jetzi

Wouldn't a twin walled flue increase the temperature of the exhaust gases, rather than the temperature of the stove? My guess is that the same amount of smoke/exhaust MUST be produced, but said gases would cool slower as they are in contact with a hotter inner skin that radiates less heat to the outer skin than a single walled flue would radiate to the air. Slower cooling gases would rise faster and draw more heat out of the top of the chimney - so therefore losing more heat to the outside. The other safety advantage I see here is that a better drawing flue would suck the toxic gas out faster past any possible cracks and leaks than otherwise, maybe the double skin is more about this than about potentially burning oneself on the flue? Or are you saying that in order to maintain the same cabin temperature you'd have to fire the stove hotter than otherwise would be necessary? That makes complete sense if so because it's a bit silly to say "a colder overall stove/flue combination is safer than a warmer one".

If you want to make the flue safe to touch an alternative to a double skin could be to lag it. But I agree with Alan that it's a bad idea - you want that heat in your boat not out the chimney, and besides, the stove is the main source of burns, not the flue. I just re-reinstalled my stove last week as it wasn't bolted to the hearth. I'm not sure where/whether bolting it down is regulated, but it's a really good idea - boating bumps had caused the stove to shift slightly and crack the fire cement around the flue. It wasn't leaking, but it still made me a bit uncomfortable. The title mentions a twin wall chimney which is a good idea unless you like scrubbing muck off the side of your boat - the twin wall in this case is for rainwatater. If it runs down the inside of your chimney and on the outside of the collar, then it will carry soot and muck out onto your roof and down the side of the boat - the aim is to keep the water on the inside of the flue, so make sure it's sealed well at the top so that water running down the inside of the chimney ends up in the flue.

Way ahead of you

I checked on the map. The Llangollen enters Wales at (52.9139, -2.7727) just after the Prees arm for 2 miles passing through Bettisfield village in Wales, then re-entering England again at (52.9089, -2.8124). It goes another 14 miles in England passing through Ellesmere in Shropshire before crossing the Chirk aqueduct into Wales at (52.9281, -3.06212) That should mean that provided Shropshire stays in Tier 2 we should be allowed to cruise up to just before Chirk, if everyone is willing to overlook the village of Bettisfield (we wouldn't stop there)? Also checked on the CaRT website for stoppages, and the Llangollen is totally clear until the the 8th Feb when they are closing the Chirk tunnel and Ponty aqueduct. So apart from that 2 miles I can't see any reason Covid or otherwise why we can't cruise the Llangollen up to Chirk?

Can anyone tell me what the points (e.g. bridges/locks) are where the border crosses the canal? Otherwise I can sit down with OpenStreetMap and see if can figure it out. Thanks for this. We passed a boater yesterday who mentioned there was a barrier across the canal at Ellesmere. We are a long way from Ellesmere but would like to adjust our speed such that we don't get caught in any closures of course the tiers and rules change so fast that it is virtually impossible to plan around, so probably best just to take it as it comes. Just if there is a long term barrier would be good to know about.

Very useful topic given the tier rules but I'm still not exactly sure where the boundaries are and where the canal crosses the border. According to the gov.uk and wales.gov websites, Shropshire and Cheshire are both Tier 2 for covid right now, and Wales is Level 4 (which I think is the same as England tier 4). In Tier 2 I believe we are allowed to cruise maintaining social distancing of course. While in tier 4 you may not. I have found the guidance very complicated and sometimes contradictory, so we haven't paid too much attention because we have been isolating the entire year and only move for services anyway. I don't want to break any rules either though and the border with Wales makes things a bit more serious. You aren't allowed to move from one tier to another either so does that mean that boats in the Llangollen canal loops (that leave Wales for England and go back again) are stranded? Really clear guidance like "you cannot pass bridge 14 even for services" would be useful. I have heard that there is a physical barrier across the canal at Ellesmere. Can anyone confirm that? Will it be removed when Wales moves down to a lower tier? P.S. merry Christmas!

My intention was only to find out the correct way to pass anglers. We all have to share limited space, cyclists, walkers, anglers, and boaters (with diverse cruising/mooring patterns). Some of us are more than one of the above. All of us are here by the grace of the British taxpayer and none have the ultimate right to the space so best we live and let live and try to be accommodating. Not sure if that is virtue signalling but I reckon if we all try to get along we will all be happier for it.

