Moving aboard - your experiences of hindsight

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, northern said:

The extension / gang has the transformer at the other end

The shore power cable goes from the shore power, through the pigeon box, and then connects to the extension lead/gang and plugs into the transformer socket

 

Could the 'transformer' be a battery charger or combi (charger / inverter) with pass-thru ?

[northern]

Potentially.  I'll try and trace where cabling goes from the inverter/charger unit - it's not in the same cupboard, instead it's under the boards in the engine room opposite the DC board and not wall mounted.

[David Mack]

11 minutes ago, northern said:

The shore power cable goes from the shore power, through the pigeon box, and then connects to the extension lead/gang and plugs into the transformer socket

Are you saying that the boat end of the shore power cable has a plug on it? With bare metal pins? That is highly dangerous.

Or do you mean it has a line socket, and the transformer has a fixed plug?

[northern]

I'll draw a picture later this evening (I'm not taking the p*ss, by the way) as I'm not using the right terminology to explain it.  Maybe a sketch would be clearer.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

Yes photos would be a Good Idea when you get the boat handed back over to you. 

 

Thing is, ANYTHING involving a 3-pin plug in the shoreline supply sounds flaky and DIY, so be careful of it until you are sure the 230Vac is properly designed, earthed and safe. It probably is safe given it's an unmodified Hudson, but on the other hand I would not expect you to be needing to plug 3-pin plugs into things to connect a shoreline.  

Well my inverter goes straight to a 16amp socket and the boat distribution board plugs directly into it with a 16a plug. on the very odd occasions I use a shore supply the shore lead feeds in through the pigeon box and the plug for the distribution board is then plugged into the socket on the end of the shore lead. Absolutely no risk of back feeding to the inverter or any live 240 volt pins, 100% safe from that point of view.

[Tony1]

 

I'm assuming you mean Swanley Bridge- oddly enough I moored there around this time last year, and only left at the end of March. The staff there were really nice and very helpful, I must say. The token system for the washing machines was a pain, as it was during lockdown and the office was on limited opening hours, so you couldn't always get the tokens when you wanted them. But Nantwich marina is very close by as you'll know, and that has a great launderette as well, that takes actual money- so you need to get out of the habit of using the card for everything, and carry some notes when you go into Nantwich, and either buy things with notes, or just ask the shopkeepers if they can swap a note for as many pounds coins and 50p coins as they can spare. Either way, its worth accumulating a good collection of coins. 

 

I sort of assumed the fuel boat wouldn't be allowed into the marina (as they sell coal and wouldnt want the competition), but if you can get your coal and gas from the fuel boat, so much the better. 

I remember getting the odd bag from Nantwich marina, and my impression was their coal price was a tad steep, but I don't recall Swanley Bridge being too bad, although I'm certain it would have been more than the fuel boat charged. 

I would make sure you have a spare gas bottle stowed away in the appropriate place (and that its full), and also that you have a gas spanner somewhere to hand- it took me ages to find mine. 

As you'll know, they have electrical hookup which is much cheaper than running the engine, so you'll need a hookup cable if you haven't got one already). If you reverse into the mooring you'll only need a short cable, but if you go in head first, it'll have to be as long as the boat. 

 

It might be worth figuring out how the shoreline connection works- i.e. does it charge your batteries, or does it bypass them and go direct to the boat electrics? Or is it switchable?

My boat had a three way switch that seemed to offer the option of bypassing the batteries, but I'm not sure it actually did, and I wasn't clued up enough to know what was going on.

It became more of a real question after I got lithium batteries installed, because you dont want those to be kept near to 100% SoC a lot of the time, which is what a shoreline connection might do.

 

If you have a car then its a doddle- any supplies you need you can get from Nantwich in 5 minutes, or Crewe in 15 minutes- including coal and gas. There's a screwfix branch there which is handy if you need a tool at short notice, and there is one ebay and a few amazon collection points you can use, for when B+Q just don't have what you need (e.g. things like 50mm sq battery cable are not that easy to get hold of in normal shops, so I relied on Amazon an awful lot for all the weird/obscure boaty tools and items I found I needed.

 

Just a thought- it was a few hundred yards from the car park or the office to my mooring, so I got a trolley to lug the coal and gas. 

