Col_T

Or, to put it another way, more money than sense. 🙂

With apologies for splitting hairs, that doesn't seem right. There will be a band of people with greater than average intelligence, another band of people who are of average intelligence and a third band of people who will be below average intelligence. It would seem, then, that less than 50% will be below average intelligence.

Other marinas on the K & A that are close to railway stations: Greenham Lock Marina, Newbury Marina and Newbury Boat Company - all within about about a mile of Newbury station. Bradford on Avon Marina (Sally Boats) is about a mile from Bradford on Avon station.

@cheesegas UPS stuff - that's interesting and not something I knew, so thanks for that. I don't quite get you're saying here. If I go down the two inverter road, I'd be thinking of connecting both inverters to the 12v battery bank, and having the Sterling power the existing 240v circuit, and getting a small the laptop specific inverter, with a built-in three pin output, which would not be connected to the existing 240v circuit at all.

As usual, I forgot to include a piece of 'useful' information, specifically that the transformer for the laptop outputs 19vDC, 3.42A, 65.0W. I'll have a look for the 12v => 19v adapter that @Alan de Enfield mentions. On the subject of an inverter specifically for the laptop, are there any issues with having two inverters connected to the same battery bank - the Sterling and a small pure sine wave one for the laptop?

Frouds Bridge Marina, on the K & A, just about fits within the distance limit as it's about a mile from Aldermaston station.

So the boat has a Sterling modified sine wave inverter, which worked for everything 240v until I got a new laptop (an Acer Swift thingie). The Acer doesn't charge from the boat 240v electrics, but does charge from the national grid 240v electrics, unsurprisingly. Is there a gadget of some kind that can take a modified sine voltage and convert it into a pure sine wave? I suspect the answer is 'no', and my options are replace the Sterling or just not take the laptop onto the boat, which would be a shame as we intended to use it as a DVD player.

Thanks for the input, folks. Maybe I'll try a headlamp, worn back to front, at the next tunnel. We're bound to come to one eventually!

Went through Blisworth Tunnel yesterday, and only realised there was a, much slower, boat in front when we nearly rammed him whilst crossing with a boat coming in the opposite direction. His boat had no rearward facing light, and neither does ours. So, should boats have rear facing tunnel lights and, if so, what colour - red or white?

Thanks @Tony Brooks - those look like the chaps.

Can someone tell what type of clip (circlip?) keeps an Ultraflex C8 cable connected to the back of an Ultraflex Controller, please? I've done a quick trawl of the web, but all I come up with is complete cables, whereas what I need are the retaining clips.

Or:- have much greater battery capacity than they actually need; cruise long enough everyday to replace their overnight usage; have sufficient solar to keep their batteries topped-up over winter; don't insist on fripperies like coffee makers, electric kettles, etc, etc. FWIW - our boat has 300-ish watts of solar, has mainly LED lighting, has no electrical fripperies, we cruise 200-ish (engine) hours a year, and came with 5 x 110Ah sealed batteries when we bought in July 2015. No, I have no idea why that much battery was fitted!

Imagine the situation where you are single-handing a wide lock. Will your system try and keep the boat away from the nearest wall or away from both walls a similar amount? If the latter, the boat may well end up in the middle of the lock - you'll need your bow and stern lines to the lockside to overcome that. Imagaine another situation, where you are sharing a lock with a much shorter boat. How many distance sensors will you have fitted, where will they be located along the length of the boat, how will your system cope with different distance readings from the sensors along one side of the boat???? Stick with ropes - its easier!

Many thanks, Tony. Much as I expected, though nice to hear from someone that understands these things!

With apologies for hijacking the thread, what are the symptoms of a diesel running with inadequate air supply? My boat, trad stern, has a Beta 1505 and the engine bay has no obvious air intakes, though there are gaps around the edges of the flooring over the top of the engine / around the alternator. At tickover and upto about 1500, 1600 rpm it sounds fine, anything much above that, 1800-ish, a kind if 'tinkling' noise can be heard. I know petrol engines experience 'pinking', and that is ignition related, though I don't actually understand what it is, and wonder whether diesels suffer anything similar?