Ballast

[Dave .Morialta]

HI All

Once we moved onto boat having loaded on all our personal belongings the boat list about a inch to the left. So eventually i got round to adding ballast in engine bay to correct list. However i have notice boat not sits lower at stern than it did....my question is if i put ballast in front will it lift stern or just lower the Bow.

[matty40s]

Fill the water tank first.

Then move some of the ballast from the engine bay to the front....same side.

Edited January 17, 2020 by matty40s

[WotEver]

10 minutes ago, Dave .Morialta said:

my question is if i put ballast in front will it lift stern or just lower the Bow.

To specifically address this question... The boat will pivot around its centre of buoyancy, so displacing any weight from the stern to the bow will see the stern rise as the bow sinks lower. 

[Dave .Morialta]

Sorry peoples this has been bugging me for months its not a new issue when tanks is full it lower slightly a bow rises a bit. I don't want to move ballast from stern as that correct list.If i put extra in front will the back rise ???

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Dave .Morialta said:

Sorry peoples this has been bugging me for months its not a new issue when tanks is full it lower slightly a bow rises a bit. I don't want to move ballast from stern as that correct list.If i put extra in front will the back rise ???

If you move some from the stern and put it near the bow - ON THE SAME SIDE - the list will not be affected.

[Dave .Morialta]

Yes i thought about that the problem is the only place in bow is in the gas locker which may make it difficult to get gas bottles out although i am thinking of investing in a couple of 25kg weights and putting them in there.

[matty40s]

Get a couple of 52lb weights, old stuff is better......and get your other half to sit on the higher side of the boat.

[Alan de Enfield]

15 minutes ago, Dave .Morialta said:

Yes i thought about that the problem is the only place in bow is in the gas locker which may make it difficult to get gas bottles out although i am thinking of investing in a couple of 25kg weights and putting them in there.

No need to be right up in the bow  - In the saloon, under a seat, in a cupboard ?

 

(Don't use the foreign weights, they don't work on British boats).

[Dave .Morialta]

Ok never thought of that i will weight till after Brexit

[The Dreamer]

I am no physicist but there is a logic here.  Your boat, indeed any boat, will have two pivot points, one lateral and one longitudinal, or in other words, one side to side, front to back.  Thus you have corrected the list side to side, But have effectively caused a list front to back, putting more weight at the front to counter, will only pull the whole boat lower in the water.  So I would move your ballast as close to the longitudinal pivot as possible, of course leaving it on the same side!  It is likely that the. Pivot will be closer to the front than the back, as the weight of the engine will be pulling the boat down at the back, so I would look for a seat locker, or under cupboard plinth about 40% in from the bow. 

[Dave .Morialta]

That sounds good the only problem is i have nothing down that side of the boat apart from one small locker at the front and the gas locker, however  i may try moving some of it down to see what happens

[Alan de Enfield]

18 minutes ago, Dave .Morialta said:

That sounds good the only problem is i have nothing down that side of the boat apart from one small locker at the front and the gas locker, however  i may try moving some of it down to see what happens

Put it where it 'balances' the boat, then build a drinks cupboard around it.

Jobs a good un.

[matty40s]

When Pete Hill used to get his boats ready for the customers, they turned up and said, the boat is listing.

He always said, get your stuff on board and then see how it sits. 

It rarely needed more than 2 52lb weights to make the boat sit straight.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

If space is at a premium, then you need to replace the ballast with a denser material to get the same weight in a smaller volume. Some ballast from your nearest neutron star has a density of 10¹⁴g/cm³, which means that a 25kg ballast weight can be had as a cube 0.006mm on each side. Just don't drop it on your foot when moving it in to position.

[Dave .Morialta]

Neutron star can i get there via the Birmingham worcester Canal or do i need to perhaps consider a longer journey ??

Edited January 17, 2020 by Dave .Morialta

[WotEver]

28 minutes ago, Dave .Morialta said:

Neutron star can i get there via the Birmingham worcester Canal or do i need to perhaps consider a longer journey ??

There’s a stop lock but it’s currently out of action until CRT can schedule a repair. 

[Jen-in-Wellies]

10 hours ago, Dave .Morialta said:

Neutron star can i get there via the Birmingham worcester Canal or do i need to perhaps consider a longer journey ??

It may be a little longer. The nearest neutron star is the evocatively named RX J1856.5-3754. It is 400 light years away, so according to CanalPlanAC, this will take:

 

speed of light 186000 (miles/sec) * 60 seconds in a minute * 60 minutes in an hour * 24 hours in a day * 365.25 days in a year * 400 light years away * 2  there and back / 3mph = 1.565x10¹⁵ hours travel time at typical narrowboat speeds. Fortunately, there are no locks in space.

 

Which will take 223,608,137,100,000 days at seven hours a day. Check with CaRT for any stoppages that may increase your journey time. Make sure that your diesel and water tanks are full and your pump out/cassettes are empty before setting out as fuel retailers, water points and sani stations are few and far between. Stock up with coal to keep the cabin warm in interstellar space. Ignore the boat safety scheme and seal up the high and low level air vents before leaving the Earths atmosphere.Your space suit will end up smelling of diesel like all your other boating clothes.

 

Jen?

[Dave .Morialta]

Sorry i can't go i have discovered that due to gravity my accumulator won't work also i here there is no where to tie up in space or even put mooring pins in. I will write to CRT and complain immediately    

[Sea Dog]

15 hours ago, Dave .Morialta said:

HI All

Once we moved onto boat having loaded on all our personal belongings the boat list about a inch to the left. So eventually i got round to adding ballast in engine bay to correct list. However i have notice boat not sits lower at stern than it did....my question is if i put ballast in front will it lift stern or just lower the Bow.

Two suggestion following on from the advice above and your responses:

 

Do you have a pump out toilet? If so, the state of the tide in there will make a difference if it's off the centre line. Trim slightly heavy on the opposite side so a slight list one way with an empty tank changes to a slight list the other way when it's full.

 

How does your boat sit for depth? If you can't add shift ballast forward on the high side (as I believe you said in another post), maybe you can afford to remove some on the low side? It's usual to aim to have the utter plate about an inch deep.

[rustynewbery]

For small area heavy ballast try some railway rail cut off's got 3 bits in my fold up bed locker, did the trick! But don't use southern's '3rd' rail it bites DC?

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Batteries can be a good thing to move to change trim. A single 110Ahr battery can weigh 25Kg (56lb), so moving it from one side to the other is equivalent to adding two 56lb weights to one side of the boat. Did this on my boat by moving the four leisure batteries from the port to the starboard side of the engine hole. It corrected a very bad port side down list. There are other heavy things, that if stored, or fitted on one side of the boat can be moved with varying levels of difficulty. Anchors and their chains, calorifiers, mooring pins and hammers. Shelves of books, either added, or moved can make a big change to the boats trim. Plus you can read the ballast.

 

Jen

[matty40s]

1 hour ago, rustynewbery said:

For small area heavy ballast try some railway rail cut off's got 3 bits in my fold up bed locker, did the trick! But don't use southern's '3rd' rail it bites DC?

I was going to use Southerns rails but they never arrived.

[Murflynn]

15 hours ago, Dave .Morialta said:

Ok never thought of that i will weight till after Brexit

.............  was I the only one to notice the Freudian slip?     

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

.............  was I the only one to notice the Freudian slip?     

I assumed (dangerous ……….) that he had joined in the banter and it was done intentionally after I said "Don't use the foreign weights, they don't work on British boats".

 

Am I giving him too much credit ?

Edited January 18, 2020 by Alan de Enfield

[Dave .Morialta]

Sorry for being stupid what's the utter plate?