nicknorman

The Recreational Craft Directive and other such boat design rules require stability assessments. In order to guarantee stability, the case where everyone on board all go to one side of the boat has to be taken into account. In order to know how much effect this will have, there has to be a known (maximum) number of people on board. In the case of the RCD, the plaque will specify the maximum number of people on board. For our boat it is 8, IIIRC. If you exceed that, the certification of the boat is invalid and under those circumstances the insurance co. has a good get-out. For a narrowboat, you would stand eg 8 people on the gunnel at one side, and hope it doesn’t roll over.

I noticed our 11 year old shoreline fridge was running the compressor a lot of the time, even in average weather. In hot weather it wasn’t cold enough. I suspected low gas. Yes it was an older type of gas but I managed to get a top up kit from ebay with a compatible gas, around £80 IIRC. This fixed the problem. Sorry, I realise it is too late for you.

I think the thing with paralleling several Li batteries with built in BMS comes down to the limitations of the BMS and what happens if there is imbalance in current handling at high loads. If you need to take out 3C (C of each battery) in a triple paralleled setup, you hope that the current is evenly shared between the batteries. But differences in on resistance of the BMS MOSFETs, and their positive resitance vs temperature coefficient means that if you discharge close to the limits of the BMSs you risk a cascade failure - one BMS has slightly higher resistance which means it gets hotter which means the resistance increases which means it gets even hotter etc etc. But IMO if you never discharge (or charge) close to the BMS current limit, as is the case for narrowboats most of the time, I can't see it being a problem.

What you need to do is get rid of that lithium rubbish and put in plenty of lead acid. That would sort it!

Ah yes, missed the link, sorry.

My mate had 2 boats built in Rugby ( or Hillmorton anyway). One in around 1974, built by Colin Payne as a sailaway. It had a wooden top, 47’ trad stern with lister 3 pot air cooled engine. The other was I think fitted out in Rugby by Barry Smith (I think?) but the hull was Evans, completed around 1990. Maybe if the OP posted some photos of their boat, people might recognise the maker?

According to the manfacturer it is not knackered, it is just resting or maybe a bit stunned.

Correct.

Not if they are lithium batteries, which they are.

It would be possible but very ineffective because the amount of heat transferred from the exhaust to the outside of the exhaust pipe is not a lot. And if you extract heat from an exhaust system, the cooling hot gasses (which contain a lot of H2O) condense. Permanently having liquid water in the exhaust is not going to make for a long and happy life

It’s an air cooled engine, there is no engine coolant to circulate through a calorifier.

I don’t know, I was just repeating what you said. But my point was that with a release of pressure from eg a PRV, this wouldn’t happen.

Well yes and no. Yes if you allow the pressure to drop, the whole volume will turn to steam. But this won’t happen eg if a PRV opens. Enough water will turn to steam to keep the pressure inside the calorifier constant. So yes eventually all the water will exit the PRV as steam, but what won’t happen is that all the water turns instantly to steam and increases the pressure in the calorifier such that eg it bursts. Well, unless the calorifier bursting is the first release of pressure. But then you have already passed the normal thermostat, the overtemp cutoff stat, and the PRV. Normally one doesn’t consider triple failures of triplexed protection systems.

I would go for 1kw. Although the Li could cope with 2kw everything is a bit more stressed (battery cables, inverter etc) with prolonged operation at 2kw. And if you are lucky, on a sunny day the solar will provide most of it. You will have a problem in winter though, lots of engine running ie more than 3 x engine time for every 1 time at 1kw. Have you considered another source of hot water such as a diesel heater for the calorifier or an instant gas water heater? You could plumb the latter in with a changeover valve so you can use the instant gas heater in winter and switch to the calorifier powered by solar/batteries in summer.

I think a normal domestic immersion heater only has a very small temperature coefficient (variation of resistance with temperature) so the nominal power rating of 1kw or 2kw is all you need to consider. I think you may have been looking at eg aquarium immersion heaters which have a large temperature coefficient in order to provide a degree of temperature regulation. There is a difference between a MS vs Screwfix heater element, the former is designed for boats with a calorifier heated by the engine. They have the "last resort" thermal trip set to a higher temperature so that it doesn't trip with engine coolant at close to boiling point. But in your case, with an air cooled engine, you might as well use the Screwfix one. We have 1kw, that is quite adequate when you are connected to shore power for long periods. Hot water rises to the top so you get some hot water pretty quickly, but if you want the whole tank hot then it does take a few hours. If you want to heat the water up quickly then maybe 2kw would be better, but if you are not on shore power then where is the electrical power going to come from. If from batteries/alternator/inverter, I suggest that 1kw is a better option.

