The other thought is that 15 Amps at 14 Volt is 210W, we are not yet into peak solar season, so that may be all you will get at the moment. Check your connectors and panels in case not all panels are supplying properly in you have several in parallel. If you have several in series, then if one is not working and they have bypass diodes then you can still get reduced power. Btw, I had the same issue with my Tracer locking onto low voltage point rather than ramping up the panel voltage and a quick off/on using the isolator between the panels and controller got it sorted.

Was it a particularly cold morning as the alternator regulator may well have increased the voltage to compensate for the low temperature.

Excellent, thanks for the suggestion, just found an empty 15kg butane cylinder 10 miles away on ebay so I now have a pair and am all sorted. Thanks for the info and suggestions.

Slim, Thanks for this, looked on Calor website and yes if I can get an empty butane 15kg I can take a 13kg propane refill in its place. On my old boat I once had a propane cylinder that was obviously a blue one that had been resprayed.

After a hugely protracted build delayed by COVID working, lockdowns, shortage of parts, our boat is ready to launch next week. Hooray. Then we get informed that the Marina has been told by Calor that they can only sell refills and customers must bring in empties, there are to be no new fill supplies, so we need to see if we can find some propane. It is the same everywhere we tried, retailers will not supply new fills, only replacement fills. Tried our local Calor depot, spoke to someone, they told me to email them with my requirements and they would see what they can do, zilch response. There is now a reason why you need to spend that extra £30k on a gas free, lithium battery based, solar panel bedecked, electric boat with a big built in genny. Anyway, I have managed to obtain a second hand cylinder to get me into the Calor game in time for the launch, but it has been an extra bit of hassle that could have been done without.

The stoppage notice is out for Stanthorne, CRT stoppage notice Unfortunately, we need to close the navigation at Lock 2, Stanthorne Lock on the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal to carry out a repair to the offside tail gate. We have seen further deterioration of the damaged gate and the feedback from customers is that the lock is proving extremely difficult to operate. Our engineers and operations team have been to site to reassess the lock and have deemed it crucial for the repair works to take place as soon as possible. To allow some movement of boats we will be starting preparation work on site tomorrow to allow the repair works to commence on Monday 19 April and anticipate these works will take 7 to 10 days to complete. Navigation will remain open until Monday 19 April and will be closed from 08:00. We understand how frustrating and disruptive this is for our customers so soon after restrictions on navigation have been lifted and with the number of other stoppages in the region. Our teams will be working 7 days a week to get this fixed and back open and we will endeavour to improve on this timescale. A further update will be provided by Friday 23 April.

If you go on the surecal website it gives recommended size for an expansion vessel, from memory 55l litre calorifier is at the upper limit for a 5l EV and lower limit for 8litre EV so you are looking for something in the range of 10-15% of the calorifier volume. The EV needs to be bigger than the water expansion as the air behind the diaphragm will compress.

Have a read of this thread on the basics of battery charging. Battery charging primer Your regime for cruising where you struggle after a few weeks is a sign that you are under charging your batteries and this is the main reason for killing batteries, if you operate like this continuously your batteries will not last very long. They need to get a good recharge at least once per week.

Yes, different pressures, the accumulator on the pump has a set pressures at the pump start pressure so this fills and empties over the pump operating pressure range. The EV on the calorifier is set to the pump stop pressure or very slightly above so it does not fill during the pump operating cycle, it only starts to fill once the calorifier is heated and the water expands. The pressure still increases when the water heats up but much less than without the EV.

Ceramic bowl Thetford C263 worked well for us, but only got 2 years experience before ee sold the boat, so can not comment on longevity.

I had a boat with a Barrus Shire 40hp from 2002 which was a 2000cc engine. I bought it in 2006 and sold it last year. It was a good engine, always ran well, started well, serviced annually and never required any major work on it. The only issue was the 70Amp alternator did not have a large enough engine pulley so only produced 45Amp, we got a bigger engine pulley and larger alternator, there are several people selling upgrades for these older Shire engines. The one thing to beware of is they can smoke a bit at idle which clears under load, I think this is to do with the injection design, so check this rather than immediately thinking the engine is worn if you see it at tickover.

That is because in bold headlines in Alan's quote it states Passage booking on the Bridgewater Canal goes live on 29 March

That is because the article in the Boaters Update stated that from the 29th March, the booking system would be live, try again Monday.

I think the official position is that you need to buy a short term Bridgewater license for the return trip if within 28 days. We will be in this position as we planned on going from T&M to Liverpool docks and back later in the year. Extract from the Bridgewater licensing page, but not up to date with the revised agreement. C&RT craft wishing to extend beyond the 7 day reciprocal arrangement period must obtain a temporary short term Bridgewater Canal Licence at a cost of £40 for 7 consecutive days. If you wish to obtain a temporary short term Bridgewater Canal licence please contact the Bridgewater Canal Company on telephone 0161 629 8266. When contacting the company, we will require the following information: Boat Index NumberBoat NameYour name and addressInsurance detailsBSS detailsDate you wish the licence to commenceDebit card details

For access to Chester you will need to get passed the lock 10/11 breach which is not expected to be open until summer. See the stoppage notice at the link below, the summer date is mentioned in one of the older updates. Lock 10/11 breach

An engine like the Beta 43 in its currently supplied spec has a 175Amp alternator, it could get the batteries up to 14.4V in less than one hour while putting well over 100amps back into the batteries, the batteries are not charged at this point, the alternator will keep the voltage at around 14.6-14.6V for several more hours as the amps slowly reduce from over 100 to in your case 14Amps (ideally 7Amps) at which point the batteries are charged.

We changed our aged cassette toilet for a new Thetford C263-CS cassette with ceramic bowl, easier to keep looking good than the plastic one, but still only 15 or 17 litre capacity and still on a plastic base. Just a thought.

2 of us on the boat, usually 2 days to fill a cassette, 1 spare cassette, very leisurely trip over the Rochdale from Todmorden to Littleborough came close to the limit once when we had to wait an extra day at the summit due to a lock problem.

I worked at a canal side chemical works on the BCN many years ago. We decided to build a new production building, the first in decades. When the trenches were dug for the foundations we had ground creosote not ground water, a legacy of tar distillation going back to the 1800s. I know of the phosphorous in the canal, not the place I worked.

I suggest you get familiar with the CRT stoppages web page, put in the canals you are interested in and it will list the stoppages. This will allow you to see if the Calder and Hebble is open or not. https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices This page also has a link to sign up for updates, you can choose waterways of interest and when a new stoppage occurs or is fixed, it normally gets emailed to you so you know ahead of arriving at it, or perhaps changing route.

Checking my new boat I found that the bank of 6 had the main cables connected to batteries 1 and 6. I did the calcs and theoretically, connecting to batteries 2 and 5 is the best as matty40s says, but when I checked the size of the interconnects I decided to leave them as they are.

At least when it comes to refilling it, there should be a good flow on the River Aire to run down from Ferrybridge. But it will still take a fair amount of time.

There is the huge reservoir north of the junction with the New Junction Canal that is only separated by a few rocks that will add appreciably to the total volume.