sigsegv

False dichotomy mate. These are two objectives/things we should care about that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's possible to strive for a system that helps restore and maintain the canals while also not pricing out those that don't have fat stacks of cash. Requires careful thought and consideration though

What if, and I know this is absolutely CRAZY.... But what if we tried to make it fair? What if we tried using the sum of human knowledge to try to make a better and more equal world? I suppose it's easy to throw your hands up and say 'it can't be done' when you've got yours

Sounds like you've already made the decision you want and are looking for a reason *not* to 😉. Go for it, why wait? 👍

@LadyG can you specify whether you want a device to call emergency services *on your behalf* given some particular event (i.e., a fall, submersion, etc.), or simply a device that is small and portable that enables you to manually call the emergency services easily?

Problem I would have with a toll system is that I fear it still leaves the lesser-used sections of the system without enough money to sustain them. Unless you're suggesting the income from this toll system could enter a general pool of funds that could be distributed to areas depending on their need, rather than 'X section of canal generated this much income so they get that amount for its upkeep'. I get that this might be frustrating for those paying tolls on 'their' sections of the canal not initially reaping the benefits of it, but my argument to that is that the health of the broader canal system benefits us all regardless of the immediate benefit to the local areas.

I disagree with this. Communication is a two-way street. While yes, the document states the exact figures, I *think* what Lady C is getting at is that in other places, they only really reference the amount of income from licenses. If they don't also state in that same place that there is an additional £20mm coming from moorings, etc, I can certainly see how people could be misled (intentionally or otherwise) into thinking the £23mm from licenses is the only income from boaters. For what it's worth, I don't know if they *are* only stating the license fee income anywhere, I'm just trying to clear up what I think is a fair misunderstanding between you two.

ChatGPT is a fantastic tool for certain tasks. I've been using it for simple programming, basic tech queries, etc. One way I've learnt to think of it is not having an AI genius at your side (because it is very much not that), but having at your disposal an infinite amount of underlings - you're still (as the expert) going to want to check their work, but it can certainly help reduce a lot of busywork.

Don't take it so cliterally

This is their number one priority

I was moored up next to your workboat by bridge 32B just a few days ago and heard you working the next morning, just in time for my short cruise in that direction, cheers for a job well done on the pruning!

they're not wrong though, the inventor of basic universal laws *does* have a lot of hymns dedicated to Them (if you swing that way)

Bril, thanks for the advice! Definitely seems like another useful piece of kit to have. Just ordered a KAIWEETS HT206D ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07Z398YWF ) for pickup from the local post office, should be here tomorrow. Confirmed it does DC as well as AC. Compared to the 208D linked by yourself, ditchcrawler, think the only difference is tolerating 600V rather than 1KV.

Does this differ in any practical terms from the digital multimeter I have (other than not having clamps, making holding probes to things an act of contortion)? Do you have any advice/links as to how I would put such a tool to good use in diagnosing the problem? I'm not much good with a multimeter beyond checking voltage, resistance and continuity... Mentioning the control panel has got me realising I've not actually traced where the cable for that comes from, so that'll be part of tomorrow's delve into the engine bay (which is becoming my second home - after running the engine for a while, it really is lovely and warm down there). I wonder then if there could be a potential short or something behind my control panel, where it is a bit of a rats nest of wires, or elsewhere in this hitherto unexplored territory. The hunt continues!

Right. It'd actually be a trivial change for me to do, since the two batteries are situated next to each other. I'll look into doing that thanks

See the first image in my appendix from Victron - starter neg goes to 'load' side of the shunt. Don't ask me why, I'm no electrician, just following orders ma'am See this image from the cyrix-ct's datasheet, they also have the alternator going straight to starter and then through the VSR to the leisures. Ok I popped out a few minutes ago and checked, and yep I did fat-finger - the only negative coming off the leisure batteries goes directly to the shunt. I'll go over everything else, but I'm fairly sure the rest is accurate. New (hopefully correct) circuit diagram:

Stupid Victron app stuff. You can select 2 different measurements to show (from stuff like voltage, wattage, hours of charge remaining, etc) and each get their own Y-axis, even if they're using the same unit of measurement Hmm yeah good spot, I'll verify that in the morning, thanks very much. I might've fat-fingered the diagram and just thought 'oh right, common ground'... Just a clarification, in your post you've used the terms 'engine battery' and 'starter battery'. I'd infer from context you're using engine battery to refer to the leisure batteries in my diagram?

Hi all, I've recently had a problem with my starter battery discharging alongside my leisure batteries despite (as far as I know) being isolated correctly. I was hoping for some help into identifying the cause. First, some background: the boat was purchased last July, and from then up until last week, I've not an issue with the starter battery failing to provide enough power to get the engine started. In the meantime, I installed a Victron BMV-712 Smart battery monitor & shunt to replace the cheap chinesium one that was fitted previously. This was a few months ago and seemingly no issues from that alone. There was clearly some power, I heard maybe 1 or 2 revolutions of the starter motor before it gave up. The leisure batteries are quite knackered so no joy was had from jumping them to the starter. The starter battery was replaced on the advice of the RCR engineer that came out (I'll moan about that later...) and happy days, a working engine again. This morning, I experienced the same thing. Thankfully, a very kind chap on the boat moored just next to me offered to let me use his generator to get some charge in the batts to get the engine starter and everything charged again. It's looking like I have actually fortuitously avoided this issue rather than it being a new issue based on the historic data available to me from the battery monitor. I've drawn a circuit diagram below of (to the very best of my knowledge) how the electrics are wired in the engine bay. One thing I know isn't entirely correct/complete is what's happening with the negative when it gets to the engine. Also the leisure isolator has been omitted for brevity Here's what's curious to me - I can watch on the battery monitor the voltage of both the starter battery and leisure batteries dropping as domestic load is applied. I've tried a couple different things to remediate this: physically disconnect the starter battery's positive terminal from the cyrix-ct vsr, and disconnect the bmv shunt's com2 connection from the starter battery's positive terminal - neither has any effect. BUT (!) when I disconnect the starter battery's isolator, everything seems to work as expected. Am I being really dumb? Should I be disconnecting the starter isolator any time the engine isn't on (or I don't intend to start it)? If not, is there likely a short somewhere between the starter battery isolator and the leisure battery positive line? Happy to provide any more pictures, information, encouraging words, general life advice, etc if it would help Appendix: 'Correct' wiring of the BMV shunt (B2 in this diagram = com2 in my diagram)" Evidence of the starter battery voltage dropping alongside leisure battery prior to today's 'eureka' of opening the starter isolator: Evidence of the starter battery and leisure battery voltages being 'decoupled' after opening the starter battery isolator (much smaller timescale compared to the previous image):

Realised the link on my blog post is broken, I'll fix that when I get out of bed. We bought ours from https://www.sheetplastics.co.uk/

Ta! He was found at double rail lock, south of Leicester. At least a kilo underweight, no chip, unneutered despite being (by my reckoning) about 8-9 months old. So we took him to the vet for a checkup, chip & snip, and took him on as crew. Funny story, as we were heading onto the Soar after Loughborough, we bumped into a couple in the lock that had previously seen Scraps at the same lock. Apparently he hopped aboard, helped himself to some lasagne and then buggered off! I don't know, comparing how he was back then to how he is now, I think we made the right choice in nicking him

I considered that but we have blinds that have little magnets attached to the wooden frame, so it woulda got in the way of them

Yeah one thing I regret is not taking observations of the internal temp and external temp at certain points to see just how effective the perspex is. Would love to measure how effective it is.