Teadaemon

The check for injector pipe condition is there to ensure a certain level of fire resistance. If the pipes are enclosed within the engine itself, then I would suggest that they're going to be sufficiently fire resistant. If you're referring to check 7.7.3, then I'd suggest re-reading it. It applies to hoses on the high pressure side, i.e. between the gas bottle and the regulator. A hose between the regulator and a bulkhead fitting is on the low pressure side and therefore the relevant check is 7.9.1: Are all low pressure LPG hoses accessible for inspection, of the correct material and in good condition? Edited to add: The hose needs to be marked as compliant with BS3212 part 2 or equivalent. If yours isn't then it's going to fail anyway, but it may also be intended for natural gas not LPG, in which case LPG can attack the material from which it's made.

That applies to two particular organic biocides used in certain antifouling paints available in some parts of the world. There are plenty of antifouling paints that are perfectly legal to use in the UK. Personally, my boat has Hempel (formerly Blakes) Broads in red, and after 18 months is still as free of fouling as when it went back into the water (a bit more important for me as mine's a sailing yacht). Whilst there are plenty of GRP boats on canals that don't bother with antifouling, there's nothing to prevent it's use if somebody wants to use it. I know some of the hire yards on the Broads only bother to antifoul a strip around the waterline, where the heaviest fouling occurs.

If you believe that, could you please provide a reference to such a supposed ban? I've never heard of one on CaRT or EA waters, and certainly on the Broads antifouling is perfectly normal.

That's one, possibly more modern definition. In the age of sail, a ship-rigged vessel had at least three masts, all of which carried square sails. Plenty of large vessels with other rigs (Brigantines, Barquentines, Schooners, etc) carried boats, but they weren't ships as the term was understood at the time.

Actually there would have to be two failures - one of whatever it is is producing CO (cooker burner, stove flue, etc), and then the CO alarm. Whilst on a narrowboat I could see it being a good idea to have more than one alarm in different locations, and that a particularly prudent person might have two or different design, much more than that might be going a little far.

You may wish to consider BSS check 5.4.2: Are all outboard and portable combustion engines with integral petrol or LPG tanks stored to ensure that leaking fuel or escaping vapour will not enter the interior of the vessel? Basically, the BSS requirements for storing the bike are the same as for storing a petrol can or gas cylinder.

2013 BSS Checks There's nothing in the above document that would prevent fitting a replacement igniter of a different type to that originally fitted. Edited to add: Providing of course that the flame failure device is still functional. With regard to the flue, I quote from check 8.10.2: "LPG and paraffin fridges in non-petrol-engined boats may be installed without comment, to open-vent into the boat’s interior providing no flue components are added to the appliance’s integral flue stack."

The priciple behind air ionisers is sound and fairly simple - they produce electrically charged particles (normally negatively charged) in the air, which cause airborne particles to stick to each other and to solid surfaces. They don't remove particles from the air as effectively as HEPA filters, and unless you're in the habit of 'hot boxing' in your narrowboat, you may not see any noticeable effect. If you find it difficult to work at a laptop for several hours at a time, might I suggest that regular short breaks where you have a bit of a stretch and don't look at a screen might help more?

To be fair, if the boat's on the water it should have a toll, and they did find one or two boats that hadn't got one. They keep short visit toll stickers on the launches, so if you haven't got one they'll process it there and then. In my experience most of the volunteer rangers are pretty decent people most of the time, I even considered applying to be one the last time they advertised, but decided I couldn't give the amount of time they wanted (at least 14 days a year IIRC, which isn't that unreasonable, considering the amount of training they give their volunteers). All of the full time rangers that I've met have been very competent and thoroughly decent people.

These days on the Broads you'll be lucky to get away without buying a toll. Last August I spent a few days racing on Barton Broad and got picked up and dropped off by dinghy at Barton turf. At about 10am on the Sunday morning my host picked me up in a rubber dinghy with outboard that he'd borrowed off a friend (we were part of a large raft of sailing cruisers and a few motor boats). We'd just got on to the broad itself when we got flagged down by a couple of rangers who wanted to see if we'd got a toll sticker. We couldn't find one on the boat, and they followed us most of the way back to our raft before they spotted it stuck to the cowling of the outboard. They then proceeded to move slowly through all of the boats mudweighting on the broad, checking each one for a valid toll. They were volunteer rangers too, so a lot harder to bribe with beer (since they're already keen enough to be doing the job for free anyway).

All that that section of the Merchant Shipping Act states is that the provisions of the convention don't apply in the circumstances detailed, there is rather a lot of other relevant legislation, not to mention several hundred years worth of case law that may still apply. Definitely enough to keep a lot of lawyers arguing for a very long time.

Salvage applies on all tidal waters and any connected water that's navigable by seagoing vessels. It would potentially apply in this case, providing all of the other necessary requirements have been met.

People will all have their personal preferences as regards petrol or diesel power for boats, and in general most people today would prefer diesel, but it's worth remembering that there are a lot of people with petrol inboard engines in their small GRP cruisers who are perfectly happy with them. If the boat is only going to be used for day trips or maybe overnight stays, then filling up a couple of petrol cans on the way down to the boat is not a big hassle. One thing I would say is that even though it's only an advisory point on the BSS, if I'm surveying a boat with a petrol inboard engine I will always recommend that a spark-sealed bilge blower is fitted, and that it's used religiously. In the past couple of years there have been at least two incidents on the Broads where cruisers with petrol inboard engines have blown up and burned to the waterline due to petrol fumes in the bilge. Fortunately in both cases there were no deaths or life-threatening injuries, but in both cases people on board suffered burns and ended up swimming for safety.

