tosher
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Posts posted by tosher
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If you buy a boat from this broker, watch out for re-launch charges. The cost last year for a one way lift, just lifting in, for a 57 footer was £280!!!! And that was after buying the boat from him.
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I have a friend who is a fully trained and licienced chain saw operator and he will not cut anything or even start his machine without he is fully kitted up in proper protective clothing. He has witnessed many nasty injuries in his time with these machines. To any novice user he always says --- Remember that the best lubricant for a chain saw is BLOOD! tosher.
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Ours is about an inch wide but only 2-3mm thick and made of some kind of closed cell foam plastic. It's very soft and deforms easily to accommodate the undulations in the weedhatch cover plate. I always check the weedhatch clamp at the same time as I turn the stern greaser to make sure it hasn't loosened during the day. There's sometimes a few drips, but nothing to worry about.
Sounds about like mine, I also smear the joint with a thin film of grease when replacing it and it has never leaked a drop. Strange though that on the occasions I have removed the hatch cover I have had a bit of a struggle to break the seal, neading a couple of screw driver blades to lever it open? tosher
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Yes the best solution would be to pay for a pump out at a marina so as not to subject other boaters to this discusting habit of self pump out!!!
( I do go on don't I)
Is it any more disgusting than carrying a cassette full of s--t to the emptyiny point, removing the large cap and emptying the contents down an open drain with the resultant splashing of the contents in all directions. Not to mention the cleaning out of the cassette with a brush and copious ammounts of water splashing around all over the place. Bin there, done that, got the tee shirt !!!!
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What is the longest USB extension lead that is available and suitable for use with a dongle ??? I'm thinking of sticking mine on a pole to improve reception. Thanks -- tosher
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Hi, Im a little concerned, had my boat over 2 years now and ive never done a gearbox oil change (JP3+PRM260).
Whats peoples thoughts on how often this should be done? I was told leave it but check the oil level and keep it topped up, but surley there comes a point when the oil needs changeing??!!
Thanks Kristian.
When I bought my boat it had 250 hrs on the Izusu 42 & PRM150. 250 hrs is the manufactures recommended service interval and this service was carried out before purchase. After 500 hrs I serviced it myself and the old engine oil looked quite clean but the old gearbox oil was very dirty indeed, much worse than I have experienced before, I suspect the oil was not changed at the 250hr service. I flushed it through and refilled with new and have subsequently changed the oil every 200 hrs and each time the old oil looks as good as the new. So my advice would be to change all oils before the manufacturers recommended intervals not to exceed them.
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Excellent boat handling is rare and in my experience inept boat handlers usually come out with the equally inept remark that "boating is a contact sport" - in my opinion, it isn't; it is a skill that takes time practice and experience to acquire . . .
Very well put Alnwick, couldn't agree more. tosher.
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This subject reminds me of a little ditty used on the sea school training boats and worth remembering ---
Here lies the body of Michael O'Day
Who died maintaing his right of way
He was RIGHT as he sailed along
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong!
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I think you will find that Elsans were designed for cassettes not self pump out. BW do provide pump outs (at a cost) to me the choice is tanks that need pump out and in that case use BW or marina pump outs., or cassettes that use Elsan disposal points.
My point being that every boater that buys a liecence helps to fund the cost of providing toilet emptying facilities. It would appear from the contributions on this thread that many people now have pump out tanks on thier boats so why shouldn't they have equal access to emptying facilities at equal cost. These people are in effect paying for the Elsan points that they can't use in addition to paying to have thier tanks emptied.
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Wow can't think of anything worse than a dirty toilet tank!!!!
Can't undertand the comparison between canal banks being untidy and the discusting mess left by self pumpout when I come to use the elsan that were designed for cassette toilets. I have been told by BW that they are looking at banning these at all Elsans.
Perhaps BW should provide more facilities for self pump out, after all, part of our licience fee is to provide toilet emptying facilities so why sould that be for the exclusive use of cassette users.
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Does anyone have up-to-date limits on boat lengths for winding at the ends of the caldon canal? I've done them both in a 50ft boat, but now have another 7 feet to contend with.
I.e. the winding hole just before Froghall Tunnel and the winding hole at the Leek end, after the Leek Tunnel.
Waterscape boaters guide gives 45ft for the Leek one, which I don't believe, and doesn'r even show the one before the Froghall tunnel.
