booke23

Ground paddles only. Circled for clarity.

It's in Northern Ireland......part of the United Kingdom.

That still looks very good @Arthur Marshall

Yes, good idea. I've already had a go at my boat as you can see below. On second thoughts, it's not quite as easy as it looks. 🤣

Maybe, but I do wonder if your imaginative installation of the toilet in the first place might have led to you having issues with smells. I'm not being negative about it, just pointing out that manufacturers (especially Thetford, who's products are very well designed) put a lot of effort into testing and development, and modifying a product in a freestyle way may result in these sort of unintended consequences.

I've just fitted one in my boat using the 12v converter method and it's a 2.1mm plug. You could just cut the wire off the mains transformer and wire that to the 12v converter, but that renders your mains transformer useless so I bought this from ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/351319811869?var=620459416696 And this to regulate the voltage I bought this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353335015916 I think you're right....a 5G router and associated antennas are not going to be affordable for a while, and in any case 5G is not really available outside big cities at the moment.

Jackerys use lithium ion batteries rather than the more expensive LiFePO4 chemistry in your Victron lithium. Your Victron battery will last much longer (4 or 5 times more cycles than lithium ion). When you factor the much longer lifespan of the LiFePO4 I suspect they would work out cheaper per Wh than the Jackery.

Irrelevant. The OP's son is considering this for his day van, so it doesn't matter how far he wants to carry it. If we're talking about power for forest picnics, I'd suggest a 20000mah power bank....no 240v but it'll power all your devices and at £30 and around 300g is exactly 1/10 the cost and weight of the Jackery 240.

The cheapest Jackery is £500, as @Tony Brooks says he could fit a lead acid leisure battery, some 12v/USB sockets and a small inverter to his van and still have plenty of change from £500.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess it's one of these Jackerys. They are literally featured in every single vanlife and most narrowboat youtube videos at the moment. If nothing else Jackery have demonstrated the principle of good influencer marketing. I fail to see why anyone would need one when they already have leisure batteries, solar, and an alternator.

I know someone with one of those Ion exchange water softeners in their house. It works very well, but they are a bit pricey, quite large and require frequent topping up with dishwasher salt. Also it is not advised that you drink the water from the softener as it contains a small amount of sodium from the softening process.

Indeed, not a great deal of difference to the stern of a trad narrowboat at all. I suppose the big difference is in the potential performance of this broads cruiser. At 42ft and of lightweight GRP construction with 60hp, at full astern I imagine it would quickly build significant speed on the way to the scene of the collision on the opposite bank, therefore creating a much greater potential to throw someone overboard, whereas a narrowboat would be going much slower in the same scenario.

In this particular boat both throttles must be in neutral to switch the helm position, just as @Naughty Cal and @Alan de Enfield have described. Either the helm switch wasn't activated when they switched helms or it was switched back to the lower helm at some point in the 5 minutes between the upper helm taking over and approaching the mooring. The helm position switch only switches the gear selector valve (hydraulic drive on this boat) and locks the valve in the inactive position. I guess the fact that this boat has hydraulic drive means it has to have a change over valve for helms......in an ideal world you wouldn't have a switch. As I understand it from the report, when they approached the mooring, the upper helm was able to reduce the throttle normally (this always works irrespective of the helm position switch as does the steering), but found the lever wouldn't go into the neutral or astern detent....it was jammed in the ahead position (which is normal if the other helm is selected on the selector switch). In their panic they managed to pull the throttle lever out to the neutral throttle control position, where they were then able to pull the lever rearwards 'astern'. But of course all this did was increase the engine revs with the boat still in ahead gear and accelerate the boat into the moored boat where it stopped suddenly. The upper helm, realising she had lost engine control put the lever back to idle and was about to press the engine stop button when someone pulled the lower helm throttle full astern, which did actually put the boat full astern where it then crashed into the opposite wall which caused the lady to go overboard. It's a sobering read.

It's in Section 4.1, a couple of paragraphs down....here's the quote: "A requirement for hire boat companies operating vessels with multiple helm positions to comply, where possible, with international standards for a positive visual indication of the active helm position and interlocks to prevent inadvertent engine operation from an inactive helm position (3.2.2)"

I don't think a stern rail would make much difference. It doesn't stop people going over the back of cruiser sterns on narrowboats. I think the comment in the report of applying international standards to dual helm positions is probably a more sensible suggestion.

I'm not very familiar with broads cruisers, but it seems to me the design of the rear of the boat in this incident is a man over board waiting to happen, especially with those stairs. It also highlights the potential perils of dual helm positions. The report is a very sad read.

I think on phones and tablets other factors can affect GPS accuracy. For instance on Android (apple might be the same) google use wifi to give a rough instant position while the GPS gets a fix....this initial position isn't very accurate but does refine after a few seconds. I also have a GPS speedometer app and as well as speed, it displays the current positioning accuracy. This is usually about 60ft when it starts and improves down to 6ft once multiple satellites are received. However sometimes it takes a minute before you get to 6ft accuracy, which would affect low speed accuracy initially. The other thing to remember when you are using GPS speed (particularly in a car) is that in some receivers it is only dead accurate when you are travelling straight and level. Going around corners and up/down hills affect accuracy GPS. Some receivers can correct for this and some can't.

There isn't much difference in strength, but vinegar is 95% water whereas you can make a stronger solution with citric acid powder. But more importantly, citric acid is a tribasic acid which means the chemical reaction is faster and limescale disappears faster, whereas acetic acid is a monobasic acid so the chemical reaction is slower.

A very good idea that product. I use food grade powered citric acid....it's much stronger than vinegar and can be bought off amazon in 1kg bags. Just put a teaspoon of it in that receptacle and fill with warm water...stir it a bit and put it on the tap and leave it for an hour or two and it'll be as good as new. You can use the citric acid in kettles, shower heads etc with no ill effects.

This is very true….never engage in unpleasantries with a boat that’s pointing in the same direction as you. You’re bound to encounter them again later!

^^^^^This. They're not nicknamed Webastard and Ebersplutter for nothing. Perhaps the Eberspacher is slightly more reliable, but there isn't much in it.

I don't know why, but this really tickled me! 🤣

Yes I think this could be a possibility. However I’d be surprised if it happens anytime soon, what with long lead times on new vehicles etc. Even if it did happen, before covid camper vans only depreciated very slowly so you’d be unlikely to loose huge amounts of money and boats would likely start depreciating normally too, so it could even be to your benefit.

"Treading water" Really? Not sure how possible that is while holding something heavy. How deep is the GU at that particular location?