Hypocrites. Definitely boats and boaters can cause harm to wildlife but it's usually an unfortunate side effect. The actual goal of an angler is to harm fish. Anyone who doesn't agree that angling harms fish should be pulled underwater by a hook through their lip and held there for five minutes while their photo is taken and height measured before being tossed back onto land. Trapping animals for food is one thing, but doing it just for the pleasure of sitting around outside for long periods, with occasional cruelty, is something I have never understood. If you are an angler, best shut up about the wellbeing of fish lest you draw attention to the plank in your own eye.

I did also read this thread: And I was still unsure. I think that the fact that I commented on a 6 year old thread should show that I tried to find the information before asking! Yes, I did indeed think that the fan blows rather than sucks! Thanks for the clarification - that helps a lot. I'm surprised though, sucking seems like an altogether less efficient way of moving air, but I must be wrong about that! So, the "buckets" move "backwards" (i.e. convex end first). That makes me understand a lot better - so clockwise rotation (facing the pulley end) is correct for a fan like these: I'm sorry that it took so long to hammer into my skull but I do appreciate your patience and I think what some might not fully appreciate is that it's not always clear to a novice things like which is the "front" and which is the "back" of an alternator. Similarly which is the left and right of an engine? If you are looking at the "front" then the "left" of the engine is actually the "right" of the boat. And yes, I assumed that fans blow rather than suck. This seems eminently sensible, thank you Nick! Happily the cheap one that I want to buy has a handed fan and I'm planning on blowing some extra ducted air at it as well for good measure - glad I now know to blow it at the coils rather than the fan! To be honest I give this alternator a 50/50 chance of surviving my meddling so I just really wanted to not spend too much money. --- So for the benefit of any future searchers, what I've learned is: * Clockwise rotation is usual for alternators (I suppose that if you have an engine that rotates anticlockwise you must buy a bi-directional fan?) * Handedness of an alternator refers to the side that the mounting points are on. Left hand means that the alternator mounts on the left side of the engine if you are facing the pulley end (this is probably the right (starboard) side of the boat). * Both left hand and right hand alternators will usually have clockwise-rotating fans * Fans suck, not blow, air through the alternator and, with centrifugal type fans, you want the concave side to be the trailing side to the direction of rotation.

And a left handed alternator will have a fan that spins clockwise? The alternator I'm looking at comes in a right hand or a left hand version, and I'm keen on that one because it's really cheap and I will be doing bad things to it. I'm tempted to just buy the left hand and hope for the best... can return it if it is wrong.

Gosh I still can't say I understand. I do understand now that the handedness refers to the mounting bracket rather than the direction of spin - but do both handed alternator fans spin the same way? That seems like it would be a problem for someone somewhere along the line. The link I sent has an external fan that clearly needs to spin the correct way (because the fins are shaped like little buckets...). It looks from the picture that both the right hand version and the left hand version need to spin anticlockwise to drive the fan. I assumed they'd lazily re-used the pictures for one handedness for both (but obviously I don't know which one). I also can't picture any way I could turn the fan around, so I do think I need to get the right one. But if the handedness doesn't refer to the direction of rotation, then how do I know if either of these will spin the right way? I'm not so concerned about the mounting of it, at the moment my alternator has a spacer and a clearly DIY bracket made out of flat steel bar, so I am not expecting it to fit perfectly. The alternator I have is not original and I have no idea what it is, nor has anyone been able to identify from the pictures, otherwise I would have just considered buying another of the same! I'm planning on trying to modify the regulator to charge my lithium batteries and there's a high probability that I mess it up, so I don't really want to buy a "real" Beta alternator for 3 times the price. That said, charging lithium batteries can get the alternator really really hot so it's important that the fan is doing its job! Here is another diagram showing the mounting brackets. The alternator has two - one at the bottom that pivots and one at the top that is just a slotted bar. I don't have the fancy threaded rod that @Alan de Enfield shows in his pictures

Pardon the revival of an old thread but after reading this through three times I'm still not sure whether my alternator is right handed or left handed and I think it would be helpful for anyone doing a future search! My alternator is mounted on the starboard side. The pulley rotates clockwise, if you are facing the end with the pulley on it (same as the engine). Here's a diagram, facing astern. I asked Beta and they just gave me part numbers: Starter 600-02781 40A £159 Domestic 200-99970 14V 70A £133 Bando SPZ950 Belt 600-94280/01 £22.50 A40 Domestic Belt 214-99222 £12.50 However I plan to buy a cheap 75A alternator from eBay (50 GBP including free postage) because it's a spare that I'm doing some experimentation on. I know that @Sir Nibble is the alternator expert - I wonder if he could give the definitive answer!

