johnjo

Common courtesy, ever heard of it?

Checkout this link, earthing your NB correctly will save you alot of grief later, there are a lot of do's & don'ts. All eletrical supply lines must have a seperate return back to a common link near the engine preferably a purpose made unit. DON'T use the hull as an common earth as you do on a car, it can be dangerous and could erode your hull. http://www.canaljunction.com/british/waterways.htm

I'm no paint expert, but I know that some paints don't always adhere well to others of a differnet type, I also seem to recall my NB surveyer stating the same and advising that if you can't identify what type of paint your boat has then play safe and have it gritblasted back to bare metal and start again. I know that will make it more expensive in the short term but perhaps that is better than spending a lot of time, effort and cost, only to find it all peeled off within a month or two because of an incompatabilty with the old coating. Regarding bottom plate painting, we are going to have ours done [only just bought her] as she was until recently on a permanent mooring and hasn't been painted for four years. The bottom has large oyster shaped scabs which the surveyer reckons where caused by lack of movement but which are quite deep and will benefit from painting. So, while having the sides grit blasted we shall try to get her high enough off the ground and get the bottom grit blasted as well. Shouldn't be a problem, just a matter of putting enough blocks safely under her to give sufficient space to work. I'll let you know in 12months if it was worth the effort, bet you can't wait, can you??????? Regarding anodes, there are many causes that can affect their performance and they can include what type of mooring you are on [metal or wood] whether or not you use landline power and what type of earthing yours and other surrounding boats have, if they have not had their earthing properly installed IT WILL AFFECT YOUR HULL SERIOUSLY. http://www.canaljunction.com/british/waterways.htm has a lot of useful stuff about this problem as well as other very good info. Hope this is of help to someone. Great site, found some really helpful info on here, and seems to prove the rumour that NB'ers are good people. John

Advice yeh, get a life and move on, they WILL take your boat and if it's worth anything, sell it, if not, scrap it. It's not a game, it's a way of life that can be fun if you approach it right. Your time has come, 4 years? I'm just surprised they let you alone that long! Start continuous cruising, you never know you might enjoy it and see more of life. Anyway I thought that's what having a NB was all about not just squatting in the same place, how boring!

Be careful where you mount the bracket, [the Ebay one looks great value], make sure you find a noggin or similar, I've just bought a NB and the Morso Gas water heater was just fixed to the T&G and this had all started to come loose as it's only fixed to the T&G and not anything else, the Morso managed to hang on because of the pipework, but your TV won't. Bye the way the Morso has now been dealt with.

Norton Antivirus has too many whistles and bells, my analagy is if you want a wheel barrow you want one wheel two handles and a bucket, you dont need headlights, indicators and a horn, as a result it will slow your PC to a crawl, whatever your'e doing. Try AVG, their free version only does virus's and no free tech support, but it works and without slowing you down. The full version [£45 for to years] covers everything and has free unlimited tech support for two years. You might also like to try Avast, they also have a very good free version. Re: B/Band whilst on board, Orange do a USB dongle @ £15 per month for 3gig [18month contract] or if 24month contract @£25 per month you get a free Asus Eee PC notebook, not very big but it's wireless and is quite speedy [anyway it's free, kind of]. Hope this helps.