Roger Gunkel

A great idea at first glance, but probably pointless in practice. To get the equivalent of what your 1kw immersion gives you from a 230w solar panel is really a bridge too far. Your panels will only get anywhere near their maximum theoretical output under ideal conditions and that will only be for about 3 -4 hours in the height of Summer on a perfect day. If you look at the average output over a day from one of your panels, it will be way down on the maximum. It would take many hours to get any worthwhile heat into the tank, assuming that none of the output was being diverted to battery charging during the course of the day. To try it, you should find that your controller has a direct load output, which would route surplus 12v to a load such as a 12v immersion heater, but personally, if I had that much surplus powe available, I would expand the battery bank to take advantage of it. Of course if you have enough sunshine to give you that much surplus, you would get much quicker and more efficient water heating by putting a black flexible water storage bag on the roof, and feeding the output pipe via gravity to a suitable outlet. Roger

I was doing some work on my sea boat at Reedham on the Norfolk Broads last week, and dropped into the local Sanderson's Marine. They were busy antifouling one of their hire cruisers with black bitumen. When I asked them about it, they said they had been doing it for years with no problems. The boats are constantly working the area around Great Yarmouth, which is tidal and salt. Roger

Hi Rupert, we don't have a skylight, although the bare steel rear hatch used to get very cold, so we insulated it with foam backed carpet, which made a big difference and stopped condensation on it. There is a thread about condensation in the FAQ section of the forum that you might find useful. Double glazing is straightforward to do yourself using clear acrylic sheet, and there are a number of suppliers that will cut to size and supply at a good price. We don't have any sort of cowl or reflector arround our stove as the fireproof backing and tiles allow the heat to rise normally and circulate through convection. The tiles do absorb heat and become warm, but the sprayfoam on the hull sides retains the heat in the boat anyway, so I can't see that a reflector would make much difference. We do have a 4" computer fan fitted on the ceiling at the start of the passage down the boat, which is left on as long as the stove is alight, basically all Winter, and helps stimulate the movement of the convecting air gently down the passage. Some people use the somewhat expensive ecofan, but personally I feel that air is best moved from the highest point it reaches, rather than the top of the stove where it can spoil the natural convection. Insulated lined curtains will help to retain some heat, but nowhere near as much as DG because they are not sealed, so moist air will still get around or through them, giving condensation on the glass. The air against the glass will still be cold from the outside air, and will drop down by convection below the curtain, giving cold draughts below the windows and round your legs. Its also a good idea to insulate floors, because although warm air rises, there can still be a noticeable loss through the generally uninsulated floor of the boat. Hope some of that helps, Roger

Our 57'x10' widebeam is heated by a single Evergreen stove which has a similar heat output to a Squirrel. We originally had an Eberspacher fitted when built, that that was unreliable and expensive to maintain and run for our 24/7 liveaboard life. The stove supplies all our heating needs, but that is because we have concentrated on retaining the heat rather than producing more. Most boats suffer from high heat loss compared wih a modern house, even those that are spray foam insulated as ours is. So rather than burning more and more fuel, we completely double glazed our boat, which has large windows, and made sure that areas behind cupboards, under beds etc had plenty of air circulation space and were well insulated. Also sealing hatches and doors properly, as sufficient normal ventilation will come through mushrooms and normal ventilators. The difference over the last couple of years has been amazing, with no cold spots and an even spread of heat, gradually reducing by a few degrees to our bedroom at the far end, which is how we like it. Roger

I didn't take your post as being a warning for me particularly Keith, and it is a very valid point that the alternators need to be matched. I am flattered at your suggestion that I have a good level of electrical knowledge but my knowledge is pretty basic based on information gleaned here and trial and error. I am always happy to listen to those who have already been where I am heading Roger

Hi guys, apologies for not getting back sooner, internet connection has been down this morning Thanks for the replies and it seems that my idea is pretty straight forward and workable. Thanks Chris for the link to the previous thread, particularly Gibbo's emphatic post which seems to confirm my own thoughts. Arthur, I have been running 200w of solar for the last couple of years, and I am quite sure that we will manage with the increase to 500w + 100 backup, and our wind generator which I had forgotten to mention. The paralleling of the alternators will give us a good extra boost through the Winter with our greatly reduced electrical consumption. My experience with solar is that the figure of 10% is based on estimated optimal highs and minimal lows, but in actual real life use, we have been getting more than that through the winter as optmal levels are rarely reached at both end of the scales. Bottle, both alternators are identical which should make paralleling an easy option and a cost free increasing of the charging rate. I've never seen the point of a 75ah alternator to charge a starter battery that is used for maybe 5 seconds a day. Blodger, Innisfree, By'eck, Biggles, thanks for the input, I think I will keep it as simple as possible at the moment, literally just attaching the alternator outputs to the same bank terminals, before going down a more electrically sophisticated route. As Gibbo said, the alternators already have enough built in electrics to sort themselves out. Roger

