Jason Day - Sheffield

Boating yesterday and today proved that the tiller is more responsive now, but has gone through neutral and on into twitchy. I spoke to the guy who added the plate and he hadn't even measured it, he heard what my wife told him about 20% of total chord, then ignored that and just eyeballed it 'because he's experienced'. Then charged us £75 for it. Aaaaaaaaarrgh

Yes, I think the our fabricator either forgot what he was told, or thought he knew better. We wont be doing high speed, or tight turns on the english canals, but I like the idea of maybe balancing it up by adding to the trailling edge. Our boat was originally built as a hire boat, so I can inagine that it was designed to under perform and reduce the twitchiness of amateurs on the tiller. Sadly our plan is to sell her after next summer's cruising, as we are having a career break and going off to Europe in a camper truck to climb mountains for a couple of years, so I won't get to continue refining things, but if I can deal with a couple of improvements in advance of that I will. I like the idea ofthe fishtail rudder! thanks for all the suggestions, Jas p.s. just re-read what I wrote, so before I get flamed by everyone reminding me that a: there are tight turns and b: maneuvrability is important - what I meant was a: usually and b:I've done my time dodging gravel barges on the Trent, and better plan ahead now!

Hmmmm thanks - slightly high tech for me .... I passed on the 20% in front and 80% behind the rudder stock to the fabricator who enthusiastically agreed, stuck 25% in front of the rudder stock, and put her back in the water. Bugger. So the plan is to see how that goes, if necessary I can always grind it off the next time we are near a crane out point.

BillyBobBooth - yes that's what I guesstimate, butt there is already about an inch and a half, so adding another inch and a half may not make much difference. Good point about overbalance, you lose feel on the rudder and also block it when turning hard, but we already have a heavy rudder , so I'm tempted to try a little balancing. They have to get the welder out anyway.....

15% 0f 16" is 2.4, or just under 2 1/2" - I'm fairly sure we have a lot more than that. (photo below) As a rough guide though, the amount ahead of the stock in this photo is about 1/5 the amount behind, or 16.6% of the total chord. Upping that to 20% would be to increase the amount in front of the stock by only a very small amount. Probably not worth bothering with, but I will phone the dock in the morning to find out what they think. OK... this is on my boat....oh - apparently I'm not allowed to use this image extension in this community...jpg not allowed.?

Just a thought - has anyone here any opinion on extending the rudder blade, by welding a section on forward of the pivot point? I beleive (from sailing boat experience) that this could better balance the blade, and reduce turbulence against the rudder causing juddering. It also moves the rudder closer to the prop, and will reduce the force needed to hold it against the force of water. But there's a good chance I'm completely wrong. Any thoughts anyone?

Update from the dry dock today - 16X11 prop, so pretty much what it should be for the engine. There's a lot of clearance between prop and rudder, which may account for the steering judder, but regulation 'just over 2" blade tip to underside of swim', and only avbout 1 1/2 " of propshaft exposed. all in all leave as is I reckon....if only we hadn't found damage around the weedhatch and wear plates to the underside of swim, with a rebuild cost of £1200, I might actually be happy. Got any room in the miserable corner of your field, Eeyore?

So I had a fumble about down below, and got a tape measure reading of 8 inches.....shaft to tip, which makes the whole thing 16 inches in diameter - so far so good - can't really tell the pitch through the hatch, so will have a look at it when they whip it out at Nantwich. Spoke like a local :-)

That all fits, as I said originally, I'm only checking, not panicking. I need to get a Rev counter on to make sure the engine is within range, and the rest I'm going on feel from other boats I've had. Thanks for the confirmation though.

well, that would be a part of the setup - as its a diesel engine I would need to use the Alternator field output and adjust for the right ratios I imagine. I'm opento other suggestions, like the tinytach, but I dont have any experience using those.

Any suggestions as to a good aftermarket rev counter setup for a Kubota D1703?

We're just about to dry dock for blacking and I was thinking of checking the prop. The Vicprop calculator suggests a 3 bladed 16.5" X 19.4" prop for our 54' , 17 tonne black Prince with a Kubota d1703 assuming 20 HP. It feels like it's under we have 'high' revs when cruising, but as we haven't got a rev counter it's difficult to say. I'll definitely be looking to see what the prop size is when we haul her out (I could measure through the weed hatch, but then I would, be doing that by feel, with some loss of accuracy). Anyone else have any thoughts about this combination, or experience of D1703' in Black Princes? (1991, one of the dropped gunwale/big window models)

Apologies - the Kennet and Avon course at Semington dock has been re-scheduled to 25th October due to a clash with another trianing weekend. Sorry about that if you were plannign to come along, but please get in touch if you are interested in this course, cheers, Jason

There are 6 places still available on the boater's first aid course at Stoke Bruerne Museum Sat. 15th Sept - 09:00 to 16:00 £50 pp. Please email me if you want further details, or have a look at the website www.northern-lights-training.co.uk cheers, Jason

