PaulG

Thanks Dave - I hadn't considered the security aspect. And to answer your question, of course it should be both. However, IMHO there is a big difference between a perceived risk and one that has been proven to exist. I still think that the two examples show an inconsistent approach. At one site, many people are known to have jumped the lock. No serious injuries resulted. At the other site, the number of "jumpers" is unknown, but two people have lost their lives. One site gets a sign, the other one doesn't. Whether signage actually does anything to improve H&S, of course, is another issue..

If you can swim, probably not very dangerous at all. There's even a convenient ladder to help you to climb out. When I was a kid we spent a lot of time swimming in the local river, regardless of parents telling us not to do it. Somehow we often "accidently" fell in, usually on hot days in the summer. In Tewkesbury town, the local kids used to swim right in front of the sluice at Abbey Mill. It was locally known as the "32" AFAIR because the water was supposed to be 32 ft deep. Kids used to dive off the bridge and see how deep they could get. Assess the risk on that one!

Why shut up? You raised an interesting point...

I agree. However, if you are non-technical and don't want to take a risk in buying a product that you don't really understand, then vendors like Bedazzled have a place in the market. As far as I can see they sell a well-specified and reliable product, albeit at a high price. Personally I would not buy from them as you can buy the same or equivalent product at a much lower price elsewhere.

Of course it depends on individual assessment. However, I find it hard to believe that the risk at Worcester Bar (where the lock is permanently full of water, in a busy area straight outside a cafe and in an area that is covered by CCTV and AFAIR no-one has drowned in living memory) is greater than Smethwick (where local yoof are known to gather and there have been two recent fatalities as a result of aforesaid yoof trying to jump an empty lock).

With the greatest of respect, that is tosh. Some rural locks are in the middle of nowhere, and are therefore low risk. Others are in built-up areas where there is a high proportion of young people who are bad at recognising and mitigating dangers, and also adults who's judgement might well be impaired by the consumption of drink or drugs. If CRT applied your logic, all locks would be fitted with anti-vandal devices.

Damn. Looks like I've been rumbled. But seriously, I don't see that there's anything wrong with doing a bit of Googling on behalf of someone else (who may be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a slow connection and a small screen).

Like the lady in Gloucester who stated that the G&S was "dangerous and should be fenced off" because her teenage son fell in the drink trying to retrieve a football....

Absolutely. I bought "cheapies" off Fleabay a couple of years ago and they are fine. You just need to make sure that the seller at least quotes an input voltage range that will cope with a battery charger or alternator output voltage. Avoid ones that just say "12v".

The idea that this lock requires a warning sign does not necessarily mean that all locks need a warning sign. It may depend on location. For example, the disused stop lock at the Worcester Bar has a notice forbidding people to attempt to jump the lock. But even these existing warning signs are inconsistently placed. Strangely, the last time I went through Smethwick locks, (where two people drowned as a result of attempting to jump the lock) there were no warning signs.

IMHO that is the wrong kind of 12v regulator. It just dumps excess energy as heat, which is really wasteful of your battery power. A better device would be one similar to the one below. I use it as an example only - it does have some drawbacks, e.g. you need to set the output voltage to 12V, but it does demonstrate the principle of a device with a capability for a wide range of input voltage combined with decent efficiency. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191619681671?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Hi Frank, The header tank on my boat isn't pressurised. I suppose technically it isn't a header tank, it's just an overflow tank. The pressure cap is mounted on the heat exchanger, with a hose going up the the tank. I have often wondered whether it's worthwhile fitting a pressurised tank.. For the moment I've decided that if it ain't broke I'm not going to fix it.

I have the same engine fitted with the same Polar endcap, and I have had similar problems. When I bought the boat there was a spare cap on board, and I soon found out why. I was going through two a season, and sod's law being what it is, they usually go at the most inconvenient times... For reasons that I've never entirely worked out, my engine looses a bit of coolant. I think the previous owner had tried to stop this by fitting a 13 psi (AFAIR) pressure cap. Since I replaced this with a 7 PSI cap I have not had any problems. I do need to top up with coolant regularly, though.

Indeed.

Post all screwed up - mods please delete! They don't roll over because there is a lot of ship underwater that you can't see. Containers are carried in the hold as well - the ones you can see are just the deck cargo, which makes the ship look top-heavy. By brother-in-law was skipper of a panamax-sized container ship for quite a few years, and they had computer programs to work out the loading order and the weight distribution so that the ship was stable and trimmed correctly. If memory serves me right, his ship (s) carried containers eight deep in the holds and in stacks of five high on deck

Where are you measuring the voltage? Close to the batteries or close to the appliance you have plugged in? If it's the latter, as Mike says above, it's probably poor cabling