Many thanks
I turned my 57 ft in the winding hole just before the tunnel a month ago. No problems
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We are first time narrowboat buyers and have just had an offer accepted on a 'perfect' boat for us. (Are we excited!) It has a Bellair Fabrications hull and a Perkins Prima 35hp engine. I'd like to know a little more about the reliability and character of the Perkins and the background of Bellair (who seem to have been building narrowboats and steel cruisers in the mid 1990s). Searching the web doesn't turn up much on either of these and a nice email to Perkins hasn't tempted any response either.
Anyone have any experience of the Perkins or Bellair?
Perkins engines are very common in sea going vessels and coupled to Hurth gearboxes are very reliable and robust units. In 25 years ocean cruising never had one die on me. About eight years ago we replaced a 25 year old Perkins with a new one and at that time the main agent for Perkins in the UK was Sabre Marine although I think they are now owned by Twinnings who also manufacture Volvo and Catapillar marine engines. ---- tosher
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It would be possible with a "normal" charger but not wth that one because of the way it works (long winded explanation avoided). I would speak to Sterling. It seems VERY odd that they now both show low output voltage. I would instantly look elsewhere but I can't think where! Maybe the genny is producing a consistently (seriously) low output voltage under load? I dunno.
And tell Chris W to get back here. I only have Orentas to argue with at the moment and he's rubish at it. Chris is so much better. His arguments have substance
Gibbo
I'll drink to that -- bring back chris-w, really miss his informed contributions to the forum. tosher
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My sailaway is due in couple of weeks and the first job is to install the electrics. I will need a fairly big domestic battery bank and have been looking at the systems which will give me the best performance. The system will be designed to run without shorepower, but I intend to have solar panals and wind grnerator. I will be cruising uch of the tme and so expect the engine to give good charge to the betteries, but there may be occasions when I don't move for a week or two. I have a 2500 watt generator.
From my reading of the adverts, stering systems seem to be a good price and relatively easy to fit, however two hire firms have told me that they have removed sterling gear because they are not reliable enough. Doe anyone have any advce of what I should fit. am competant at house wirng, know somethng about DC systems (nothing lke some members on here to who I bow as gods) and have a tame elecrician on hand for anything beyond my ability. Whose sytem shoulkd I install?
My boat is 18 months old and has a Sterling "Alternator to Battery" charger, a Sterling "Battery to Battery" charger, a Sterling 3KW Pure sine wave combi unit/Inverter and several remote control stations. All worked faultlessly until recently when the charger section of the combi unit would ocasionally trip spuriously when on shore power.I contacted Sterling who asked me to return it to them which I did and they immediately replaced it with a brand new one under warranty. There kit carries a 2 year warranty and is something well worth concidering when buying expensive new equipment. Hope that helps. tosher
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Thanks guys for your advice, looks like we're going to have to dig into this further, everythings only 2 years old & seems to be failing all at once. We're really having some bad luck, even the CH boiler isn't working - packed up 3 months ago now & we can't trust the incompetent tech who still hasn't sorted it after all this time to deal with any other probs. Makes us wonder if it's all related, seems coincidental when different things all go wrong @ same time, weird. Believe it or not right now the only thing working correctly out of the 3 is the battery charger itself, which, if the batteries are failing won't be much use anyway!
Have a word with Stirling, if it's only just 2 years old it may still be under warranty. They replaced mine recently, which developed a fault after 14 months, with no problems at all.
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How much longer are retaillers going to carry on with this ".9p" nonsense.
This time next year will we really be saying: "Wow, only 199.9p a litre, I must buy some before it goes up to £2?"
Edited to say that Turner's at Wheaton Aston doesn't open on Sundays, as far as I recall and last time I passed it was actually more expensive than Norbury Wharf, although it probably depends on who had the last delivery.
Filled up this afternoon at Wheaton Aston and sign outside said 70.9p/l but when it comes to paying they are actually charging 77.3p/l. Still cheaper than most other places except Norbury Junction at 76.9p/l.
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Just had word from a friend in Middlewich of a spate of thefts from boats in that area. It appears that the latest targets are diesel and brass mushroom vents. Watch out!!
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Yes you will be able to use the same address on both Computers, if Plus-Net supports IMAP (the other connection method is POP3) I would use this. Main benefits is that your email is stored on there servers (your email client usually caches it locally for speed), this means if you send/receive/delete an email on one computer, the other computer will see the same emails, in the same folders, etc.