Apologies if this has been covered before, but life is about to change and I am looking at ways to increase our charging. After being liveaboards on a marina based residential mooring for eight years with shortish trips away from base, we are going to be leaving the luxury of mains hookup, for an extended period of off grid living. I will be extending our existing 200 watts of solar pv to 500 watts, but as the engine is fitted with two 75 ah alternators, wondered whether it is possible to disconnect the output of the starter battery alternator and connect both alternators to the domestic bank. If so, is it just a simple matter of paralleling up the outputs, or will this lead to damage to one or both alternators? Hopefully if this is possible, it will considerably shorten the bulk phase of the charging process of the 500ah battery bank in the short term, with the solar giving a lower sustained output for the later charging stages. I am not worried about flattening the starter battery, as there will be another 100w solar panel permanently connected to it, plus a back up battery kept in charged condition. All batteries will be new as they are all due for replacement, all lighting will be leds and we will be replacing any high consumption appliances. Roger

A house won't pay for care for long if you still owe a big mortgage on it. A small house won't pay for as much care as a big house, a small boat won't pay for as much care as a small house. So many people seem to be obsessed with how much money will be available when they are too old to look after themselves, that they forget about enjoying life now. Why go through life constantly worrying about what might happen when you get old? Go through life enjoying it and confront old age if and when it happens. Throughout all my adult life I have known friends and family who died before their time and for whom no ammount of planning or money would have helped for an old age that never came! What does it matter how much you have hoarded away or invested in your life of worry, knowing that it will all go to some care home who are unlikely to give a toss about some bed wetting, babbling old fogey, providing the care home owner can enjoy the lixury life your money will bring. Roger

They are temperamental because they have only ever run properly on low sulphur diesel, it's just that the manufacturers and builders didn't bother to to tell boat users. It does say it in the small print somewhere in the technical spec under the fuel specificatipn EN590 or current equivalent. Roger

It's not meant to be a fair comparison, just a statement of fact. Before getting the iPad, I had to boot up a windows laptop to get online, whereas now it takes a few seconds on the iPad. I have been editing audio and video on pc based systems since they were first able to do so, and observed those with Macs doing the same thing. Initially the PC systems were much more prone to locking up or crashing, but over the last 15 years I can find absolutely no advantage in using Mac based editing. My contacts in the business that use Macs don't seem able to do more with their systems than I can, despite spending considerably more money than I. On the contrary, particularly in the area of 3d, the Macs lag way behind, and are also hampered by being tied to quicktime which is a pain in the rear end. Last weekend, I did some filming for a friend who runs a small commercial video production company when one of his cameramen let him down. His expensive Mac system running Final Cut Pro, was unable to read my HD M2TS files straight from the camera, so I had to convert them for him using my PC editing suite. I also visited the BVE broadcast industry show last year to look at 3d editing systems and the only Mac based one that came anywhere near what I can do on my Acer 3d Win 7 laptop would have set me back close to £10k. I did get some snotty knowing comments when I mentioned that I worked on PC editing, until one salesman went on line with me to check out my claims for the software I was using. The difference in price was over £9500. Roger

My main business is video and audio production work and my experience is tha in both areas, most professionals use Macs. I think the reason is that the earlier computer based audio and video sustems were much more stable and faster on Macs than on the Windows platform. The die was cast and subsequent upgrades in the industry have usually been along the traditional Mac route. Most students would have trained on Macs and become comfortable with them, just has happened in the printing and design industries. In my own case, cost was an important part early on, so I have always used Windows based computers for both Audio and Video work and I have yet to find things that I can't do on the Windows platform. I carry out regular 3d video filming and editing and a Mac 3d programme would cost me many times more for the same facilities that I have on my Windows laptop. The laptop is also 3d, which as far as I know, Apple do not make, so I would also need very expensive additional monitoring equment. Roger

I haven't had a chance to look at the Nexus, but I will when I get into Cambridge again. My iPad came with full gps built in and I downloaded the Navfree road navigation app, which has been brilliant. I like the fact tmhat in addition to the full postcode search, you can also do an online google search for places and store the location for offline navigation. For offshore nav, I use the Navionics UK and Holland charts for the full 800+ uk charts. Imray have their range of Uk charts also available for the iPad, although the whole Uk would be a lot more than the Navionics ones. Roger

