grendel

having been out to sea on the old girl, when filming Broad Ambition, an in company with two of HM finest, even with the engines she has - she has got a fair turn of speed, and if you ever get the opportunity to go to sea on her you should, its a magical experience.

without a change in technology I think diesel will be around for a while, all plant will still run on it, mostly due to safety issues (you dont want to be storing petrol on site) and electric wont keep site machinery running day in day out.

well I have eased the baseplate, removed 1 layer of the ply at the back end, and its still 1.5A, I think there is some drag of the grease in the prop shaft, but that is better than running it dry. it sounds 100% better than it was previously, I now know what to expect on model #2 so I can start progressing that. maybe if I get the chance tomorrow I will take a run to the local boating pool and test the new power levels, see if it is what is required.

a busy day so far, shopping done and out to the workshop, the new stiffer baseplate has been constructed, everything lines up, out of the boat its drawing 0.6A, but its still at 1.5A in the boat running at full speed the motor gets warm after about 20 minutes running, the prop shaft gets warm, I am thinking of removing the wood support and re packing it into position to see if I can get it running smoother. I am wondering if the wood support is too high at the back, lifting the end of the prop shaft and trying to bend it. the good news is that its running quietly.

They were supposed to be hexagonal.

The point that is trying to be made is that supposing you have a main systems electrical failure, your batteries are fine but all your wiring has melted, you still have engines, but you are in the middle of the ocean. How do you cope, if you are fine with a small hand held, self powered system as a backup then you dont need to know how to use the charts, but suppose you enter a strange harbour, or take a pilot on board who wants to see your charts (though the pilot should of course know the waters like the back of their hand). I think a set of paper charts and the training to use them (even if just printouts) would be a handy thing for an emergency backup. as even the battery on a handheld device will go flat eventually.

but for a bit of variety they could find a nest of pygmy shrews surely.

try the M25 sometime - sorry you said drive, not park

the plastic spacer will be replaced by some 1/4" thick Brass bar I have 6.4mm is about the perfect height for the new spacer (the old one was printed at 7.8mm, and came out at 7.7mm, once installed I can eyeball the two shafts and file the spacer to give me a perfect fit, from my pictures the shafts are currently off by not quite half the diameter of the prop shaft (4mm) so between 1.2-1.6mm the spacer reduction is 1.3mm so it will be in the ball park, ready for fine tuning. I also now have my workshop up and running so can drill the holes using the proper pillar drills etc which will increase the accuracy of those (rather than using a hand held drill). you work with what you have at hand, and the first attempt was really just a proof of concept anyway.

Looking at this now I am more awake and at work, I neglected to say, that the difference is about 1mm on the height of the bearing, this means I can raise the baseplate by that 1mm (or make it 1mm thicker) and still have the clearance i need. at the moment I am looking at two options, one is a thicker brass plate or secondly an even thicker aluminium plate, trust me I shall be measuring the clearances very carefully before I start building the new baseplate, - if the thicker aluminium plate will fit, it will be used. once I have model #1 sorted I will do the one for model #2, this will be easier as I have been holding off the construction work to keep the clearance to get in to the hull on model #2 for measuring etc (in case you were wondering why I had not cracked on with model #2) I wanted to get this little problem solved before progressing to a stage where I had to do any deconstruction to be able to fit the proper solution. I want to get the current draw down to about 1A when running, with no load its 0.5A, so I dont expect to get it that low when the prop is doing some work, but 2A plus seems a bit much to me

no it has to remain the same- after all you can take the rascal from London, but you cant take the London from the rascal.

that is a neat way to use the space, love the fold up bed.

Thanks for the Thoughts Wyndham, yes my thoughts have followed along the same lines as yours, the two parts I am sure about are the bearing block and the spacer, as for the measurement, I know what I desighned the spacer block around, so I know that measurement is wrong - now. I could have spaced the motor up with washers, but that wouldnt cure the baseplate, so a rebuild is under way. JM, the clearance isnt a lot more on model #1 and even with weed round the prop at beccles she kept going, at the moment it is an option that can be used if the standard prop doesnt give me enough speed without the gearbox.

MM we will be here for you, I will raise a glass tonight when I get home from work and dont have to drive.

I took a punt and ordered a 35mm prop (current one is 30mm) I have tried it on model #1 and its too big, but I have looked at in on model #2, and it looks feasible, so one way or another we will get the extra power. model 2 can have the skeg angled down a fraction to clear the prop - its tight - less than 0.5mm between the blade and the hull, but its doable. I also got a 30mm prop with a fraction bigger blade size, so when I get the motor mount sorted it will be testing time.

Ah but who is defining the actions of whom as damaging, its all in the viewpoint.

with a name like Packman, you expected any less?

In discordance with my previous comment re- Prince Charles I do in fact uphold our monarchy, my comments were made on the basis of the only time i met Charles, where my hand was briefly shaken and he was already moving on to the person next to me, it was so brief that the photographer covering the event missed his shaking hands with me. however given the gorgeous young lady beside me next in line, I can fully understand his lack of interest. That said I do applaud his stance on modern architecture, and the various other good causes he stands for.

is it an American book, as they call rabbet's what we would call rebates

not thinking of renovating it then Robin?

lightbulb moment, I thought I had carefully aligned the motor, I got the manufacturers data sheet with the drawings, and aligned the bearings with the dimensions from these, I had noticed things ran better when pressure was placed on the back of the motor. so time to recheck everything, the coupling was removed and careful measurements taken - yes things were not lining up, I was slightly off on the vertical, but the horizontal, well the bearing was too high, while perfect alignment isnt critical, it helps to be in the ball park, add to that - the brass mounting plate isnt flat, well my materials box has been raided, some aluminium plate has been found, this weekend it will be out to the workshop and on to the precision tooling. yes careful measuring tells me the bearing needs to drop about 1.4mm and align better vertically, I have also found a stiffer brass sheet for the base. version 2 coming up, I have a brass spacer to replace the plastic one I printed (just needs drilling)the brass block will also act as a heat sink to remove the heat from the motor. So I am disappointed I cocked up in the first place, but I am determined to get it right - last time I trust the manufacturers drawing.

Have you looked into future employment as thoroughly as your future living arrangements, generally the two go hand in hand, after all there is no point living close to the boat, if you dont get time to use it. its all about work / life balance, you need a job that you are happy doing, and that allows you the time to get out on the water. Best of luck in all your endeavours.

I have met him, to be honest if there is a younger lady in the room, you will be ignored.

was that a blind on the end window opposite, or were you just lucky.

we have a vaillant at work, running on propane (no mains gas here) that has a filter type of thing on the water pipe - a fernox TF1 Total, I wonder if that was the type of thing you were thinking of, I think its a combined filter / magnet thingie.