I don't really see any crossfire to get caught in for compliant boaters. You can stop during the day for free. An overnight stay costs £12. Where is the crossfire? Surely controlling overstaying mooring-hog boats is a good thing?

I can’t remember how busy it was when we last passed through there, but probably the council has given the contract to DE because of a problem with pisstaking overstaying boats. Getting rid of those boats, who won’t be spending money in the local pubs and restaurants, will be good for local businesses. £12 to moor overnight is fairly common around there. Keeping moorings free from long term pisstakers is surely good for leisure boaters?

Moor somewhere else?

held on with tie-wraps, can't see that lasting too long! But otherwise it seems reasonable, you can stop for shopping, sight seeing etc but if you want to stay overnight you have to pay, as seems fairly common on much of the Thames. But they need a proof reader - access instead of excess!

Anyway I think the takeaway point is that there are differing views on the subject. Each party is inclined to think that only their view has merit and everyone else’s is barking. This is a common problem these days in regard to just about any topic. Societal polarisation. Personally I compromise by observing the demeanour of the steerer /crew / boat and take an educated guess - and in some cases I will propose the dreaded thumbs up when I am standing by a paddle. In other cases I don’t. Generally seems to work. My point is that it would be good if everyone made compromises, and the opposing viewers don’t consider themselves to be so righteous in expecting the dreaded thumby thing. There is actually no right answer. I tend to side with tradition, other people want to promote new behaviours. No point in having a war about it, there will not be a winner. And it causes people to stay with their boats and not help at locks in order to avoid the conflict. But equally, let us not automatically descend to the lowest common denominator. Well, not without a fight anyway!

But quite often the steerer isn’t expecting some gesticulating ritual and looks at me wondering WTF I haven’t just opened the paddles. Or worse, doesn’t make eye contact at all. How long should one wait under those circumstances? I disagree that reading the situation and then acting on what you see (which may or may not include a thumby gesture) is bad manners, but then of course as we all know manners are a human invention and it depends on which set of manners you subscribe to. Do you belch at the end of the meal? Do you eat all your rice or leave a bit? There is no right answer when it comes to manners, just your opinion and what you are accustomed to. If you assert that your manners are the only correct ones then you are on a slippery slope. Personally I think it is a bit rude to think that I might be so incompetent as to not be ready for the paddles to be opened once the gates are closed - that I might not have thought it would happen. And I have to expend extra energy wiggling my thumb around in order to pacify a nervous crew.

Is there actually a single incidence of someone suing someone for the way they operated a lock? Ever? I don’t think so, so I’m sorry but I’m putting this concept in the “scaremongering” compartment.

But surely here the issue is less about lack of thumbs up and more about the paddle operators being oblivious to what is happening. In the situations you describe, a thumbs up might still have resulted in both paddles fully up and an inability to stop the boat careering forwards. The answer is not about a thumbs up which is a binary communication (ready or not ready) it should be about paddle operators monitoring what happens after they have raised a paddle. In the circumstances you describe there was plenty of time to observe the boat moving forwards and to wind down the paddles. If only they had been paying attention! Thumbs up does not address this issue. These days with so many precious and inexperienced private boaters not understanding that eg Atherstone flight is extremely tame compared to T&M, one does have to grit one’s teeth and go along with the requested half paddle etc. As has been said it is their boat and so their rules in the lock. But again I say this is unrelated to a thumbs up or not. Thumbs up does not carry any information about whether they are a one-click-wonder or a whackemup type.

Yes I get that but surely you can get a pretty good idea just by observing their demeanor and eg how the enter the lock - ie their body language both human and boat! As a volockie you obviously have to play it safe, but my gripe in this instance is about people creating friction by demanding a certain behaviour of other that is a recent invention, and that the passage of decades or centuries has been demonstrated as being superfluous. This ultimately is why people moan about other people not helping out at a lock queue - those other people are too scared of doing something not totally in keeping with the demands of the boaters in the lock and getting a row for it. The difference between us is that I don't deliberately lie about what other people posted in a pathetic attempt to win an argument.