MoominPapa
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Posts posted by MoominPapa
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23 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
Just been ont news about this. Apparently those so called smart meters that are crap anyway will have to be upgraded in many cases, as they have 2 or 3 g sims lol.
I read somewhere that the 2G network is being retained for such telematics, it's the 3G network that's going.
I wonder what network my robot lawnmower uses?
MP.
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23 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:
Do all you battery swappers know the side effects of lithium? Terribly bad for your mental health.
You'll be amazed when you hear what the neurological effects of lead are.
MP.
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We came down Watford during the Beast from the East to escape the Leicester Line before it closed in February. You don't normally notice that the lock chambers are tapered and wider at the top than the bottom, but when the boat goes into the full lock with a load of broken ice, you do. We jammed in every lock and had to flush the boat out.
Cold over there, isn't it? It's 10 Celsius here in the County Wicklow, but a large cloud seems to have moved into the garden.
MP.
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The switch should be break-before-make, and never connect both source at the same time. I'd go further and say that it _is_ break-before-make. If it wasn't, you would have blown up your inverter and tripped your show power by now.
MP.
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1 hour ago, rusty69 said:
What kind on cable length run have you got, and where did you hide the cables? To get mine under the bed would probably require a 15 ft run. The wardrobe, maybe only 7-8 ft.
It's only a few feet. The existing high current cables all terminate in a cupboard in the engine room on the bulkhead between the engineroom and the back cabin, so the cables just have go through that bulkhead to reach the batteries on the other side. Long cables have to be fat, and long, fat, cables are expensive.
MP.
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10 minutes ago, MtB said:
3) I know you don't want to but frankly, LiFePO4 cells have a much nicer life in a warm cabin. Best place for them is under the bed, next to the cauliflower.
+1. Our Thunderskys are very content under the bed.
The space in the engine room where the LAs used to hang out are now extra tool storage.
MP.
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4 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:
Now you're (nearly) free of the burden of organisation I'm hoping that you'll be competing this year. On that subject I notice that last years HQ boat isn't on the list of competitors. I assume though that @MoominPapa is aware?
MoominPapa is aware, and cogitating. These days, such plans have to start with getting the crew back into the country and proceed with getting the vessel to the start line.
MP.
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I seem to remember coming across a pipeline crossing of the S&W downstream of Dimmingsdale Lock in the form of a self-supporting arch over the canal. It was possible to hear the liquid flow if you put an ear to the pipe. At the time a wasted an hour or so on the internet and worked out where it was likely going from and to, but I can't remember now. Infrastructure like this is fascinating, but scarily unprotected.
MP.
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1 hour ago, buccaneer66 said:
there wasn't just PLUTO there was also GPSS an entire underground network of pipelines and fuel tanks, many of the pipelines directly fed airfeilds ans soem are still in use, although the tories recenlty sold them all of to a private company.
The bridge over the tail of Wharton's lock on the Chester line carries a GPSS pipeline. The markers are easy to see. I guess its immediate ends are probably Stanlow Oil refinery and the wartime oil depot beside the railway at Beeston, opposite Chas Hardern's boatyard. I remember as a kid in the sixties going along there on my Grandad's boat and the grass mounds over the oil tanks were all mowed and maintained. Now it looks pretty derelict.
MP.
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This came up in my youtube feed today. Not strictly boating, but the S&L connection gives a bit of an excuse, and I'm sure many here will be interested. Most will have heard of PLUTO, but there are lots of fascinating details in the film which I didn't know about.
MP.
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58 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:
They are hard work. The gearing on the paddles requires an inordinate number of turns to lift a paddle that is evidently the size of a postage stamp.
And when Beeston stone lock spent most of last year with one top paddle out of action it seemed as though it would never make a level sufficient for a reasonable force to open the gate. I genuinely thought I may end up stuck waiting for another boat to help the first time I went through this year.
By comparison the GU broad locks - both designs - are a joy.
Good points. I'd still rather do Northgate staircase than Grindley Brook. The later always seems to land me on the bottom of the middle chamber and require faffing with water levels, no matter what I do.
MP.
58 minutes ago, haggis said:Canals have been quiet but still a few hire and share boats around.
It may have been December, but we still managed to get hit by an out-of-control dayboat.
