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I have just joined on here so I can write a post and you will proberely not hear much else from me as I don't know alot about boating but my husband and daughter are great lovers of boating. Tiggers (Canis Major) is my daughter and my husband Little Al was with our daughter on the trip to Droitwich and also part of the four abreast on the river. All four of these boats are owned or steered by youngsters, and I think it is wonderful that they are having fun, something that is not easy to have at this time, all these youngsters work hard and deserve a holiday, they all keep there boats beautifully and all have a great passion for boating and the canal. We need these youngsters to take boating forward and it is the likes of these passionate youngsters that will help keep our canals and rivers going. My daughter works at a marina which she chose over law after getting her law degree, ( far from an idiot i would say) she earns a low wage but loves her job, she also lives on her boat. James Bills works so hard delivering coal to boaters all over the cut and goes out in all weathers very often breaking ice so as not to let his customers down. I have meet this young man and think he is a really great lad and I would be proud of him if he was my son. James and Micheal A properely done more single hours boating than most of the people on this forum, I have seen Micheal put Victoria in a winding hole and turn her around when I think most 45ft boats would struggle. We have some great youngsters passionate about boating Sarah with Ling, micheal and Emu, the young Fuller's, Barney Ball, Micheal Askin, Richard Cox and his brother Andy the Burge boys, just to name a few !!! I have meet all these youngsters and think I would be right in saying I class them all as friends as they all have the time for Al and I even through we are old duffers!!! So give then a chance you might be pleasantly surprised !!!!

You know what, I'd probably do it again tomorrow, I had a whale of a time

As the owner of nb "Fruit of The Vine", reviewed in Canalboat mag dec 2010, the Canaline 42 has proved to be a nost reliable engine. It has slightly more torque than the HMI Isuzu equivalent and otherwise perfoms in a similar way. From the DIY standpoint it is very easy to change the oil and filter. I had an initial problem, that turned out not to be an engine fault, and Bob Cantwell visited the boat with no hesitation and so can certainly vouch for their after sales service. Hope this helps.

That advice is all fine if you really don't like tinkering and messing about with things, but it fails to recognise that for some people learning about their boat, making adjustments and their getting their hands dirty is all part of the fun. They are already getting on with it and enjoying life before they've even untied any ropes. Anyway, I have a R&D flexible coupling and just check the alignment in 4 places turning the shaft 90 degrees each time and making sure there's no more than 0.25mm difference between the 4 measurements. Is that sufficient?

Well can't win then can, I but must be doing something right , the deckchair hasn't fallen through the roof yet . Bunny

It's what food eats.

Ok - good. Fresh paintwork is especially vulnerable.

The engine range is done by Engines Plus which was formed when Isuzu stopped the marine range run under the HMI Isuzu banner by the guys who have now set up Engines Plus. Engines Plus is run by three ex-colleagues of mine from my days at Lister-Petter (Bob Cantwell, Hedley Beavis and Martyn Harris). Knowing Bob Cantwell I would be amazed if he would put his name to anything that wasn't a sound product (although I know nothing of the Kioti smaller engines myself). Mitsubishi is just the largest engine in the range. I suggest that you speak to Bob Cantwell, or any of the others, as he is very technically competent in the industrial diesel field. Roger

Some digital TVs have an irritating habit of 'assuming' you want ATV (analogue) rather than DTV (digital) when you switch off a connected auxiliary device such as a video recorder or DVD player. There is often a 'source' button on the TV remote - adjust to DTV and there you are. (edited to make it clearer - hope I've succeeded!)

Best not to divide by 12 when calculating inverter loads because inverters are not 100% efficient. I would advise that you either assume your answer is about 80 to 85% of the actual 12v load or to divide by 10 to build in an 80% inverter efficiency. I am also suspicious of your fridge/freezer consumption because a 12V compressor fridge is usually accepted as requiring between 40 and 50 Ah a day so with a freezer component I would expect it to be rather more than that. With a heavy consumption I think that you can only assume that your alternator output will be on average just HALF of its rated maximum for between 2 to 4 hours each day. After that it drops rather fast. Also factor in that you have to put rather more electricity back into a battery that you took out. Assuming 30% more (and that is a very big assumption - some say assume 50% more) then your 168 Ah (if correct) will require about 220 Ah of charge to replace it. Your 110 amp alternator is averaged at 55 amps so to produce 220 Ah of charge it will have to run for at least 4 hours but that will only get the bank to around 80 to 85% fully charged leading to sulphation in the longer term. All the above are based on assumptions with wide margins or error. Now a comment on combining two alternator outputs. During the first stage of charging when the output voltage is controlled by the inductance of the windings you will get the combined output of the two machines BUT this may only be for between 15 and 30 minutes. As soon as the alternators' voltage regulators starts to control the output voltage you MIGHT (not will) find one shuts down so if both are the same output its fine, you have gained a bit of charge. However if they are different outputs and the higher output one shuts down you have made the charging worse. This is more likley if you have one alternator controlled by an Adverc - the other one may shut down in 20 minute bursts. There is a long discussion about combining alternators pinned at the top of the equipment section. If you decide combining is the way to go (rather than adjusting your electrical use to your ability to recharge the batteries) then I suspect that Sterling, rather than Adverc, are the company to talk to re one of their alternator to battery chargers which will combine the two outputs to optimise the charge.

Sorry Nigel, meant to add comment for OP not you ! David

Strange reply

As a 'member of the public', I might be able to clarify things and provide a reasonable view: The 'public' is only interested if some kind of wrongdoing occurs, or somebody uses the conversion from public body to charity for their own personal gain. The normal day-to-day events and occurrences associated with the conversion process are not interesting. What appears to be happening is that NBW don't know what the normal process is, so they're reporting every detail as "We didn't know that was going to happen!" and assuming its some kind of trick to con the public, until its pointed out by others that its not. Unfortunately the effect of "crying wolf" will be (already is) that if anything did occur, NBW's voice has become irrelivent, its credibility is lost and is now largely ignored by those in the know. NBW is potentially a good idea and a valuable resource to those interested in canals but the large volume of poor journalism that exists on the news stories diminishes this.

I'm planning on not getting any water into the cabin bilge. Not ever. We'll see how I get on. If I fail I will be honest about it and report it on here.

Hell of a job holding a labrador over the radiator cap though.

Last year..Brinklow quoted for a 60 foot baseplate while I was there. They were going to put 10mm overplate on it...and the price...? They said it varied slightly with the market price of steel.. Baseplate only : £6000