nb Innisfree

That looks the biz, I though they were only available for round holes, thanks for the offer but I will source one locally and try it when we can get back to the boat. Ages since I last investigated but I recall deciding there wasn't enough room though I will check again when I can. Maybe a right angled plug might just do it if there is such a beast. Edited to remove double post, this seems to happening regularly.

Bleach is chlorine based, water companies use it, it's added to tap water so we are all drinking it in very small quantities. So cheap bleach or expensive brands of steriliser, both are the same. If the smell of bleach is off putting it can be got rid of with sodium metabisulphate, that and chlorine chemically neutralise each other. SM is more commonly known as Camden tablets, used by homebrewers to sterilise equipment and sometimes added to wine. It comes in a powder form as well which is easier to handle. Warning, don't leave SM in contact with polypropylene as it softens it, my brother once went on holiday and left his sealed homebrew barrel with some SM in the brew, when he got home a couple of weeks later the barrel had softened and was huge! Beer starting to leak out and just on the point of popping!

Erm... not sure looking at Gibbo's post.

We stopped using fenders in locks as they were a pain in the stern but as you point out they could save the day.

Yes I could but it would offend my anally retentive streak, I want a nice neat built in look. Sad I know. ETA: Just remembered socket is hard up against the front plate so can only be accessed by cover removal or a hole.

Done to death subject I know but FWIW ours does make quite a difference to the temp of the rear bedroom. ETA: It's a two bladed job, but I should add that it did make a difference before it gave up the ghost, don't bother now as we are land bound for the foreseeable future.

6ft 10in where? the base plate? if not how wide was the base plate?

As mentioned in an earlier post a pump would need to reach to the bottom of the skin tank, not possible if it is correctly fitted with internal baffles.

Our Multiplus has both options, dip switches to set everything up + a socket for a data cable, only prob is the socket is behind the front plate so we would have to take that off every time we wanted to connect a computer. I have considered cutting an access hole but keep bottling out, maybe Victron do a replacement panel, I must give them a ring sometime.

When I first fitted our Leece Neville it didn't come with any instructions so I connected the field wire in accordance with the Adverc instructions and it worked fine for a couple of years or more until one day it stopped charging, just like that in the middle of a bulk charge. Turned out it was a manual excitable alternator and it had somehow managed to self excite until then, so I decided to permanently jump a short cable from ve+ to what I thought was the exciter terminal but instead it was the ignition light terminal (I mistook the actual exciter terminal for a tacho output) took a couple of weeks before it went kaput. After replacing alternator I downloaded the specs from their website and fixed up a momentary push button to the correct terminal, quite handy as I can now wait until engine has run for a short while before bringing in the extra load. Alternator will still self excite if battery voltage is high enough, I think the reason for self excite failing may be due to the fact that our batteries were starting to die and voltage in bulk was too low. ETA: Leece Neville decided to stop fitting an adjustable regulator as standard because it was being set too high with the result of fried windings, the main reason I decided to disconnect our DAR and just rely on standard reg.

Try sterilising it with thin household bleach. LINK

Yes that's what I meant as mentioned in an earlier post, maybe double thickness steel on the rounded section to compensate for a sacrificial chine, or instead of rounded a 45 deg angled corner.

Yes I can see that a chine could do that but I was considering a wide chine versus a narrow one which I would have thought wouldn't make much difference, whereas a boat without a chine would be safer.

We decided on a DIY tubular frame, main reason was wanting access to the bow tank and to assist tying off mooring ropes though if we had a bow gas locker it would assist with that also. Side screens rolling up to the centre board (a length of PVC down pipe!) avoids having to duck when entering or leaving, in the pic you can see wooden dowelling (broom handles!) which can be hinged up to provide a nice solid and squared off edge, these are quite handy as the front of the frame is 'H' shaped to give more headroom.

Of course, I was thinking of getting caught when going down which a deep sacrificial chine wouldn't play a part in, but going up is a different story.

Can't speak for the rest but to reduce plate corrosion associated with long float charges Victron has a 4th stage reduced voltage float charge, also monitors and gives a weekly boost charge.

Some have the grease entering on the bottom to keep it out of the way of big clod hopping boots.

I am assuming that the risk of a deep overhang getting caught up is down to the idea that the baseplate is wider than normal, is that what we are talking about. If so then a standard width base plate with the sides set in further is not a risk?

Yes I think most baseplates are based(?!) on a standard 2m wide steel plate. Was Birmingham Square perhaps based on old steel width of 6'10"? I am just guessing here.

Same here, I put it down to having lots of batts (8) preventing voltage crashing, lasts us 24 hrs before a couple of hours charge needed, we give it a weekly 8 hr absorption with genny and Victron.

We have about 1"-1.5" overhang, doesn't make the boat any wider as the baseplate is a standard width anyway, it just means the hull side has been set in a bit more than usual, gives slightly less width inside. One advantage is having room to weld a couple of extra anodes without increasing boat width.

Posted 31 August 2011 - 04:42 PM nb Innisfree, on 31 August 2011 - 04:09 PM, said: Gibbo, I have a BMV monitor, great, I have had quite a bit of enjoyment out of it but got pissed off with percentage readings so I bought a Smartgauge to supplement it. Not quite as much fun as you can't fiddle about with it as much but that's ok as I only want it for percentage readings. Now the thing is you may or may not recall my AGM batts are down to somewhere in the region of 45% capacity left, might have improved a bit since I adopted regular 8hr raised absorption charges, but as I don't know what level of inaccuracy my Smartgauge is reading I can't trust the reading. Is it possible for you to give me a rough ballpark figure? If it is within, say, 5% then I could get by until our batts give up the fight for survival and we get nice new ones. Also at what level of batt capacity would the inaccuracy be impractical. Thanks. Difficult one this. The full answer is, it could be reading complete rubbish. What happens is that once the batteries fall below about 50% they're actually not just living with reduced capacity, they are broken. This means that everything SG uses and relies on to get the SOC is nothing more than random information. The nett result is that it calculates complete rubbish. The only way I could work it out is if you can run two complete discharges, at two wildly different constant currents, from totally full down to totally flat and log the current and voltage right the way through at a minimum of 1 minute intervals. At the start, after fully charging, the batteries need to stand, with neither load nor charge, for 48 hours before starting the discharge run. Which is, in all fairmess, practically impossible to do in a living environment. But if you can... This post has been edited by Gibbo: 31 August 2011 - 04:42 PM

Sorry, I should have gone to Specsavers, not a very nice thing to be accused of. I'll put you back on my favourites list.

What he's saying is the grease when pumped into the space around the shaft will either go backwards between the shaft and bearing to the outside (which you refer to as a "passage way") or forwards past the stuffing gland, the direction it takes depends on which route is easier, slack stuffing gland and it will go that way, tight stuffing gland will prevent grease exiting there so the only route out is between the shaft and bearing. To clean this "passage way" tighten gland right up up and keep pumping until clean fresh grease appears at the exit of the propshaft, it may take a complete greaser full or more. Don't forget to readjust packing gland.

And me until he posted his picture, beard and ginger....aaarrgh