MP.
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11 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:
.... but given that you describe the locks as a pleasure to operate I’m guessing you must have turned right onto the Middlewich branch at Barbridge rather than headed toward Chester.
There's nowt wrong with the locks on the Chester Line.
The locks on the Llangollen were no fun at all during the Big Freeze.
MP.
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The Llangollen is clear. It took the first boat through Grindley Brook staircase two hours to clear the ice and there were still a few bergy bits clogging behind gates when we cam through later, but apart from that there's no ice to be found. There are a couple of fallen trees, now the wind has got up.
MP.
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... and this is what canal water looks like after a night in a lock at -9°C
MP.
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1 hour ago, tree monkey said:
Bugger
Oh noes. You'll be stuck in a cottage in North Wales and unable to return to work. Woe is Monkey!
MP.
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Not sure that the winning photo really captures it, but that stretch around Newton Harcourt is one of my favourite anywhere. The canal runs along the side of a shallow valley and you look down towards the river and small, old, isolated church. Great mooring.
MP.
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3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Never thought of that. The water would still have to rise a metre up to the shower tap level though, before it could come down again. In my plumbing, anyway, so I think I'm safe, but I can see the danger. Glad you pointed it out.
If the shower head is lower than the water level in the tank the water can siphon out.
MP.
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2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
drop the shower head to the floor to make sure that it drains.
This can be dangerous advice, at least one boat I know did this and the water tank emptied slowly, by gravity, into the shower tray, overflowed and filled the bilges. Twice, before the owners worked out what was going on.
MP.
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Yes, and no. Turn a hot tap on to provide a second path into the system. On my installation this very conveniently lets air in via the drain plug hole and the water exits via the tap.You may not be so lucky.
MP.
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15 minutes ago, Ex Brummie said:
Not all of Barnhurst goes down the S&W, a lot of it keeps my boat afloat on the Shroppie.
And much of what goes down the S&W towards Stourport is tapped off into a local river at Dimmingsdale. The bywashes below there have not been expanded to take the extra flow.
MP.
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Ah, yes. Stoke. Where our boat and its occupants were stoned and I nearly lost an eye as a consequence.
MP.
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We once did something similar of the River Stort. Arrived late in the evening and extemporised a mooring; not realising how high the river was. What didn't help was that the local CRT bods opened the flood paddles that (Friday) evening and then buggered off for the weekend, so by the time we woke up the next morning the water level was a lot lower than usual and we were well and truly marooned. Several other boats were in the same state, but we all got together and freed the easiest NB, which then started snatching others. Being deep, and because we weren't on a regular mooring spot, Melaleuca was by far the most stuck; sitting pretty flat on the bottom with a good eight inches of normally wet hull showing all round. I was very sceptical that she'd ever move, but we used one NB roped to the front and another roped to the back and both took a good snatch at the same time and she came off very easily.
So what you need, Andrew, is not one, but two passing boats
MP.
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1 hour ago, roland elsdon said:
There is another aspect -heat. Our current set up 75 a alternator 330 ah system has to heat a 12 v marine calorifier. ( yes i know but its an h series and a tiny cabin). We never but the water heater on until the advrc has cut out, but once on the 30a it draws obviously heats the alternator too.
A standard alternator is designed for short engine battery charging, not prolonged high outputs.
Yes. My experience is that an A127 mounted high on the engine in an engine room which runs flat-out for at least half the day is that one lasts three years or so and then fails a diode. Something buried in the depths under a cruiser stern would be hotter and might not survive.
MP.
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When running the alternator geared up like this, consider adding a switch to disable the field during cold starts. A cold low-revving diesel will quite possibly fail to accelerate at all if it's a loaded by an alternator producing that best part of a kilowatt at normal idle speed. Starting without load avoids that and allows the oil to circulate before adding load. On my FR2 with a 70A A127 and belt around the flywheel I always start from cold with the field off. It's not necessary with a hot engine.
MP.
Another ratchet down the slippery slope to CRT bankruptcy.
in General Boating
Posted
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/where-we-work/wales-and-south-west/gloucester-and-sharpness-canal-and-river-severn-navigation-summer-2023-changes
Whatever happened to the scheme to boater operate the bridges via a mobile phone?
MP.