blackrose

Vic at Safeshore is very patient and will be able to talk anyone moderately able through how to fit a GI. However, he first thing to establish is whether your boat's mains system is actually hull-earth bonded. Some boats still aren't and without the bond a GI will be useless and unnecessary - but the boat itself is potentially hazardous.

Personally I don't really understand the problem some people have or the ongoing jokes made about fake rivets. These boats are made to vaguely resemble working boats, so in that sense isn't the entire concept fake? The "rivets" seem insignificant in that context.

Same thing happened to my Shurflow and I repaired it with a new seal kit but about a year later it leaked again so I bought a Jabsco. If the same thing happened again I'd be tempted to repair it with some sealant like marineflex or stixall.

I have an alternator controller fitted and it seems to work well. I can certainly see the difference in amps on my battery monitor when I connect/disconnect the field wire (which in effect is like switching the controller on/off). Years ago here was a lot of discussion on this forum about the merits or otherwise of these devices, but I suspect the reason you don't hear much about them these days is because it became the consensus on this forum (led by Gibbo) that they offered no significant advantage in charging as long as your alternator was fairly modern and put out at least 14.4v. I don't have enough electrical knowledge to be able to argue the case for alternator controllers and to be honest I don't really care, but my own evidence shows that my charge controller can increase maximum alternator voltage from 14.4 - 14.8v (wet lead acid) and increases amps going into the batteries by about 16%.

I think we need to differentiate between an emergency knife used for cutting ropes above decks from the various tools kept down near the weedhatch for clearing fouled props. Whatever your stern design, in most above decks emergencies when a rope needs cutting quickly you're not going to have time to go into the engine room and start fumbling around near your weedhatch looking for that knife - and you might be foolish to even try. I just keep a small sharp 3" kitchen knife on top of the control pedestal, but I have to admit that until today I hadn't really thought this though properly. Being single handed I guess I should always have a sharp penknife in my pocket too. Not much point having an emergency knife on board if I'm standing on the top of a lock and need to cut a rope quickly. But I can't imagine having a hand axe on display at the helm - or carrying one on my person along with a windlass. Just too big, too impractical and unwieldy.

I've recently taken my bow deck back to steel and re-painted with 3 coats of two-pack epoxy, 2 coats of Hemple undercoat/primer and then 2 coats of International non-slip Interdeck. I'm not worried about the two-pack, but I still wouldn't leave things laying on the deck for too long collecting moisture because the topcoats won't like it. If your topcoats are a good two-pack paint then you might be ok.

I cable-tied some of these mats together and and filled the well deck to raise the level above the puddle that collected by by my bow doors. The trouble is that they collect leaves and dirt which creates a horrible mess underneath. In the end I got rid of them and opened up the scuppers so they met the bulkhead and drained the deck properly. But I do use these mats on my newly epoxy painted gas locker floor to prevent the paint getting damaged while still allowing drainage. The gas scuppers are only a few inches above the waterline so the locker does flood when the bow hits any waves.

Yeah, if the seats aren't comfy walk away...

Does this make post sense to anyone else? Been back where?

But don't bother to show them a photo unless you're after a very approximate match because all cameras, printers, phone and laptop screens will capture the same colour differently.

But my point was that unless a tap is open then even a slow pump pushing water into a closed pressurised system will eventually reach the required pressure. If you have a strainer before the pump check that isn't blocked too.

I don't understand why a low voltage would prevent a pump with a pressure switch from achieving it's cut-out pressure? Surely the pump will just run slower and it will just take longer? Perhaps it's the low voltage combined with a blockage of sludge that you mentioned. If there is sludge stuck somewhere between the tank and the pump causing a partial blockage then it won't be able to draw enough water and will run on, in the same way as when your tank runs dry, only that eventually it does manage to draw the water and reaches the cut-out pressure

I guess some people just don't know when (or where) to stop!

I'm not sure why anyone is talking about epoxy? Forget about epoxy paints unless you can get the entire hull grit-blasted and back to metal. Primocon underwater primer can go over bare steel or old paint but not over rust! If the bare steel is rusting you'll need to get the rust off with an angle grinder & wire wheel (not grinding or lapping discs as these will take off good steel). Make sure you have all the PPE - dust mask, gloves, ear defenders and especially eye protection. I've you've hit the old bitumen with a decent pressure washer the bits that won't come off can be considered sound paint and can be painted over. Whether you want to prime the bare steel patches or not is up to you. In my experience I found it gave the boat an extra year in the water compared to not using it under the bitumen. My hull was completely covered in mill scale. It didn't come off for 10 years until I had the hull gritblasted prior to painting with two-part epoxy. I used Vinyguard when I worked in the boatyard. It's very similar to International Primocon.

I pulled this picture off google so i can see what it does, but why have I never felt the need for a Pythondrive or Aquadrive on my boat? I fitted a R&D flexible coupling several years ago, but to be honest couldn't really tell if there was much difference.