Boat Safety Scheme Certificate BSSC/BSC requirements changes

[wakey_wake]

39 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

 The Friendly Narrowboat And Waterways Group... | Is this safe? My neighbours seem to always have their electric hook up under water and i do know that boats suffer more from galvanic corrosion when n... | Notifications | Facebook

 

 

Who is "we"? It sounds more ominous when I notice that part.

 

Hypothesis 1: written by someone with a very basic understanding of electricity which extends only to "It can hurt you and damage property. Especially if mixed into water."

Hypothesis 2: written by GI sales & marketing team.

 

I would agree with something more like "boats with metal hulls [ or other significantly conductive structure ] must have an electrical bond from hull to mains earth inside the boat aka. circuit protective conductor, which is capable of high current (to the size of the supply) at low voltage (e.g. max 5V which I plucked from thin air)".

 

15 minutes ago, GUMPY said:

A compulsory isolation transformer would be better😉 

 

Hmm, I'm not sure I have it exactly right for ITs. I ignore them because they're too heavy and expensive to contemplate. 😉

 

I also think it's reasonable for some marinas to say "if you don't have a GI or IT, you can't use our bollards" due to risk of piling corrosion. Others use wood or stone so it's not an issue for them - still an issue for the boat, but not a safety issue... for a decade or so.

 

As for having the shoreline underwater - which part?

Insulated cable section gets dunked. I guess it's a safer way to detect insulation damage than licking it?

Commando plug or socket gets dunked and most likely it will drip the bollard's RCD. Most are only water resistant.

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, IanD said:

Same principle as masks for Covid, it protects others more than it protects you... 😉 

 

 

 

[David Mack]

17 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Here is one I didn't think of as a possible BSS check that just came up on Facebook as part of another discussion where I have ruffled a couple of feathers 

 The Friendly Narrowboat And Waterways Group... | Is this safe? My neighbours seem to always have their electric hook up under water and i do know that boats suffer more from galvanic corrosion when n... | Notifications | Facebook

 

Needs a Facebook login to view.

[ditchcrawler]

15 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Needs a Facebook login to view.

It does indeed which is why I copied and pasted the comment involved 

[wakey_wake]

49 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

It does indeed which is why I copied and pasted the comment involved 

Thanks for watching it. I'm asking questions but only expecting that they're rhetorical. In theory I could join faceb0rk and reply myself...

 

18 hours ago, wakey_wake said:

As for having the shoreline underwater - which part?

It's quicker and easier to assume the FB OP is daft; but disconcerting that they expect to "mend" some rules that I have to comply with.

 

Hopefully sanity will be inserted by someone before it comes to that.

[wakey_wake]

Sorry 'bout the delay, I forgot to reply.

 

On 24/03/2026 at 14:24, Alan de Enfield said:

On 24/03/2026 at 13:42, wakey_wake said:

I got a pair of these "Kidde 10SCO Combination 10 Year Life Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Alarm"

One is on the ceiling quite close to the induction hob. (Boat is de-gassed, no stove)

The installation instructions are pretty clear - they should not be installed on the celing, or at height' as there is a dead-air-space.

 

I checked the instructions, and they say on the ceiling (as for plain smoke alarms).

I presume this is because the requirements of the smoke alarm outweigh those of the CO alarm?

 

It points to these combined smoke/CO alarms being a compromise that may be better avoided.

 

I have another CO alarm 10ft away on the wall at head height, but both are -1 flavour so I will take care to get a -2 for the next one.

Edited May 6 by wakey_wake
correction + format to not hide the quote

[MtB]

On 03/03/2026 at 17:31, GUMPY said:

Unless you have invented something really clever I presume  you have a fuel burning appliance  Webasto, Eberspacher ,Hurricane or similar all of which under fault conditions can dump CO into the enclosed space.

Still it's your life.

 

Yes, I have been saved by a CO alarm going off and waking me otherwise I wouldn't be here now.

 

Every CO alarm I've ever been called to attend has turned out to be a faulty CO alarm.

