Keeping Up

Mine will always swing gently to the right if I leave it in gear when I let go of the tiller, unless something else affects it (wind or shallow water for example). But if I throttle back to tickover the swing is only very slight, and if I put it in neutral I have easily enough time to go below and put the kettle on. However after several attempts (and a couple of embarrassing failures) I must report that there isn't enough time to go for a pee unless I slow the boat right down first.

It wasn't an option when we had Keeping Up built. Garden Hose (when worm-free) or any other form of conduit is also an option

No, neither do I

It could be worse, imagine if you had a boat called "Essex" Well my daughter always used to think it was - and she's a brunette

I've never steered one, but on one occasion we caught up with one on the Llangollen. He was going as fast as he could without creating any wash, we weren't making any wash but quickly caught him and he pulled over to wave us past saying that people had been passing him all day and he couldn't keep up with any of them.

That's one reason I developed the Satellite Sundial. And in answer to some other points; it doesn't matter how good your dish is, if you're behind a tree you won't get a satellite signal. But the angle of the satellite above the horizon will often mean the signal can clear the trees that are on the opposite side of the cut, if they aren't too tall.

A lovely shot, thanks for posting it. Interesting to see how it highlights the difference in the bow shapes of the two boats.

We had an SR3, I've always loved them. They'll always get you home. Ours used to get a bit warm on hot days, and would slow down. Trying to go too fast for hours on the tidal Trent once (attempting Newark to Keadby in one go) on a very hot day, the SR3 turned into an SR2 with a seized exhaust valve, but kept going and got us into Keadby (albeit with a huge crash when we hit the lock wall after the engine stopped as I throttled back to engage reverse as we approached Keadby Lock). The remaining 2 cylinders got us across the L&L to Wigan, but coming down the flight with the engine switched off, breasted up to another boat, the water flowing over the top gates ran up the exhaust pipe and filled one of the other cylinders with water. It wouldn't turn over until I lifted the decompressor, and with a fountain of water she started running as an SR1. That SR1 never missed a beat for day after day until suddenly the waterlogged cylinder burst into life again. When we got back to Braunston it took half a day to take the heads off, fit a new valve, and turn it back into an SR3. Yes I'd have one again.

Although the insulation of the wiring appears to be unaffected after it has dissolved away the polystyrene that it is contact with, does the loss of its plasticiser mean that it will have become brittle and therefore could fail?

Also think about how you actually want the boat to sit. Our first boat had a high bow which was also not very deep in the water. The boat got blown off course by the wind very easily, and pivoted around a point half-way back when steering. Our current boat sits almost level so it is much better in the wind, it steers by pivoting much nearer the front which I find much easier, and things don't roll back along the floor inside.

Our insulation is made of polystyrene sheets. After 10 years the cables had dissolved their way into the polystyrene sheets. As far as I could tell the cable's outer insulation was undamaged (they are all twin flex in PVC sheath). I had some difficulty separating them, then solved the problem by pushing garden-hose over the cables in situ to act as conduit. Top Tip; if using a garden hose as conduit, make sure it isn't full of baby worms which will grow and then spend the next 12 months dropping out of the ceiling on your head.

Excellent. We'll do that. Last time we made it up to Kempston Mill, in rather full river conditions. I doubt we'll go that far upstream this time.

The flight of a lock would be interesting to see

Well there's one notable omission there, the Great Ouse. We'll be there later in the summer Our plan is to join up with Janet down to London. then up the Thames and staying around to include Devizes and Lechlade before completing the loop via the Oxford to Braunston. Then down the Nene to cross the Middle Level and spend some time on the Great Ouse to Bedford before retracing our steps back to Milton Keynes (15 minutes from Bedford to MK by car, at least 2 weeks by boat!)

