Ballast

[RLWP]

If you can work out the volume of the space that you have available, just use the relative density of the materials

Typically:

Iron/steel: 7850 kg/cu m

Lead: 11340 kg/cu m

 

Obviously if you dig in to you savings:

Gold: 19320 kg/cu m

Platinum: 21400 kg/cu m

 

How about depleted uranium?

 

Richard

[twbm]

How about depleted uranium?

 

Richard

 

It has a half-life - the boat would slowly get lighter.

[RLWP]

It has a half-life - the boat would slowly get lighter.

 

Pretty slowly though

 

Richard

[twbm]

True, but think of the power you could generate at the same time .....

[Chertsey]

True, but think of the power you could generate at the same time .....

It's hard enough doing the risk assessment for my cargo carrying licence as it is!

[Hairy-Neil]

Are those blue barrels 40 gal = 200l = 1/5 tonne?

 

A standard steel barrel is 207 litres

[cereal tiller]

probably not suitable for you but when i built my narrowboat i used "building blocks",the ones with no lime in.

 

i used two and a half metric tonnes,each block was around 20 kg.the price?in 1997 was around a hundred squid...

[RLWP]

True, but think of the power you could generate at the same time .....

 

And it could work as underfloor heating

 

Richard

[c c]

probably not suitable for you but when i built my narrowboat i used "building blocks",the ones with no lime in.

 

i used two and a half metric tonnes,each block was around 20 kg.the price?in 1997 was around a hundred squid...

 

 

I have just taken 240 compressed concrete blocks out of Badsey and stacked them in the car park awaiting a good home for a reasonable offer.

[Chertsey]

I have just taken 240 compressed concrete blocks out of Badsey and stacked them in the car park awaiting a good home for a reasonable offer.

How much space did they occupy and where were they sited on Badsey? What do you reckon is their total weight? Are you taking them out because they didn't work for you? What are you having instead?

[flatplane8]

I've put about 16 tons of steel from Mann Buck in Misterton see hereand here.

 

Not as cheap as concrete, but more dense and that's probably what you want (depending on what you're planning to do with the cargo area)

[c c]

How much space did they occupy and where were they sited on Badsey? What do you reckon is their total weight? Are you taking them out because they didn't work for you? What are you having instead?

PM sent with info

[onionbargee]

At the moment Chertsey is ballasted with three of those great big tanks (what are they called? You know, about four foot cubed, white polythene/polypropylene or similar, in a wire cage) full of water.

 

They are a bloody nuisance and I want to replace them with ballast that is, as far as possible, laid on the baseplate under the floors.

 

Firstly, can someone tell me how much those tanks hold, and then I can work out how much weight I've got in there now (we just put the tanks in and pumped in water until the boat looked right).

 

Then, what to replace it with? I am thinking that realistically only steel will give me anything like sufficient weight per volume at something approaching an affordable cost. Are there any tables of the weight:volume ratios of various other alternatives? (concrete slab, engineering bricks, anything else??)

 

Does anyone know of a source of steel (billets?) suitable for use as ballast? I've been told that it should be steel and not iron because of the corrosion potential of introducing a different metal.

And is there anything else I need to think of?

 

1000 litre IBC, intermediate bulk container.

 

fill them with gas oil a the bulk rate straight off the tanker, and beat the rising fuel prices, 2000 L should last you 4 or 5 years, imagine what the oil price will be then !

 

My town class motor only needs less than a ton to get the back end down and the prop to bite, why not chuck the ballast under the backcabin floor, or if you wanted to go mad put a water ballast tank under there, maybe a rubber one, pump it in and out when you need it.

Edited June 17, 2011 by onionbargee

[FadeToScarlet]

Magnums of champagne will only appreciate in value there's apparently one boat that has this ballast method.

 

Having a store of diesel seems popular around here, a boater I know put 6 drums under the tug deck when it was 30-odd p per litre.

[blackrose]

17-18 tonnes of stone should do nicely.

 

In a narrow boat?

 

Unless my calculations are wrong I think I've got about 8 tonnes of concrete ballast in my 57' x 12' widebeam (that's 2 layers of broken concrete slab over a 39' x 12' area).

Edited June 19, 2011 by blackrose

[Chertsey]

In a narrow boat?

 

Unless my calculations are wrong I think I've got about 8 tonnes of concrete ballast in my 57' x 12' widebeam (that's 2 layers of broken concrete slab over a 39' x 12' area).

Yes, that'd be nearly a full load, hence my response

[blackrose]

Yes, that'd be nearly a full load, hence my response

 

I see - I thought you were recommending the correct amount of ballast!

Edited June 20, 2011 by blackrose

[mykaskin]

Yes, that'd be nearly a full load, hence my response

 

That would be nearer 38 tons would it not? Mind you more than 19 tons gets a little sticky on all but the deepest bits of canals.

 

Mike

[c c]

How much space did they occupy and where were they sited on Badsey? What do you reckon is their total weight? Are you taking them out because they didn't work for you? What are you having instead?

 

Sorry for delay - I was trying to find something to weigh one block but here goes:-

Each block measures 44x22x10 cms and weighs about 25/26 lbs each (could only weigh a spare broken half-block on my weighing machine so is close but not totaly accurate)

25lbs x 240 blocks = 6000 lbs = 2.7 metric tonnes = 2.68 UK Tons.