nb Innisfree

Assuming of course the batts haven't lost any capacity, which is unlikely.

The vibration could be to do with play in the bottom cup. Some rudders are supported on the bottom cup only and the top bearing acts only to locate the post laterally. These are very common now with the top bearing made of plastic which incorparates a rubber O ring. Other rudders are supported at the cup and top bearing, the top bearing needs to be properly adjusted to remove play in the bottom cup which can be very fiddly whereas the former always sits snugly on the bottom cup and doesnt rattle there, if the top bearing rattles it only needs the O ring replacing to stop it by removing any play though this can be easier said than done as it involves removal of the tiller which can be difficult on more traditional designs.

As well as removing some leading edge I would try to lower the rudder post to get rid of any play in the bottom cup.

Basically the boards need an effective drip edge to ensure water only goes into the drainage channels, channels need to be properly designed to take water overboard. It's' not quite as straightforward as this though as it takes hours of observation to locate any design flaws and then modify it which can entail taking it all apart and reconstructing. Not something you can get any old boatfitter to do. It does help if, like me, you are a bit anal about it and obsessively pursue it to the possible annoyance of your missus, but after 40 years of marriage she has got used to me ? Our bilge pump has never self actuated and occasionally we have to sit it in a container of water to test it.

Last mod was capping the boards with ally chequer plate folded at the edges to act as a water drip into the drainage channels. Hardest bit was when a I divided boards in two to give more manageable twin boards, this entailed a small removable drainage channel under the gap between the boards, this also acts as an extra support and locking mechanism when closed boards are slid together and forward, they are then locked from the cabin to prevent anyone sliding them from the outside. Sounds complicated and is difficult to describe and was even harder for me to design it getting the old grey matter around the idea, but in the flesh it's quite simple and elegant.

Not wanting to sound smug but I kept persevering with mods to our deck boards until they were watertight, together with a Pythondrive which reduces stern gland drips to zero we have a dry engine bilge. (unless we have a leaking hose!) As mrsmelly says it really is down to proper design.

??? I would have paid money to see that.

Yes I have a change of mind, the 'floating caravan' idea seems more plausible, maybe the increasing tv coverage of canal boating has encouraged more inexperienced boat owners to leave their moorings. It does seem to me that rarely a day goes by without a glimpse of a narrowboat on tv, seems to be the in thing at the mo?

Pure speculation but could it be more boats on the cut due to the recession i.e. cheaper holidays on boats instead of going abroad which results in a higher proportion of boating beginners whereas previously it attracted more experienced and skilled enthusiasts.

The few Nbs I have seen launched with ballast spread evenly ove the whole cabin floor were stern heavy, in some cases necessatating some being removed from the rear. Wife and I listened to lots of conflicting advice from 'experts' and took great pains calculating, together and separately comparing our results and finished up with what looked like the wrong result, every one looked at our ballasted boat and said it was too far forward. But the maths said it was ok so when we launched it was with a certain trepidation, result was just as we predicted, phew! Just before we launched we were chatting to the boatbuilder Pat Buckle and he said it should be 2 thirds forward and 1 third aft. this was the only advice that agreed with our calcs and proved to be spot on. This goes to show that listening to advice is one thing but deciding which to act on is down to an act of faith, who to trust? We have always listened then done the maths and seen who's advice agrees with it. Many narrowboats seem quite high at the bows and I wonder if this is down to inaccurate ballasting by the unawares builder.

Think I may need to apologise, I read cobaltcodd's post as a question whereas you I think read it as a solution which would of course be unhelpful. In my defence it was worded as a question. I must remember not to jump in too quickly ?

So even less reason to ballast evenly I.e. heavier engine needs ballast moving forward. Or are you being ironic?

Yes Roger just simply parallel both alternators and connect them to your domestics only, when acceptance voltage is first reached one alternator will shut down leaving the other to carry on with absorptio, no damage. Assuming you have an inverter connect a small trickle charger for seperate starter batt for non sunny days.

Another myth is you can only dial 112 from a locked keypad when in fact it works with 112 and 999.

Just as well some can think out of the box instead of just criticising.

Trouble is the weight would be evenly distributed whereas it needs to be biased forward so if 20 mm equals max ballast required then extra will be needed to get the bow down which will result in deeper draught. These things need to be carefully calculated to arrive at max permissible baseplate thickness.

Is this done by triangulation or gps?

Rule of thumb is ballast distributed at a ratio of two thirds ahead of c of g and one third behind, both equally spaced of course, this will give a slight bow up trim which is about right Counter needs to be approx 2 to 3 inches uderwater, this will vary according to fuel/water level which results in boat see sawing slightly around the c of g. ETA: Why oh why do some builders ballast evenly all along the boat length? It has to be either a complete lack of understanding of displacement and weight distribution or a couldn't care less attitude.

We have a large 24v 100A Leece Neville which gives max output at low revs, means we only need to pulley up 2:1 which allows larger alt pulley to improve grip and belt life, only possible downside is less cooling effect from fan, best if an extra electric fan is used to augment it.

True but we chose a cruiser stern with tha addition of semi trad style 'wings' so we could enjoy spacious cruising. Having cruised together with a trad stern we are glad we made our choice. To maximise the space available we went for wheel steering which allows any passengers to sit on the deck wothout getting in the way of the steerer, another decision we are happy with.

For us it meant we could have separate longitudal 3' bunks because as liveaboards we didn't fancy sharing a 4' bed. . Other reasons were we could have a dedicated dining area/guest bed and a small back cabin for tools and coats. Anything shorter would mean losing one of these. One compromise we had to make to achieve this was a short 3' front deck.

After spending considerable time planning our layout we kept increasing the length until we arrived at 60', the reason being that we realised 60' with a bit of faffing about will go anywhere a 57' will go and that extra 3' makes a vital difference for full time living aboard especially as we would be spending more time moored than cruising as opposed to non liveaboards spending much more of their time cruising, no regrets so far. Of course if we had a pair we would have gone shorter, the one just mentioned with a detachable front end would be ideal but with maybe a 50:20 ratio?