If Plus-Net doesn't have IMAP, you can enable "don't delete emails from server when I download" option in POP3 which is a very messy way of doing it and I don't recommend it. (I would use GMail to download your email from PlusNet, and then use IMAP to connect to GMail).
See the other posts for sending emails.
Thanks for that Robbo, I understand what you say. Afraid some of the previous post went way over my head but thanks to them anyway. tosher
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I have a PC at home & my ISP is Plus-Net. My e-mail address is a Plus-Net address. I have just bought a laptop to use on the boat and my question is ---If I buy a USB Modem (dongle?) from T-Mobile or Vodaphone etc will I be able to use the same e-mail address for both computers? I'm not sure if this is possible but what I would like to happen is that if someone sends me an e-mail it will be received by which ever computer (home PC or boat laptop) is switched on?? Can anyone out there do that ????
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I don't have a workshop manual; I just dismantled the thing. It's quite logical and not at all complicated. Although I didn't take photos at each stage, it might be a good idea to do this. To be honest, it's just a question of undoing the screws and the unit comes apart. There are one or two moments when one has to think a little - like how to release the glowpin - but it's definitely not rocket science.
I saved the couple of litres of fluid that came out of the header tank when I undid the hoses on the water pump, and simply refilled the header tank with the same fluid afterwards. I also dismantled the water pump to check there was no crud in it; there wasn't.
When you fire it up again, there will be quite a bit of white smoke. This is because, inevitably, some fluid spills on to the "asbestos" covering around the Webasto's exhaust, when the water pump connections are undone. The smoke is simply hot anti-freeze evaporating off and disappears within 20-30 minutes. (The "water" in the system is actually a 50/50 mixture of anti-freeze and water. This gives temperature protection, of course, in winter but also facilitates anti-corrosion protection all year round).
Chris
Thanks Chris, will tackle it myself when the time comes. tosher
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I took my Webasto completely to bits today as it is a year old and I felt it would be good to decoke it (if necessary). I am not a liveaboard but the Webasto gets a lot of use.
Surprisingly, although the burner chamber did need the carbon cleaning out, it was nowhere as bad as I had expected. The coking consisted of a light amount of small particles of black/grey, brittle carbon between the heating fins. It came out really easily when prodded with a small screwdriver and was not tenacious at all. The glow plug and flame unit were very clean and only needed the smallest amount of attention. The glow plug itself was virtually pristine.
I put it all back together and it fired up first time with no problem.
I ordered a gasket set (£5) from BK Marine who are the main distributors for Webasto in this country. Whilst on the phone to them, I asked them about the use of red diesel. The main guy (Jason) told me that there is NO problem with using red diesel in Webasto's and that he sells 700 units a year into the marine market; his biggest market. If there were a problem he would be out of business.
He told me that the problem is with the QUALITY of SOME red diesel (he cited boats' selling diesel as an example of sometimes dubious quality). He said that if one buys normal red diesel (not 28sec heating oil disguised as red diesel) from a reputable supplier there should be no problems whatsoever. I have to say that after a year of substantial use, my own Webasto is testament to what he said.
He also said that another issue is that some owners don't have the unit serviced regularly and are then surprised when it breaks down. He assumed they have their domestic (home) boiler serviced regularly so why are they surprised that the Webasto also needs a service. He told me that for non-liveaboards, a service every 2 years in reality should be fine. Again, my unit is a testament to that. For liveaboards, once a year. He also said that, as per the instructions, the Webasto needs a period of cooling each day. It cannot be run 24/7.
Chris
Hi Chris, do you have some kind of workshop manual for doing this service or is it relatively simple and straight forward enough to tackle without one??? Cheers --- tosher
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Thanks for the responses, must admit I have some sympathy with Baldock and WarriorWomen's views. tosher
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Try one of these, http://www.fortressanchors.com/ very light, very expensive, very good. In their tables they recomend only a few feet of chain, makes everything a lot easier. Available from www.jimmygreen.co.uk in the UK.
I've used these on yachts at sea and they would definitely be my first choice if not so expensive. Very light and easy to handle, suberb holding in fact they take so well that sometimes it can be a bit difficult to them out. tosher
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Thanks for the replies. Tried Book Marking and it works fine, the thread is even updated in the book mark section when new posts are added in the forum. tosher
What Broadband ?
in Living Afloat
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