First the easy one: yes the calorifier is the thing that looks like a hot water tank and it may well be in the shower room (not having seen your boat I can't tell if it's the shower room or not ) The next easy one, yes you do need antifreeze in the central heating system, even when it is driven by a Squirrel. There should be a header tank somewhere, that you can top up; it could be anywhere, so you'll just have to search for it. The only clues I can give you are (1) it will be higher up than the top of the stove or any of the radiators and (2) it is connected to the pipework somewhere. OK they're pretty obvious clues, I know, but from there onwards you're on your own! When you've found it, the way to get antifreeze in is first to drain some (or all) of the water, usually at a radiator, then pre-mix some water and antifreeze and add it to the header tank; of course you need to ensure it gets mixed in by perhaps daraining some more so it runs out of the header tank, then by running the system. You don't of course need antifreeze until the cold weather comes - but the "morning after" could be too late. Also you should use conventional antifreeze just like the type you put in a car, and that includes an inhibitor so it's best to put it in anyway. Now for quantities. Difficult. You'll need more than 4 litres, that's for sure. The engine manual won't include the pipework, as you say, but the pipes aren't going to hold a lot. But before you breathe too big a sigh of relief, the skin tank is likely to hold at least as much as the engine. And as for the heating system, well that's anybody's guess. You could perhaps estimate it by finding out the capacity of the radiators and work from there. Personally, particularly as you don't know what if anything is in there already and how long it has/hasn't been there would be to drain everything - engine, skin tank radiators, the lot - and see how much comes out, then refill it as appropriate. As for how to do all that, it's a long story, so can you do it OK?

If you were getting water in the oil, maybe the filter material disintegrated in the water?

If you think Mississippi is bad, here's a sentence you can try: She is 5 and she is his sister You must use the numerical 5, not spell it out; and use the accepted abbreviation "es" for "and"

Good evening Patr and welcome. As an MC42 owner and devotee I hope I can answer your question. The usual setup is that the engine cooling system includes the engine itself, the manifold water-jacket, the skin tank, possibly an oil-cooler for the gearbox, and a pair of pipes which take some of the hot water and pass it through a coil in a calorifier tank. The pressure cap is normally on the top of the manifold jacket. All of these share the same water/antifreeze mixture, so if you add antifreeze through the top of the manifold jacket (or, if there is one, to the additional header tank that connects into the top of it) that antifreeze will protect all those components assuming it has been properly circulated through the system. The calorifier tank itself is filled with water from the boat's fresh water system (which does not of course want antifreeze in it); the heating coil which is fed from the engine transfers heat to it but keeps the water systems separate. This gives you the hot water for the taps. It would be very unusual for the boat's heating system to be run directly from the engine - although of course anything is possible - and it would be normal for it to be heated by either a boiler (gas, diesel, or solid-fuel powered). As such the heating system would need to be protected by a separate infusion of antifreeze. It is also normal that the boiler which heats the radiators, if it is either gas or diesel, to heat also the hot water by means of a second coil in the calorifier. This doesn't make any difference to the antifreeze situation. Where the calorifier does have two coils in this way you can get a smaller amount of heat into the radiators by switching on the circulation pump without the boiler. The engine heats the first coil which heats the water in the calorifier tank which heats the second coil which passes some heat to the radiators. Is this perhaps why you state that the engine heats both the hot water and the heating system, or does the boat have an unusual and possibly unique setup of some type?

I beg to differ. The term "flight of locks" is singular.

The first winter we left our boat unattended and unheated, with all the taps open. The calorifier tank, which is vertical and inside the boat expanded and bulged out to a hemisphere at the bottom like a giant Weeble.

That sounds far too high a pressure to me. I thought it was supposed to be nearer 1 bar (15psi)

Also remember you will not be able to use the full height; you probably won't want to fill it to the top if you can avoid it, and you won't be able to pump out the last half-inch or so (there's a trade-off between the necessary clearance to be sure there won't be a blockage when pumping out, versus the desire to get the end of the pipe as near the bottom of the tank as possible). So a flat low tank has less usable capacity than a small high one of the same cubic capacity.