Leaving a GRP boat out of the water for a month or two (or even a year or two) won't reduce the water level in the laminate by any significant amount (it might dry out the antifouling). If you do actually want to treat osmotic blistering, then the whole gelcoat below the waterline needs removing, the laminate needs to be washed repeatedly to remove the hygroscopic chemicals (acetic acid and unreacted styrene, amongst others), and then dried out using heaters before coating with epoxy. Personally, unless there was significant delamination present, I wouldn't bother with any of that, I'd either ignore it (as I have done with the half dozen 50p sized blisters on the bottom of my yacht), or grind out the blisters and do a local repair with thickened epoxy. If there were enough delamination to affect the structural integrity of the boat, I'd probably just scrap it.

I would imagine it does.

In general, the Marina are responsible for keeping their pontoons in a safe condition, which may include repairing any damage, pressure washing them regularly if there is a build up of algae, making sure their is a non-slip surface to walk on, etc. As part of this responsibility they may also have rules for customers to follow to prevent stuff being left on pontoons or other walkways, or other similar hazards developing. Ice is a tricky one - it could be argued that it's impossible to prevent ice forming in suitable conditions (especially as using salt or similar chemicals are likely to pollute the water), and that it's reasonable for people to expect pontoons to be icy in winter and take appropriate precautions.

You definitely have my sympathies, I subluxated (partially dislocated) my left shoulder (I'm left handed) about three years ago, and it's got to be one of the most painful things I've ever done (far worse than when I had half a dozen ribs broken by a bunch of pissed rugby players). I was unwise enough not to bother getting attention for my shoulder, and it was a couple of weeks before I got it back into place, and in consequence it's never fully healed - it stays in place, but clicks a lot and hurts.

1) Get enough business between now and April that I can afford to keep my boat. 2) Find some poor soul willing to let me crew on the BCN Challenge. 3) Do the aforementioned BCN Challenge and the Three Rivers Race in the space of a fortnight.

If the boat is listing due to being held down by mooring chains on one side, then it's a lot more stable than one listing to that extent due to water in the bilges or a dangerous load. Personally, I'd have no particular qualms about getting on board if necessary. Of course cutting the chains is going to cause the boat to come up very quickly, and depending on where and how it's done there is a danger from the loose chain, in addition to the danger from working in or around fast flowing water. If it were me standing to loose my own boat then I might be inclined to take the chance (although hopefully I wouldn't have et my boat get into that situation in the first place), but the more I think about this situation, the more I'd be inclined to suggest that the situation has already got to a state where any intervention is likely to be too dangerous to anyone involved. As others have mentioned, no boat is worth somebody's life.

I'm sure I've had this discussion on here before, but the law relating to salvage applies anywhere on tidal waters, or on connected waterways navigable by seagoing vessels. There's no difference between being at sea or in a harbour when it comes to whether you can claim salvage, but as another requirement is that the vessel is 'in peril', it can be that it's harder to prove a salvage claim in a harbour than at sea. If a vessel is moored up at the side of a river, then even if it's empty then it's going to be very hard to prove it's been abandoned, which would mean that you'd need the owner's permission to attempt salvage (of course if you'd made reasonable efforts to contact them and they weren't around, and the boat needed something doing urgently to stop it sinking, then you'd probably still get a salvage award for doing whatever was necessary to sort the situation out).

From memory, the Mon & Brec is a bit wider than most of the narrow canals, 8'6" I think, (but check first rather than relying on my hazy memories of a holiday on there 13 years ago). What might limit you more on that canal is air draft - there's a particularly low tunnel, and I can't remember the maximum dimensions off the top of my head.

I have the relevant procedures in front of me and there's no requirement to operate the battery isolator switch(s) as part of the test. With the new shore power checks (3.8.1-3.8.3), the BSS examiner will not disconnect the shore power lead, but if the owner is present they will be asked to do so in order to inspect the connectors. As all of the checks are only advisory, the worst that will happen if the owner is not present or refuses to unplug the lead is that those checks will be marked 'not verified' - the BSS examination will still be passed (assuming no other points of failure are found).

The legal requirements are fairly straightforward and as Mike has already explained. There is however nothing to stop a Gas Safe registered person (or indeed anyone else) from refusing a job for any reason they like. If they're not happy to fit an open-flued water heater then there's no way to make them do so. Personally, if I wanted to fit an instantaneous gas water heater on a boat I'd pay the extra couple of hundred quid and get a room-sealed one.

The list of items in the BSS that do not need their power supply to come via the battery isolator switch is as follows: automatic bilge pumps security alarms (including marine radios) fire pumps electronic navigation equipment with a memory battery charger outputs inverters or combination inverter/chargers solar panels wind turbines any equipment where the manufacturer specifies that a direct connection to the battery is required (documentary evidence required) Whatever the equipment is, for the purposes of the BSS, if the power supply does not go via the main battery isolator then it needs to have it's own inline fuse (for the purposes of the check this should be somewhere where the examiner can see it, although it's a good idea to have it somewhere accessible anyway, in case it needs replacing).