 

You might have been able to do some nice cruises this winter down to Ellesmere and beyond, but a quick look seems to show a number of closures that will make the Llangollen a bit tricky this winter.

 

But Swanley is a lovely place to spend the winter, I must say.

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Tony1

[northern]

I know about as much as boat electrics as I do Photoshop.

 

Hopefully the image makes things clearer.  I'd forgotten I'd taken a picture of inside of the cupboard which houses the DC panel and galvanic isolator etc.  You can see one end what looks like a hook up cable.

 

Anyhow, from this cupboard there's a mains lead with a UK plug.

There's a separate gang socket with hook up connection attached.  The plug mention above goes into the gang socket

The shore line from the gang then plugs into a shore cable, goes through the pigeon box and into shore power

[northern]

9 hours ago, Tony1 said:

 

I'm assuming you mean Swanley Bridge-

 

But Swanley is a lovely place to spend the winter, I must say.

 

 

Thanks, Tony, for the detailed reply.  I do mean Swanley Bridge.  Glad to read you enjoyed your time there.  I currently live in Nantwich and have done for a few years now, so fortunately I'm familiar with it.  I've a car too and everything's close by as you say.  It's a great spot and I used to moor at the farm moorings right next to it.  I like the marina and would also have been happy at Overwater too. 

 

My intention is to support the fuel boat.  I used to buy from Chamberlains and see they've a full-time mooring at Burland now.  During weekends I'm intending on taking it down the Middlewich or towards Coole Pilates, both are an easy reach.  Due to work commitments longer cruises will only be possible during annual leave.  When the stoppages are sorted I'll do the same but heading to Wrenbury.

 

The marina have been endlessly patient with me, having messed them about twice with securing a mooring for a 60ft despite the waiting list and shortage, only to have duff surveys and not take the mooring.  Fortunately they've plenty of 50ft moorings and I had a decent choice.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

What’s a galvonic isolater?

How’s one of them work ?

Edited November 1, 2021 by Goliath

[GUMPY]

17 minutes ago, northern said:

I know about as much as boat electrics as I do Photoshop.

 

The blue socket connected to the 13amp socket board should be a plug

 

[northern]

1 minute ago, Loddon said:

The blue socket connected to the 13amp socket board should be a plug

 

Apologies for being a bit thick here...

 

Am I to directly plug the shore power cable into the connector shown in the first picture and ignore the gang plug?

[StephenA]

11 minutes ago, northern said:

Apologies for being a bit thick here...

 

Am I to directly plug the shore power cable into the connector shown in the first picture and ignore the gang plug?

 

The bollard has a three pin socket  on it - the blue cable should have a plug at one end (which goes into the socket on the bollard) and a socket at the other end which either goes into the blue trailing plug on the gang block, or into a hull mounted covered plug on the boat. Basically the 240V should never be on a plug - it should always be a socket.

 

Mintball basically has one of these on the rear cabin bulkhead (mounted connector face down for obvious reasons)

 

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/477178-16a-2p-e-230v-panel-mounted-inlet-ip44

 

Its possible the gang socket is just there as an alternative connection set up.

Edited November 1, 2021 by StephenA

[northern]

3 minutes ago, StephenA said:

 

The bollard has a three pin socket  on it - the blue cable should have a plug at one end (which goes into the socket on the bollard) and a socket at the other end which either goes into the blue trailing plug on the gang block, or into a hull mounted covered plug on the boat. Basically the 240V should never be on a plug - it should always be a socket.

 

Mintball basically has one of these on the rear cabin bulkhead (mounted connector face down for obvious reasons)

 

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/477178-16a-2p-e-230v-panel-mounted-inlet-ip44

 

Thanks.  This is the first boat I've had where the socket for shore power isn't located on the stern bulkhead, as yours.

 

In this case, it looks like it does go from a 240v plug, to a gang with a shore power socket attached, then the shore power cable plugs into this and into the bollard.

 

Unless I ignore the lead and plug directly into what's in the first photo (actual pic from my boat).

[StephenA]

Just now, northern said:

 

Thanks.  This is the first boat I've had where the socket for shore power isn't located on the stern bulkhead, as yours.