I've bought the bits (Raspberry Pi 2 and 3x hellishly expensive VE Direct to USB cables) to set up a Pi Venus system to monitor my Victron equipment. I do want to monitor the individual cells as well, and my plan up to now is to use my Arduino and some cloud function to aggregate all the data into one place. However to avoid having to run both the pi and the Arduino, and also because I feel much more confident with a pi than an arduino, I'm thinking of connecting 4 voltage meters to the pi as well to monitor the cells. Here's one article that shows how to connect analogue voltage meters to the pi. I still have to look into whether or not the pi will be able to run both the Venus stuff and a job that would log the other voltages (every second or whatever). @Dr Bob I know that you are running the venus software on a pi, I wondered if you know off hand whether it would be feasible to use the pi for monitoring additional things simultaneously?

LiFePO4 doesn't mind partial charging. In fact you would do better to not fully charge. None of us fully charge our batteries, except briefly getting to 100% to top balance - and then immediately discharging them. The important things are to not overcharge, not overdischarge, and not charge batteries near freezing. The different lithium technologies are very different so you can't really extrapolate from mobile phone batteries which don't use LiFePO4. But I note that the article you linked also mentions that the "memory effect" or recommendation to fully charge is no longer relevant to modern mobile phone batteries.

Thank you, that makes sense! I'd be curious to know which are replicas, I find it strange that so many grooves would get created, I would have thought that the rope would slide into the deepest groove and stay there. Ah it didn't take me long into boating to figure that out. I've in fact used a split more than once when carrying a rope up into a lock! I've seen a horse tunnel at Cosgrove, and a few turnover bridges. I've not noticed rollers before but I'll keep an eye out! Thanks for the pictures, Very nice.

How about these? On the towpath side of every bridge, full of strange grooves?

Tosh why exactly? Because you think I won't bother to dip them when a boat comes past? I really dislike being moaned at while out enjoying my boat so I am hyper sensitive to that kind of thing. I can't see well enough when I'm boating at night and therefore I think an upgraded headlight is prudent. Is that really such a novel solution - I'm open to hear of a better one. Despite what it may seem I do really take the advice I get here to heart, so if there is a better solution I really am open to it. Yes my alternator is inadequate. Improving its output is a work in progress. But I monitor my energy usage very carefully (both Ah consumed via my BMV, and the voltage of my cells) so I know for a fact that my charging regime is 100% adequate for the time being; I only need to upgrade so I can be more relaxed with my energy usage. We've had this conversation before and you did successfully convince me to abandon my ignorant novel plan so I'm not sure why you say I don't want to hear your view, on the contrary I know I'm an idiot and I take the advice of the seasoned boaters such as yourself very seriously. I'm sorry if that comes off as sarcastic - it really isn't - asking stupid questions is more often than not a sign of a genuinely ignorant person trying to learn. So, what is the correct, orthodox solution to night time visibility if the boat's headlight is not sufficient?

Yep, there are very rarely other boats coming the other way, so it's mostly a moot point. Let me try again, because there seems to be a misunderstanding what I'm thinking of doing. Installing a bright LED headlight (doesn't need to be "like the sun" bright, but bright enough to see where I'm going clearly at new moon). Installing navigation lights - red and green on the sides of the boat. Keep the current halogen tunnel light. Both head lights are switched from the steerer's position. Normally when traveling through tunnels or in the dark, bright LEDs are on. When meeting an oncoming boat, halogen tunnel light and navigation lights are on. I expected a healthy dose of outrage at the proposal. In fact I've grown to rather enjoy the outrage at trivial things on this forum - from passing moored boats at one click higher than tickover, to not cruising far or fast enough, to running your engine even before 8pm, to cycling on the towpath, to daring to moor in London, to suggesting that boaters should pay more to maintain the canals, to using LED bulbs outside of your cabin... the list is endless really. But let's at least be outraged at what I'm actually suggesting. Surely there are enough people who think cruising at night is a cardinal sin no matter what light we're doing it by?

Perhaps a good solution would be lights mounted low in the bows and shining at low angles - perhaps in the gas locker shining out the scuppers - that illuminated the banks without blinding oncoming boats.