Hi Tim, well it wouldn't do for everyone to be the same I can't tempt you in to the one day course then.... I suppose if I just had to sit through it every three years I'd get bored - I got out of that by getting paid to teach it! cheers, Jas

HI All - thanks for your interest and involvement - Please do keep on contributing and if you can find the time to do a bit of bridge spottign on your travels it would add to the pot. Have a look at the website www..northern-lights-training.co.uk for details. I'm going to be offline mostly for the next couple of weeks, but add anything here and I'll check when I get back, cheers, Jas

Boots - Aqueduct marina have said they may be able to host a course - they have a new meeting room which would do. I will confimr details and get back to you. I'm going to be only intermittently on enail over the next couple of weeks as I weave erratically from festival to Cornwall to relatives to another festival on a two week road trip....so if anyone is interested in the first aid courses please give me a call and leave a message - I'll get back to you eventually! cheers, Jason

Hi Boots - I have phoned Swanley to ask if they are interested in hosting a course..frankly I want a course local to me as well! I haven;t heard back yet, but I will email them again this evening and let you know the outcome. If they don;t want to hold it I might try Tattenhall (I can take my boat to the course to use for onboard scenarios - excellent! I'll let you know, Cheers, Jas

Hi Geoff - there is now a CSV file of the headings in used in the example on my website www.northern-lights-training.co.uk - look for the "Bridging the Gap" page. Happy to accept contributions in .XLS or other formats as well, cheers, Jas

Which qualification was the course supporting Tim? The main reason people tell me they get bored on courses is because some instructors know their stuff but can't teach (and some teachers don't know their stuff). What I do on my courses is get people actively involved at the upper limit of their competence. Rather than tell people "that they have to keep the roll of a roller bandage taught at the correct amount of stretch to not cause blood restriction while ......." (simulates audience falling asleep). I get them to decide what they have to do.... because they are presented with a simulated bleeding casualty.... ...in the rain.... ...and then their partner faints at the sight of blood. It tends to keep people interested. If it all goes wrong the first time around there will be other chances to learn within the course! I could go on for hours about the different courses but: one day EFAW is for low hazardous workplaces where an ambulance can be called and attend quickly (minimum 6 hours). Three day FAAW is for more hazardous workplaces where an ambulance can be called and attend quickly (minimum 18 hours). Two day outdoor instructors course is for remote locations and dangerous activities where arrival of help may be delayed (minimum 16 hours) Then there are refreshers for the above, and more extended courses. The outdoor course actually covers more topics than the FAAW, but generally the motivation and ability of the students is higher than for FAAW. ...See - it's so easy to get talking - I'd far rather go outside and get someone to pretend they have a swollen and deformed wrist after letting a windlass windmill on a descending paddle.....:-) cheers, Jas

Thanks Dave, Graham : Fair play, that's the line to go forward with. I had a chat with a friend of mine who's an engineer at vodaphone, so I'm going to get back to the source of the info I had originally and update him and the notes I use in lessons - this is why it's good to get it out for peer review. The sticker with locations on is a good idea - If all bridges etc (bearing in mind there are long stretches without bridges in some parts of the country) had stickers like that on them then we wouldn't need lists of locations. If they do have bridge numbers for the llangollen and the M&B then that would cover those areas - I'll get in contact with them. cheers, Jas

Hi Dave, what I've been told is that the 112 is initially handled by an operator from the mobile network, then tasked to the specific local emergency services depending on which area you are in, whereas 999 isn't. My understanding is that 999 on a mobile will get to the emergency operator, but they will not have the same locational information as the mobile operator, so there's the potential for an extra step of questioning about location. I have certainly had personal experience of using both numbers, and with 999 there was a bit more mucking about locating which force area I was in. I wasn't aware that the situation had changed, though it may have done. Certainly from the point of view of NWAS operations room in April, their early questions centred around part addresses or postcodes, so they aren't expecting or relying on further locational info from the mobile operator. Either way, if the caller knows where they are with a reasonable degree of certainty it will make calling in help more effective, which is why I believe it's worth linking up bridge numbers to road addresses and postcodes. cheers, Jas Hi Geoff - thanks for volunteering - I will put a spreadsheet download file on the website tomorrow (can't do it from this machine - I would have to be able to remember a pile of passwords!). There is a PDF file there, so if you wanted to use those headings that would be fine, but as I say I'll put the file on there so you can get at it tomorrow. cheers, Jas

Hi Chris - no prob - I'm very keen to get these up and running and there will be lots of people thinking the questions and not asking them. Rob - yes CO poisoning is definitely a part of the course - I've specifically tailored the contents to be relevant to real life incidents on boats, and thanks for the leaflet, cheers, Jas

A previous owner of our boat put in a 3KW inverter. If I run that just to cool the fridge (230V - uesd to have shoreline electric, we now don't) intermittently, say an hour a day is that pointless, going to knacker the battery, or what? Does anyone knwo what minimum size inverter we would need to run the fridge, instead of the 3KW? Mrs. Day is looking into getting a 12V fridge and I want to know we are going the right way! cheers Jas