PeterF

I had to tow a cruiser out of the shallow offside of Billinge Green Flash on the northern Trent & Mersey in October. When I pulled over to him to get the line across, he said "I saw this wide bit so I got my phone out to read an email".

Turn the lpg off at the bottles and if there is any chance of them moving and tugging on the hose tails restrain them or disconnect them.

It could also be leaking non return valve on either the pump suction or discharge if it has these fitted, they are often just rubber flap or nozzle types that can split, perish or have a bit of crud in.

No, I am afraid that the "calories" that you use for food measure are in actual fact Kilo-calories so you would have to run the thingy for an extra 30,000 minutes or 21 days. This goes to show that if you could invent the sausage roll powered narrowboat then you would be well in and Greg's share price would rocket.

Sorry no, 4.186W raises 1 cc of water through 1 degC in 1 sec. The specific heat capacity of water is 4,186 Joules per kg per degC, so 4.186 Joules per cc per degC. I believe that you are confusing it with calories, the specific heat capacity is 1 calorie per cc per degC.

I just noticed they only do P type, some external regulators can be bought in both flavours, my alternator is P type. I have the 614 regulator, faff to program but very flexible. You could argue that it may not need the BMV to dhut it down as it has a proper float setting, so use that to limit the charge and then use the BMV as overcharge protection isolating ignition to the Balmar.

I do not know the answer to that. What I do know is with Balmar regulator you could set the voltage down to 13.9V and set a float at 13.2. You would need to disable the voltage regulator in the alternator to go that low. The Balmar regulator also monitors the alternator temperature and reduces field (and hence charge) current if it gets too hot. You can also limit the maximum field current to effectively derate the alternator output. You can install a relay on the ignition line to the Balmar regulator driven by the BMV to turn the alternator field current off when the BMV requests rather than needing a dump battery. However, this is getting well away from the cheap BMS idea, but if I was specifying a full Victron type system, this is how I would handle the alternator, rather than using an LA dump battery.

See on line press report. Link. Does not look completed in this photo.

I spoke to a narrowboater who had just had a new boat built and he had bought a set of magnetic navigation lights to save a bit of money. No idea of the details, just a nugget of info I stored away.

Weighed 4 x 110Ah leisure and 1 x starter battery in earlier in the year, about 135kg, got 50p/kg = £67.50

You will need many more charging points than water points, we can go up to 10 days between water, but normally do 7, and I expect that daily water refills of half an hour are not common.

I checked mine by removing it from the pipework (I have a valve to isolate the sensor) and then connected some clear plastic hose I had lying around to the sensor, then I could add water with a kitchen jug and test it and recalibrate it by filling the hose to the same height as the water tank. I had to wind some insulating tape around the hose to get the outside diameter to match the pipe. Washed it out with clean water afterwards and refitted.

Lead carbon batteries that we are talking about are AGM batteries with the negative plates tweaked by using a lead carbon "alloy". These are the Leoch, Northstar and Victron types. Trojan are now marketing a lead carbon flooded deep cycle battery for solar and off grid for PSOC applications. Therefore, in my view, these are not new chemistries, or all new types, but just incremental changes to normal batteries. One thing that is perhaps making people cautious is the history of the Elecsol carbon batteries which failed to meet their promises. These had something to do with carbon fibre, I can not recall their details, but I believe the lead carbon is totally different.

The scientific papers that I have briefly looked at state that the addition of carbon affects the surface of the negative electrode at the microscopic level which promotes the formation of smaller lead sulphate crystals during discharge and the smaller the crystals, the easier they are to convert back to lead during charging. By reducing the build up of large lead sulphate crystals, which are the ones which are harder to reconvert to lead, irreversible sulphation is reduced. The reaction remains the same, the carbon appears to create a physical disruption to the surface which affects the crystal nucleation and growth which shows it is not all about the reaction only.

Or for an end of jetty mooring so you have an open view on one side of the boat.

If it is a CRT long term mooring that was auctioned then you can get people paying different rates for identical moorings depending on how much competition there was at each auction and how much people were willing to pay. The winning bids were sometimes a lot higher than people who were at the mooring prior to the auction system were paying.

Went up Big Lock on Wednesday, as we pulled up a boat was entering the full lock. The offside gate drifted open as it can do. The helmsman stayed in the boat on the nearside whilst his mate with the windlass used the bottom gates to get to the offside. Whatvwas unusual was that he did not walk over the balance beam, but climbed down a bit so his feet were on the horizontal timber below the balance beam and kept his hands on the balance beam for support.

??????? 1st post says boat on the Middlewich arm so when going down to the boat to fit panels collect them from somewhere very local.

Aqueduct marina chandlery now supply Victron panels as far as I recall.

I thought that 360 to 375W solar panels are about 1m x 2m so you will need 8m total length. Suggest you check this because if you are limited to 6.6m then you may have an issue with one of your base assumptions. However, if you have found some panels with a much higher yield per square meter let me know. The recently publicised Mothership Marine 57ft Narrowboat "Shine" was almost completely covered in solar panels and that was 1.8kW.

We are having a new boat built next year and our fitter uses DIY kitchens. I agree with Richard, we went to the showroom and spent several hours mooching around, got help and answers to questions but never any hard sell. They have a huge range of cabinet widths so you can make up runs of cabinets to almost any distance in 50mm steps. They also have some nice end of run curved and angled units. Nearly all their door ranges have a varnished option as well as lots of painted options.

Hurlseton bottom lock is planned to be rebuilt to the correct width this winter, will be closed from 4th November to 27th March so 7ft boats should be OK after spring 2020. There may of course be other pinch points, but this worst one should be gone.

The Hybrid marine system (standard engine with parallel electric motor) has a remote control option for engaging the electric motor in forward or reverse. I believe it inputs directly into the motor controller which avoids the need for mechanical control of the throttle lever. The downside is the £15k or so extra cost for a hybrid.

I have my absorption voltage set at 14.2V, which is at the lower end of the 14.2 - 14.6V range. I normally use around 30-35% of the 400Ah capacity and on starting the engine the current goes up to 100A at 14.2V, alternator already being limited by the regulator and after 3 hours I am down to steady tail current levels of 5-8 Amps is then maintained without reducing any more if I am travelling for more than 3 hours. They exhibit a drop off in charge rate towards a tail current as standard LAs do and this period also seems to be faster than LAs. This fits with the claims of about 6 hours for a full charge from 100% DOD at 14.2V with 80A bulk charge for a 400Ah pack. You can get faster recharge by going to 14.4V or 14.6V, but at reduced life, I have not felt any need to set my voltage higher to use the remaining 20A or so my alternator will produce at cruising revs when warm.