I have two Windows laptops in daily use, plus my wife uses an Acer eec notebook on Linux. I happened to remark to my son at the end of last year that I might get a cheap android pad with gps for sea navigation charts and easy wifi connectivity. He decided that I needed an iPad and bought me one for Christmas. I have never bothered with Apple products for most of the reasons people have said, and have always found PC software much more varied, greater choice and far cheaper. I was delighted that he had bought me the iPad, but had a sinking feeling that it would rarely get used as I only really wanted it for navigation, any Apple add ons were ridiculously expensive and I would be frightened of damaging it. I also considered it a bit of a fashionable item, with owners saying how wonderful they were to justify their expenditure. Well 6 months down the road, I have bought cheap non Apple hardware add ons, for SD and usb connections, an extra long power hookup, faux leather protective case and a screen protector. All of these have cost less than £25 in total, plus I have downloaded some amazing free apps including a superb road nav programme, far better than Tom Tom, plus some low cost apps for more serious use, all less than I would have paid for my Win laptops programmes. The iPad is incredibly fast to load up, being virtually instantly on line whereas my laptops would take several minutes to fully boot up and get online. It is far quicker and more convenient for just about every programme I use, with the laptops now just being used for my business of video editing. I have also looked at a number of cheaper alternative pads to replace my wife's Acer notebook, and have found nothing to come close to the iPad. It puts me in mind of those Volkswagen Golf adverts, where the customer is looking at other cars and the salesman say 'Just like a Golf'. It might be cheaper but it ain't an iPad, in my opinion after 6 months, they are bloody good. Roger

One elderly relative of mine collapsed with a heart attack in the bathroom of his house. It took an hour for the emergency services to get him out of the bathroom as he had fallen across the door preventing it from opening. He has recovered but with much reduced health and left unable to get up the stairs of his house to his bedroom or bathroom. Another house is coming up for sale! I don't intend to sound facetious, merely illustrating that age and fitness can present major difficulties wherever we live and each change of circumstances can call for adaption, whether living on a boat or in a house. The arguments about not being able to lift gas cylinders, black the boat, do maintenance work are equally as relevant in a house environment, but with a slightly different tilt. Unable to clean the windows, get up the front steps, cut the grass, rod out the drains etc, etc. If you want to do something badly enough and are currently fit enough, do it now before you are preparing to meet your maker regretting all the things you failed to do when you were able. I am 65, been living on my widebeam for nearly 8 years and am currently planning to upgrade my other sailing boat to sail down to the Med and beyond. Whether I have my fitness for a further 6 months or 20 years is irrelevant. I can do it now and am not afraid of what may happen in an unpredictable future. I was talking to a Mcmillan nurse yesterday who was telling me that one of the saddest parts of her job is listening to patients talking about how they regretted letting opportunities pass them by before illness struck. Roger

I'd agree with that! There are no safe places to make for if the weather changes between say Boston and Wells, or Wells and Great Yarmouth. At narrowboat speeds, you would be looking at 10+ hours at sea on each leg, and with wind over tide conditions and the water movement through the channels, there are frequently nasty short and steep waves even on comparatively calm days. I have made the trip from Kings Lynn to Gt Yarmouth a couple of times in my 25ft displacement sea boat, and encountered unexpectedly rough seas that would have been dangerous and possibly disastrous for many inland waterways boats. Phylis has done the trip in her power cruiser, but with the speed capability to take advantage of favourable weather and tides. I'm sure she would agree that it can be a dangerous stretch of coast for an unsuitable boat. Roger

Used Tom Tom for about 3 years and found it very reliable. Now having a smartphone with GPS, I tried the free. Navfree app which I think is superior to any satnav I have used. Since getting an Ipad with gps, the same app also works on that, and I have a dash adapter to mount it like a conventional but large satnav. The Navfree programme has frree map downloads for most European countries, plus full postcoade search and various add ons for very low cost. You can also use Google search for unusual addresses or destinations that you have no road name for. You can do the google search while you are on line, and just enter the search result by tapping the map where shown. You can then use it off line for the actual navigation. Even with a smaller screen on a smart phone, the voice instructions are very good meaning you don't neccessarily need to look at the screen when driving. If you've already got a gps enabled phone, then for free its a no brainer Roger

Welcome to the forum It's probably the only canal and inland waterways forum with anything worthwhile to offer, and a mine of information and discussion. Happy posting, Roger

The jetstream tells you a lot and I like this site Jetstream. There is a tutorial on interpreting what you see and there are a number of other areas including rain radar, which can be great for seeing whats coming in the next few hours. Roger