 

In this case, it looks like it does go from a 240v plug, to a gang with a shore power socket attached, then the shore power cable plugs into this and into the bollard.

 

Unless I ignore the lead and plug directly into what's in the first photo (actual pic from my boat).

 

\Where does the cable from the wall mounted plug go? I assume it routed to the internal 13 amo plugs in the boat

[northern]

I think I'm best to take some photos when I'm next onboard at the weekend and take it from there.  I'm probably causing even more confusion in trying to explain!

[Mike Todd]

No lead (as with your extension socket lead) should have the same gender at both ends. I learnt this the hard way over 60 years ago when helping to set up a record player/amplifier at a youth club I was attending (yea, shows the era!). The kit was, as was much at the time, home brew and had one mains lead with live pins. I was 'shocked' - but fortunately not fatally. It could have been very much worse. Ever since then I have always double checked that the correct gender is being used.

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Mike Todd said:

No lead (as with your extension socket lead) should have the same gender at both ends. I learnt this the hard way over 60 years ago when helping to set up a record player/amplifier at a youth club I was attending (yea, shows the era!). The kit was, as was much at the time, home brew and had one mains lead with live pins. I was 'shocked' - but fortunately not fatally. It could have been very much worse. Ever since then I have always double checked that the correct gender is being used.

 

100% correct, unless both "sexes" of connector have shielded connections which can't be touched, which most don't.

 

It's also sometimes confusing when people talk about "plugs" and "sockets", because with some connectors the one with the "live" pins is recessed and the other one (which looks like a plug) fits into it.

 

The golden rule is that whichever type of connector the power comes from should be the shielded one where you can't touch the pins, and this should be the case at the other end of the cable too.

[Tacet]

I am reading this as though the 240v distribution is served by a 13a plug - and therefore the 16a shore power comes into the boat, through the (pigeon box) and then via a 16a (male) - 13a (female) adapter lead.  Obviously there could be all sorts of issues lurking - but as a principle, nothing much to worry about.

 

There has been reference to a transformer in the line which, unless it is a isolation transformer does not fit well..  And quite why the distribution is via a 13a plug is unclear too when a 16a plug to accept the shoreline is more obvious.  Maybe it was intended to connect the 13a plug to a 13a socket on an inverter at some stage?

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

Maybe something like this 

[DerekB]

On 28/10/2021 at 19:29, tree monkey said:

Accept that sinking dreams will part of your nightly routine for the first few months

That'll be something for me to look forward to then.....

 

[tree monkey]

7 minutes ago, DerekB said:

That'll be something for me to look forward to then.....

 

Curiously the one I remember clearly involved going over a wier

 

[DerekB]

2 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Curiously the one I remember clearly involved going over a wier

 

speaking as a (currently) non boater I suspect taking a NB over a wier is generally not the recommended method of getting downstream 🙂

[tree monkey]

3 minutes ago, DerekB said:

speaking as a (currently) non boater I suspect taking a NB over a wier is generally not the recommended method of getting downstream 🙂

I would suggest that you are spot on in your surmise 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, DerekB said:

speaking as a (currently) non boater I suspect taking a NB over a wier is generally not the recommended method of getting downstream 🙂

 

Surpringly, in the 'old days' of commercial boating and working to deadlines if the water levels allowed it you could get a 'jump' on your competitors by shooting the Weir (not Wier) whilst they were stuck in the locks.

 

Having said that 10 soldiers dies on a night exercise when thir boat went over Cromwell Weir (River Trent).

 

CROMWELL LOCK.RIVER TRENT. 28th SEPTEMBER 1975 | Palace Barracks Memorial Garden

 

Cromwell Weir tragedy: Service remembers dead soldiers - BBC News

[DerekB]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Surpringly, in the 'old days' of commercial boating and working to deadlines if the water levels allowed it you could get a 'jump' on your competitors by shooting the Weir (not Wier) whilst they were stuck in the locks.

 

Having said that 10 soldiers dies on a night exercise when thir boat went over Cromwell Weir (River Trent).

 

CROMWELL LOCK.RIVER TRENT. 28th SEPTEMBER 1975 | Palace Barracks Memorial Garden

 

Cromwell Weir tragedy: Service remembers dead soldiers - BBC News

I think i'll stick to the recommended method......