 

 

On 04/03/2026 at 08:40, Stroudwater1 said:

At 7,500 boats needing a BSS annually and assuming £230 as the cost per boat that’s £1.75 million per year coming out of boaters pockets. Whoever is getting that money probably doesn’t count that as a failure. 

 

Bear in mind that out of your £230 paid to the examiner, he has to pay £95 to BSS for issuing the PDF "Certificate".

 

Now who is it coining it in? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

Well, as my boat never had a shoreline I wonder what good a GI or IT  would have done my boat or any other boat, just an ornament I suppose to keep the BSS inspector happy..

[GUMPY]

23 minutes ago, MtB said:

On 03/03/2026 at 17:31, GUMPY said:

Yes, I have been saved by a CO alarm going off and waking me otherwise I wouldn't be here now.

 

Every CO alarm I've ever been called to attend has turned out to be a faulty CO alarm.

I thought at first mine was faulty as it was in the bedroom and  the one  by  the stove was silent.

After I tried to teach the first CO alarm to swim I replaced it with the one from by the stove. Just dropping off to sleep and that one requested a swimming lesson.

I got up again and emptied the contents of the stove into the cut in doing so I discovered a crack up the back of the stove which allowed the CO to escape.

Still don't know why the one nearest the stove was so hesitant to alarm.

[blackrose]

On 27/03/2026 at 17:37, IanD said:

Same principle as masks for Covid, it protects others more than it protects you... 😉 

 

(no GA/IT means only your boat is at risk from others who leak current, but lots of other boats are at risk if yours does...)

 

I couldn't read the facew@nk article as I'm not a user so it may have specifically focused on stray currents. However, purely in terms of galvanic currents (as opposed to stray currents), whether having a functioning GI or IT protects others more than it protects you or vice versa, would depend on which boat became the anode and which became the cathode in any large scale galvanic circuit which developed without the protection of a GI or IT.

 

Below the current flows from most noble (cathode) to least noble metal (anode) and electrons flow in the opposite direction, galvanically corroding the less noble metal and protecting the most noble. Between steel boats, pilings, etc, in fresh water, it might depend on which has the most/least noble particular grade of steel, the amount of magnesium anodes or the coverage and condition of paint.

 

 

 

Edited May 6 by blackrose

[ditchcrawler]

13 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I couldn't read the facew@nk article as I'm not a user so it may have specifically focused on stray currents. However, purely in terms of galvanic currents (as opposed to stray currents), whether having a functioning GI or IT protects others more than it protects you or vice versa, would depend on which boat became the anode and which became the cathode in any large scale galvanic circuit without the protection of a GI or IT.

 

 

 

 

 

But what if the boat  with a bronze prop doesn't have a GI but the one with the ally one does?

[blackrose]

3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

But what if the boat  with a bronze prop doesn't have a GI but the one with the ally one does?

 

Then there would be no galvanic current flowing between the boats because there is no earth path on the boat with the ally prop and therefore no galvanic circuit. BUT another galvanic circuit could develop between the boat with no GI and another boat with no GI or some other submerged earthed steel such as steel piling.

Edited May 6 by blackrose

[ditchcrawler]

3 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

Then there would be no galvanic current flowing between the boats because there is no earth path on the boat with the ally prop and therefore no galvanic circuit. BUT another galvanic circuit could develop between the boat with no GI and another boat with no GI or some other submerged earthed steel such as steel piling.

So at the end of the day, if your worried about your boat you fit a GI and it makes no difference who else has one or not.

[blackrose]

Just now, ditchcrawler said:

So at the end of the day, if your worried about your boat you fit a GI and it makes no difference who else has one or not.

 

In terms of galvanic currents yes. I don't understand enough about stray currents, but I can't see a functioning GI being any disadvantage there..

[jonathanA]

1 hour ago, blackrose said:

 

In terms of galvanic currents yes. I don't understand enough about stray currents, but I can't see a functioning GI being any disadvantage there..

Yes I think your right. However it's important that any boat protected by a GI/IT doesn't inadvertently earth itself and bypass the protection by rubbing up against say metal piling or scaff poles holding the mooring up....