Alistair

A can of Coke. Sounds silly, but bear with me: If you fall in the water and get a mouthful, one of the easiest ways to reduce the risk of catching something nasty is to *quickly* drink something acidic, but not dangerous. The phosphoric acid in Coke is just about right for maiming or killing water-living bugs. This was first taught to me when canoeing as a kid (i.e. a can in the instructor's drybag), and has been seen on yachts and narrowboats ever since...

But any new equipment will be obsolete eventually, Alan. This way at least I'm gaining some more useful life for my Paloma, and saving energy, money, and hassle. What's not to like?

I reckon I've found him - his name's Bob, and he sounds very much like he knows what he's talking about. Within the next couple of days I'm going to remove the sad frost-damaged Paloma and take it round to the Post Office to send to Bob. The gas and water are both off, so no worries there, and a local gas-fitter mate of mine is up for attaching the reconditioned one when it comes back. I'll let you all know what transpires. Til then, fingers crossed, and I hope nobody else has the embarrassment or expense that I'm facing...

http://www.justcanals.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=785&hilit= seems to be a good link after googling "narrowboat solar tracker" I'd love to see open-source, collaborative design of one of these things, though. Anyone else up for it?

Aaagh. Got back to the boat to find the Paloma dripping. I hadn't been there for a few days, and the thing's gone and frozen. I assume that a gasket has blown, rather than splitting the brass at the bottom of the machine. At least now I've turned off the water and drained the Paloma down. Anyone had this happen to them? What did you do to make it work again?

Winding below Isis Lock is easy peasy, even with the river on Reds. Come out of the lock (leaving the bottom gate open), tiller hard over to the starboard side, bow (gently) into the left bank. Swing the stern round - the current in the Mill Stream will help you - and straight back into the lock. So seen from above, you turn anti-clockwise. Happy to help

I simply put an oven thermometer on top of the burner, next to the base plate of the Ecofan, and measured a bit over 200 degrees. There is good conduction from the burner top into the Ecofan's base plate. I can happily put my hand on the cooling fins of the Ecofan, so they can't be any hotter than (say) 50 degrees. The 180 degrees is thus an estimate of the temperature difference across the thermoelectric module. If anyone's got a contact probe thermometer they'd be willing to lend me, anywhere near Oxford, I'd happily come over and borrow it for a day or so to run some more rigorous tests. Drop me a PM if you'd like to join in.

Thanks, Pete: I was just looking for the power generated from a thermoelectric module with a temperature difference of (say) 180 degrees Celsius. This site gives us (for the 40mm x 40mm module that I *think* is inside an Ecofan), a power output of 2.6W, which should be enough for the claimed 100 cubic feet per minute. However, this site talks about a power density of 1 watt per square centimeter, which could bring us to the heady heights of sixteen watts for a panel half the size of a fag packet... So the debate isn't quite over, methinks. The 'engineer' who earlier talked about a motor running off of one volt might want to have a quick Google for 'thermoelectric module power'. Happy to help

I've mentioned my Mezzo on here before - still got it and still very, very happy with it. Bought it through the cycle-to-work scheme so saved looooads of money. It solves the three major design 'issues' with the Brompton, namely: 1. Steering geometry. By putting the dogleg just above the front wheel it gives you the steering arc that means it doesn't handle like a kid's scooter, and still folds nice and small. 2. Freewheel. Nice and quiet with hub gears, rather than a noisy Brompton ratchet freewheel. And the proper USP is: 3. The (decent, aerospace, standard) self-locking catches that hold it all together and make it into a proper rigid structure. Bromptons always seem to ride like the back is broken, and that little catch-thing isn't really a robust solution, especially when bumping around towpaths. I really wanted to like Bromptons: with a £1k budget on the Cyclescheme it was at least worth a go, and I tried four different models out of the thousands of possibilities. But I couldn't get on with them, for the three reasons above. And at least the Mezzo is British: shame it's from Cambridge, tho...

I was thinking of a DIY solution using bendy fibreglass tent poles and a shrink-to-fit PVC cover. Not just for the stern and the cratch, either...

We've been looking at 3 solutions: Put the thing *on* the work surface and use the sink drain, or install it above the sink drain... Hand-pump the water out Bilge-pump the water out (but the wattage of the pump? Use the shower's bilge pump?) ?? What do Tom&Sophie, and others for that matter, do?

How does it drain??