Roger Gunkel

Mike, I had some smelly black water in the cabin bilge a while back and found that rain was coming down the chimney and seeping around the flue join at the collar. It was then finding it's way behind the lining and dripping down the side of the boat into the cabin bilge. It was only during fairly prolonged rain when there was no fire alight, just the sort of conditions we have had lately. It could also be leaking slightly around the collar to roof fitting. I might be way off base, but it would be worth checking as you haven't found any other source. Roger

The Two Tees Boatyard at Cambridge built a number of wooden cruisers similar to the one in the picture and I know that there are still a few arround. One of their's was destroyed in a petrol explosion near me a couple of years ago, which I posted pics of here. Hi Ditchcrawler, it was good to see Harnser coming past us at Upware yesterday, presumably on your way up from Cambridge Roger

My LB widebeam built in 2004 has the standard LB fitted button in the centre of the control lever at the pivot point. There are several other LB boats here that are all the same. The button is a black plastic disc flush with the casting of the lever and needs to be pushed in to disengage the gear select. Mine has fallen out a couple of times and it appears to just cover the securing nut at the centre pf the lever, but without the plastic button, it is very difficult to disengage. Is it possible that yours has never been there? If so, then the neutral position will only be at tickover point. My other boat and others that I have previously owned, have all had pullout buttons or Knobs. Roger

I had a similar problem on my small motorsailer recently after it was laid up through the Winter and not run for some months. I drained water from the seperator before first starting and also checked for signs of diesel bug. I have had it perviously on this boat and it is easy to spot as it looks like very fine gloopy mint sauce. There were no signs of bug, so I attempted to start the engine, which fired up and ran for a couple of minutes before slowing and stopping. It then fired a couple of times but wouldn't run. The fuel filter was checked and I found quite a bit of water contamination, so emptied it out, flushed it with meths and manually refilled it with fresh diesel. The engine fired again and ran for about 2 minutes. I then bled the whole system and checked that the lift pump was working but to no avail, so checked for fuel delivery anf finally found that no fuel was coming through the tank on/off supply tap. I ended up taking the fuel supply upstand pipe out of the tank and found that the bottom end of it was completely blocked. It was also only about 4mm from the bottom of the tank when in position, so I guessed that it had picked up sludge and sediment from the bottom of the tank over a long time. I sawed an inch off the pipe, used an extractor to get out as much muck as possible and reprimed and bled the system. It started immediately and now runs smoothly and sweetly. EDITED TO SAY that a partial blockage may still allow the engine to start and run at low speed or on tickover, but with not enough fuel to keep it going when revs are increased. Finally, if you do find evidence of diesel bug, it is not neccessarily as big a problem as is often feared. Over 8 years of having the boat and leaving it standing for long periods, I have found the bug on 3 occasions and each time cleared it with Marine 16 or Starbrite diesel bug treatment. With both products it worked in about 3 hours, although you need to make sure that you put a drop in the filters etc to kill anything in the lines. I now always leave treated fuel in the tank over Winter and have remained bug free for the last couple of years. Roger

As you say, racing yachts are only expected to last for a short time, so for this reason are designed to totally different specifications compared to a blue water cruising yacht. Hull design and construction is for optimum speed to weight ratio, as is the frequently oversized rig and fittings. The number of keel to hull failures and spar failures bears testament to this, whereas ocean cruising yachts carry on for decades without those sort of structural failures given normal maintenance. The relationship in vessels between the racing and cruising fraternities would be somewhat akin to the relationship between road and grandprix cars. Roger

My Albin 25 is 38 years old, and has just been refloated after a scrub off and new antifouling and hull painting. The was no Osmosis anywhere on the hull at all. Osmosis, when it is present, is perfectly curable and there are many boats that have been bought with osmosis present and still carried out long distance voyages with no problems.. In my searches for a bigger seagoing boat over the past months, I have seen a number of steel yachts with considerable rust problems at vastly reduced prices, but proportionately far fewer grp yachts with worrying osmosis.. Roger

A good point Tim, but also worth mentioning that having the training and paperwork gives a number of important benefits. It makes it legal, it gives you the knowledge to use correct channels and procedures for quick responses and the confidence to use it. A properly licensed VHF DSC radio will also be able to transmit vital boat information, details etc in an emergency. The mmsi number will give coastguards access to information about your boat which could be essential or at least very useful in an emergency situation. That would include size and type of your vessel, which would be invaluable in a rescue scenario, and contact information for reference. All in response to a 5 second push of the emergency button. Most narrowboat users would never need it, but for those that frequent tidal waterways, the comparatively low cost of radio and training could be life saving as well as convenient. Roger

I think that a lot of casual boaters just don't see how vital for safety a VHF radio is on commercial waterways and offshore. It is also essential to have the propert training to understand how to use the channels and procedures. For commercial operations it is a perfectly normal and everyday communication to make working safe and efficient, so having a small private boat blundering into the middle of this without radio, is frustrating and potentially highly dangerous. Using correct radio procedures in a leisure vessel will get quick, professional and helpful response. Whilst coming back into Great Yarmouth on my little Motorsailer recently, I was instructed by port control to stay close in to the right of the channel and wait as a large oil support ship was reversing out of the port. The ship immediately responded directly to me, saying that they could see me clearly and for me to proceed at normal speed. A few minutes later, I was again asked to hold my position as another large vessel was about to manouver fro one side of the port to the other by thrusters alone for cargo loading. Again the bridge of the ship radioed me directly to thank me for my patience and saying that they would wait for me to pass rather than delaying me for what could be a lengthy process. I mentioned this as an example of how VHF communication is to the benefit of amateur and professional alike in a commercial environment. Roger

Here are a couple of extra things to help you sleep better:- When steel rusts, the oxidisation process causes it to swell up 8-10 times its thickness, so if you see a 1mm thick flake of rust, then it is only about 1/10th of a mm of metal. As you have 6mm of steel on your hull, I would only start worrying if your rust flake was nearer 50mm thick Secondly, if you are worried about a sudden hole developing in thin metal and the boat suddenly sinking, it won't happen. Let's say hypothetically that in 25 years time, areas of the metal have rusted through lack of maintenance to allow rust to eat right through the steel. It would first start as a tiny pinprick at the centre of the thinnest point. That would lead to a gentle weeping of water into the bilges over weeks or months, which would be noticed long before the boat was in any danger of sinking and it could be hauled out and repaired. Even if the steel became perforated from the inside outwards, it is quite likely that no leak would develop for quite some time if the hull had been regularly blacked, due to the blacking covering over the tiny perforation Sleep well, Roger

But are you actually worried about being locked out of an empty room? Roger

Hi Slumdog, There is someethong not quite right with your figures here, so some more precise information would be helpful. 750mAh batteries would be less than 1ah each, whereas if you mean 750ah then they would be massive. You also say they are new but off big plant machinery, so does that mean new to your boat but previously used, or brand new from the manufacturer? One hour per day engine running is unlikely to be enough to replace even a fairly small ammount of daily battery use and your figure of 12.38v suggests that you are starting off with only about 65% left in your batteries. What other electrical equipment are you running on the boat, to give us an idea of your useage, TV, lights, pumps, fridge etc. Roger