Big COL

We're representing the marina at Billing Aquadrome and selling residential moorings

We Have a stand at crick V7/V8 I will print the Canal World Logo off and display it on our stand. I will also provide a Canal World Forum Appointments and messages diary where forum members can leave messages for each other, so as to arrange their own meetings during the three days of the show. Look forward to meeting you. Colin

Follow the cables from the box with the illuminated switch. One set will go to the mains alternator, and the other set will probably go to a switch of some type, ie isolator/change over.which looks like its switched off. Colin

Hi Guys One question On the diesel BMC engine is a vacuum system used to lower crankcase pressure? On the petrol version there was such a system and when the diaphragm started to wear the engine would produce lots of smoke. Intermittent hic-ups with the diaphragm caused the problem similar to what is being described.

The non-return valve on some macerator toilets is only a rubber flap valve and is easily kept open by any debris. I found with ours the use of a lot of toilet paper helped to prevent flowbacks

If this a regular occurrence then the problem could be something other than the nuts themselves. I would check any uj joints / bearings after the gear box for any signs of wear, and more importantly check the alignment of the drive shaft to the engine /gear box

I was only following on from the o/p suggesting the use of a router. I still cannot see a difference in strength between a scarfe and a half lap joint. I thought a scarfe joint was like an interlocking half w so the joint can't be pulled apart.

Not being a wood butcher, If you can't weld,braze,solder,rivet, I am not interested and leave all the woodwork to those that can. However I do understand joints can someone explain why it has to be a stepped scarfe joint and not a half lap joint? the latter being able to be done with a router.

Just had a quick look through the middle level link all the locks are wide enough, air draft looks ok. This is the main link for traffic off the ouse to reach the canal system, only to do the complete trip you need to be narrow beam up the Northampton arm.

You should be able to get through the middle levels and on to the Nene

Looking at the prices that are being quoted Billing Marina is very cheap considering it's an 11month residential with water and electric on all pontoons.

Outboards are king, Tilt and clean, Shhhimples

After 8 months you will find it difficult to get an exact match. Even if you had some leftover from the original paint job, I would think after this amount of time you would still see a difference. Paint exposed to sunlight the colour pigment will deteriorate at a different rate than paint not exposed to sunlight, ie paint that is still in the tin. There will be a very slight variation in tins of new paint that have been produced from different batches but usually not enough for the eye to see. This is why most boat hulls are black up to the gunnel as black seems to blend in better to the eye although the difference is still there.

Why not fit an overflow to the bath ?

Jan 2009 The general plan was to retire, cruise for the summer and winter in Spain playing golf. The beginning of the year of great expectations, the year that would bring early retirement, exodus from our business/home and on to our boat that I had spent two and a half years co-fitting to include every conceivable accessory available to make the boat a dream to live on. Well three weeks into our first cruise down the Oxford to visit good friends Bones and Maffi my good lady drops the bombshell that she cannot do this (continuous cruising) where the boat dictates her life, whereby she is not able to visit friends for coffee, nip off for a game of golf, visit family (not helped by my son presenting us with our first grandchild a week before we set off). Well bombshell is mild, seeing half your retirement dream destroyed, especially when I had been in my element handling the boat every day, needs something special to keep you sane. Our short term resolution was to find a residential marina to lie over and sort out just where we went from here (Divorce being an option) the compromise was to cruise for five weeks early season lie over at Billing for the summer and cruise five or six weeks end of season, moor the boat for the winter at Billing and bugger off to Spain for the winter. Easy - well not quite. I now find I just cannot live on a static boat and it's driving me crazy, I need to be working the boat to achieve the full enjoyment from it, just sitting becalmed drove me crazy. There is nearly a happy ending, situation at the moment is the boat has gone, we now live in a lakeside lodge with a huge deck over the water, I have a new boat (yoghurt pot) which I am told is a very nice boat (still sulking at loss of proper boat) the up side is I am now the manager of Billing Marina, working with boats is a real consolation. Everything back on course until last night an e-mail from Spain the Co building our bolt hole has filed to go into receivership, this is Polaris World fronted in England by Jack Nicklaus and backed by one of the largest banks in Spain. I will be pleased to see the end of 2009. 2010 bring it on nothing can faze me now.

Why we have two big col posters on the forum I cannot comment. I am happy to share as my sig is with capital C&B However regarding this post it would be a fair analogy that to leave a cat at home with 300 tins of cat food and a tin opener, and go off wherever just about sums this situation up. If this boat has already been down then the damage is done rather than keep refloating it leave it on the bottom until the owner is back home and can raise it and attend to whatever the problem is. Big Col (original)

You could say the outboard is the ultimate in steerage with the thrust following the degree of turn. This is not the case, at low revs on a boat with an outboard, the boat is virtually uncontrollable unless fitted with an added extra in the form of a rudder extension A rudder extension being a flat rudder added after the propeller, turning with and at the same angle as the propeller. It's difficult to see any logical reason why this arrangement should make any difference but it does, especially at low revs

Hi Nick Oil stoves used on boats are basically domestic stoves. With the restrictions for use on a boat not many meet the manufacturers fitting specifications, low air draft up the chimney being the most common The metering valves are the same domestic valves which if turned up too high will flood the burner pot. Each of these valves will react slightly differently when fitted on boats, air draft again being the variant I always suggest to users that they turn the valves up bit by bit until they begin to flood and give the symptoms that you have experienced, this will give you a max reading on your valve that you should never exceed. With the banging and popping, you are exactly right. What is happening is the oil is vaporising in the wrong place,and then igniting also in the wrong place i.e. high in the burner pot and the chimney. This happens because when you turn the valve up too high the extra fuel actually cools the burner pot just enough and prevents the fuel from vaporising in the correct place, which is about 10mm off the bottom of the burner pot. Hope this helps. If you search the forum I have posted a couple of times before on this subject.

Hi Stuart If it has waxed then you will certainly have to change the filter. Filters do not recover properly when the temp rises. during 79/80/81 freeze we were changing filters around every two days on our vehicles and they still waxed up we would warm the diesel while we changed the filters. A trick that we used to warm the diesel was to pipe the exhaust with a flexible pipe from the recovery vehicle into the diesel tank of the broken down vehicle and bubble hot exhaust fumes into the diesel. This worked quicker than lighting fires under vehicles and was a lot safer. In those days we would also add petrol to the diesel tank at a ratio of 40/1 this helped to stop waxing but when you were trying to dewax in temps down to -12c it was hard going and it was mainly at night.

You could try canalman on the forum. He used to sell rolls of rubber decking approx 25mm thick nice and soft to stand on all day. It looked like a mat of rubber egg boxes, free draining I can't remember the exact size but from my aged memory they were something like 1mx3/4m, certainly better value than dri-deck.

Hi Mick If running out of water is the only change to the system then it's likely to be air trapped somewhere. Is the pressure relief valve higher on the calorifier than the hot water take off point? If so twist the knob on the relief valve and bleed the air out through it. If not there should be a bleed point built into the calorifier.