Gordon

I have on many occaissions felt very sorry for hirers, to the point where I believe they really haven't been properly informed as to the true nature of the lack of mooring. Many is the time I have sat on the boat at ,say How Hill or St Benets at dusk and watched a hire boat go by in either direction and thought where on earth are they going to moor? Have they really been informed of the situation? I don't believe the hire manual helps in this situation, and certainly the Broadcaster does not make it particularly clear how dire the situation can be. The lovely glossy hire brochures that show the idylic pictures of sunny grassy moorings or moorings alongside a village or pub do not give the true story. Perhaps this year there were more moorings available, for the two weeks I was about in the school holidays I have never seen it so quiet for years. Why? There are questions that we as more regular broads boaters and particularly the trade and the BA need to ask before we speak of stupiduty and prosecution

Thanks for all your suggestions I have on the basis of these and other research bought a CTEK MXS5 Experiments with a leisure battery have answered the two questions I had Does the charger draw any current from the battery when the mains is off. i.e if the power tripped in the winter. Yes it does but its only 300 micro amps. Back of fag packet maths suggests unless I ran out of fingers in the sums it would take about 4 months to take 1Ah. More than willing to be corrected on this. The second question is that there are a number of selectable modes for the charger, what would happen on a mains flick. Good news is it defaults to a normal charge mode, although I dont believe it would matter where it restarted. Not sure what would happen if the engine was started with the charger conncted but am pretty confident it would at worst confuse the CTEK . Pretty confident this is the answer to my needs.and give me much more flexibility than the Waeco power supply gave particularly the ability to charge the battery as well. I may even after trialling it for a bit get one for the domestic bank although I have no issues with that, Just got to get down there and fit the thing to the boat.

I dont think anyone has mentioned but there are manuals for that engine on this very site. They will certainly help with the fun activity of bleeding the fuel. The first time I changed the oil filter I undid the nut at the bottom it was a real pig to get back on upside down and oily I have now learnt to unbolt the whole thing from the block and have had no need to do the canister spin off conversion

I think you need to break this down a bit Unparallel the batterys do them one at a time. What are they showing with no charging. You will be looking for about 12.6V. You will need to then look at the output from the mains charger, it may need a battery to give a voltage but it could bring the voltage up tho over 13 volts if working. Then do the same with the alternator. If all is well measure the other side of the switch with a load, lights etc. That switch could be the villain of the peace After that you are looking for poor connections early in the circuit. I personally would not be happy with the starter sharing the batterys. Remember batterys can die in two ways loss of caoacity so the no load voltage might look ok Or one one more cells short circuit so look for a minimum of 12.6 and at least 13 with either alternator or charger connected. Slow logical faulting is the way forward.

Fans can make matters worse if there is inadequate ventilation

Interesting approach, Fan idea is interesting I may go down that route

Do you know if it causes any issues if the mains is disconnected for an appreciable time ie if left over winter and the elctric post trips As they do

Thanks for the reply Yes I tend to agree that it would be worth the extra few poinds to go for the 5 amp hence I have been convinced that CTEK is the way forward, seems to get a good press in both the boat and car/bike world. I assume that if CTEK say marine it is at least designed for the job, but I suppose its really only relavant if you go salty. Thanks for your reply and help

Thanks John I suppose Marine must also be capable of dealing with sea and salt Most of the connections on everything else on a broads cruiser are not anything special and corrossion has in my experience has been limited to the very rare switch contact. The fridge is 12/24 volt only it has no mains option, I did fit the Waeco power supply which ran the fridge from shore power and switched over to battery if the mains was disconnected, this was a dissapointing device as it presented a voltage drop to the 12V supply causing the fridge to cycle unnecessarily, removal of this gave much better 12 Volt operation. As for adequacy of the cable or battery, I have replaced every connector and switch and the volt drop is neglible, as far as battery capacity is concerned, yes it is only a single 110Ah, the domestic is a parallel pair and for the little demand on the domestic side of things I have I could swap them over, but that in itself is not a simple job and would increase cable runs and joints. One fridge battery is adequate generally but on temps like we have had it could give little more than a day I am looking to something that could help it to run in the marina for a a few days and keep the battery charged at the same time On the same vein we often may use the battery for a couple of days and then travel only a short distance only say Womack to Potter or St Benets to Ranworth, Something like the CTEK would be perfect on that score . I have considered Solar and am still thinking about it but it would be way ott for my needs and far to costly to justify against the cost of a 3.8 or 5Amp charger. I am not particularly worried about conditioning over winter either in my experience a healthy leisure battery loses nothing in a few months. I guess I will be able to see if the charger causes any drain if the post trips out using an Avo if not I will leave it giving its TLC over winter, if it does I can always switch the output Thanks for your interest and helpful reply

Thanks Guys for the swift answers Yes I have heard good things about ctek chargers and maybe worth getting over those that are about half the price Three questions now please What if you have one connected without shore power ie if the post trips over winter Would there be a current drain, The Ring intelegent car charger I use certainly does draw a bit and leds light. In fact I would not expect to leave it powered over winter Healthy leisure batterys can easily cope with a few months idle Secondly Spider, You said you use an M100 on a two battery system I am assuming you mean a pair of batterys in parrelel rather than two banks. I intend to address the issue of the domestic battery once the fridge is sorted. What is the difference between the CTEC marine chargers and the others. Marine ones are twice the price (normal boating issue) I am guessing the only difference is they are waterproof. If that is an issue in my case I would have a lot more than a flat battery to worry about I am guessing a 3.8amp one would be adequate as although the fridge draws a tad more than that the off cycle of the fridge will give adequate time to catch uo

I am looking for some kind of charging system for my fridge battery (Waeco compressor) I initially had the Waeco power supply that automatically switched over to battery when not on shore power. This was more trouble than it was worth due to a small but significant voltage drop in the switch when on battery. I am at present connecting a portable intelegent car battery charger when on shore power, a good system but a pain to connect. I am looking for something a bit more permananant. There are a number of intelegent chargers, 4 stage chargers and loads of intelegent chargers that claim to be for leisure batteries in boats and motorhomes. Any reason why any of these would not be suitable. I am concerned that if these were permanantly connected to the battery but the shore power not on they would cause a drain on the battery due to their detection circuitry. A five amp unit would be plenty large enough Your thoughts please

I recall a few years ago when I renewed with navigators they sent out a propaganda sheet. One item they proudly mentioned was that they paid out for a new mast for a customer whose mast had been savaged by a woodpecker. Maybe woodpeckers could be the reason

Yes I felt very honoured to see one a couple of weeks ago. It was between St Benets and the Thurne. Initially flying above the reed bed and then crossed the river just ahead of the boat. Very windy and it was struggling a bit having landed in the reeds at the edge it was told in no uncertain terms that the flock of greylags did not welcome it and took off again. Made my day

Another issue is we cannot compare a relatively small number of boats out in the open to thousands of deisel vehicles confined in a city. In the town or city there is no place for the smoke to go and plenty of people in close proximity.

Might just help a bit if some ****** untied you in the night