It is a long story, head over to the lithium battery thread if you want details! Short version - it is a work in progress - until last month solar kept them full, and I'm hoping that will be the case again come March. The alternator can put out 70A+ but I don't allow that to happen because of overheat. I have recently created a way to "fast charge" the battery at about 50A but I won't do that while cruising because it is too difficult to monitor the temperature of the alternator the way it is currently set up. As I say, work in progress. We only use around 40-50Ah a day at the moment as we're trying to be careful. At the moment I run the engine 30mins a day on average, which is a bit less than I need to replenish what we use, but cruising and a bit of winter solar tops up the rest. Hence why every amp counts for me.

Of course I do, that doesn't make the power free. Better it went into my 640Ah battery. My alternator provides around 20 to 25A while cruising so a 5A draw isn't negligible. You must have missed the bit where I clearly stated I would not use them when there are oncoming boats. If you take that into account the rest of your post may need revising? I know that figuring out direction is what navigation lights are meant to be for, but knowing where the edges are of a boat you are passing is in my view a very useful thing when trying to avoid a collision on the canals. It isn't my experience. My dim tunnel light is not really adequate as a headlight. The aim is a good point though, that could help without upgrading the light. Will try that.

I've seen some marinas with lock gates even though they were are the same water level. I've also seen (including here on the shroppie) some single lock gates (often in a state of disrepair) which I assume are for the same purpose as the stop planks.

The answer is clearly: No, it is not necessary. One can use any kind of lighting technology for a tunnel light. I was amused at the choice of location of this thread - perhaps we need a new subforum, Rhetorically Asked Questions? I have a halogen tunnel light, and with all my cabin lights on it's just about adequate in tunnels. However it draws quite a current to achieve "just about adequate". I don't go through enough tunnels for it to be a concern, but I think what may be lost on some of the posters here is that for some boaters a tunnel light doubles as a headlight in the dark... I know night cruising is a bit of a controversial issue. As a liveaboard continuous cruiser with a remote day job, I do sometimes need - or heck, I'll admit it, WANT - to boat at or after sunset. I have been moaned at twice for it, which - carefully crawling past at tickover, at 6pm, with my hospital silencer meaning there is very little noise - I think is most uncalled-for. Thing is my halogen tunnel light is definitely inadequate as a headlight and I'm looking at purchasing some bright LEDs that will be better for night cruising. For energy efficiency and longevity reasons I'd not consider any other technology for lighting, but I think perhaps I should keep my headlight as the "dipped" version so when passing boats I can extinguish the LEDs. I was also thinking of adding navigation lights just to make it easier for other night cruisers to see what we were doing. I gather that the COLREGs are pretty complex but I have seen plenty of narrowboats with a red and green light stuck on the side of the boat which must make it much easier to judge width when passing (I realise that this is not what the are for, but on the canals this is perhaps more important than being able to judge how they are manoeuvering. In a tunnel I think blocking the white stern light is probably a practical if not strictly correct thing to do. I really am trying to be sensitive to other waterway users (yes even cyclists) and so I would love some recommendations for bright LED headlights (either dippable or switchable to halogen) and basic navigation lights.

I'd say the coal vs wood thing is a red herring. Somehow, somewhere combusted gases are escaping your stove into the cabin. If this was my stove I would stop using it IMMEDIATELY. CO is extremely dangerous and I can tell a story about a relative semi paralysed by it dragging his unconscious family outside (they fortunately survived) if that will encourage you. Once I had stopped using ANY fuel in the stove the next thing I'd do is work out where the leaks are emanating. I keep smoke bombs for this purpose (available from chandleries). Any one of the rope seals could be the issue - the fact that smoke escapes the door suggests that that's the problem - I'd have replaced these on the strength of your newspaper test! Depending on the stove there might be seals in the actual body of the stove. It is expensive but necessary to recondition your stove and replace all of these seals eventually. I personally would blank off the mushroom vent that is near the chimney. Another possibly cheap/easy fix to improve the draw and get the exhaust further from the cabin is a longer chimney. I'm not as experienced as the other posters who have replied and perhaps I'm more paranoid than they are, but I would not mess about with a stove. Test for leaks, replace all the ropes, block off any ventilation near the chimney, use a longer chimney, and yes clean the flue out regularly.

I decided to stick with blacking mainly because it is cheaper at least in the short term. I am rather happy to have the boat out of water every couple of years anyway to see what the condition is. I'd feel quite uneasy every time I experienced an underwater bump or scrape if I knew that it would be up to 10 years before I could see whether it damaged the epoxy/blacking. I don't know if that's paranoid but I have nightmares about a hole developing and the boat sinking!