Col_T

Thanks for this, Tony. Exactly the thing I was hoping for.

For CRT rivers, I can get notifications of closure due to strong currents / high flow levels. Is there such a site for EA controlled rivers? Particularly interested in the Thames.

Indeed, it is closed now.

How would you ever know ??

Curious as to why anyone would want to buy a sail away located in Shepperton and then take it to the L & L - surely better to buy more locally in the first place?

I don't know about "well chuffing dull" - any thread that gives "zygote" an airing must have some value, even if only for using such a great Scrabble word🙂

Very many thanks for a fine body of answers, and I think I even understand most them! However . . . . Am I right that the alternator never completely stops outputting, even when the battery has decided it's had enough, it just drops the output to a float charge voltage. Sometimes that just ain't enough and a soul wants to know why they do. I didn't think you were a doctor?!!!

I have an imperfect understanding of 12v electrical generation, so some questions to try and improve that a little. Alternator output - this is typically rated in Amps e.g. our boat has two alternators, a 70A for the domestics and lower rated one for the engine start battery. I know that the battery bank limits the amount of charge, in Amps, that it will accept during charging but what determines the maximum output of the alternator - is this defined by the design, or 'imposed' by internal circuitry? Just a high-level answer will be fine; I wouldn't understand anything detailed! Regulator - I think this is that part of the alternator that controls the actual voltage output, preventing the alternator from exceeding a 'designed in' maximum voltage, but does it also sense when the battery has decided enough is enough, and if so, how? Alternator output (2) - our boat spends most of it's time connected to a land-line with the battery charger keeping the batteries topped-up, so what does the alternator 'do' when we go cruising and pretty much the first thing the alternator sees are fully charged domestics? Yes, I know it stops generating electricity but, if I understand it correctly, the actual generation is the product of a mechanical operation - copper windings spinning is a magnetic field produce the electricity, so where does the electricity 'go' if the batteries are fully charged? Or are is the magnetic field electrically generated? All answers gratefully received, especially those that don't get too technical !!

A few possibilities:- hotter summers increasing evaporation; warmer, wetter winters reducing snow-fall, and therefore snow-melt; water management - extraction for agriculture, industry, human consumption, etc; someone left a paddle up! BTW - I have no expertise in this area, but the above seem likely candidates, except for the last one, of course.

Two milling machines?? Is that greedy, showing off, or the modern equivalent of a two car family. FWIW - I make do with just the one milling machine

Thanks for the responses chaps, and for answering all my questions, including the one I hadn't asked e.g. where would the probe be sited - between, or against, the batteries!

We have recently had 300w of solar panels installed, with a Tracer 3215BN solar charge controller and MT50 remote meter. I can get a battery temperature monitoring probe as an optional extra for the 3215BN which raises a couple of questions:- Is it worth getting the temperature probe? Whereabouts on the battery pack would it be located if I did get one? Without the probe the 3215 assumes the batteries are at 25C and bases it's charging on that. If I understand correctly, the 3215 will try to increase the amps delivered to charge the batteries, if there is enough sun-light to support this, so possibly not hugely relevant during a typical British winter?

Which leads me to a question about the best way to leave a boat over winter. With electric heaters and a de-humidifier, presumably you leave windows closed - but what about the rest of the ventilation. Is that all blocked up, to prevent the warmth from the heaters escaping - would that increase condensation? If the normal ventilation is not blocked up, then surely the warmth from the heaters will get ventilated out of the boat? All education gratefully received.

And as MtB has mentioned the K & A, are there any stretches of Armco?

I have heard it said, on this very forum, that surface charge is just part of the charge in the battery - it may be used more quickly than charge that has to come from deep within the cells, but it's charge none the less. So, two things:- is this actually correct - can't think why it shouldn't be, but I have a lot to learn; if this is correct, all that will happen is that Smartgauge SoC will fall rapidly while the surface charge is 'burned off'?