Vaughan

Perhaps worth explaining my last post in more detail. If your boat has electric fridge, 3 water pumps (fresh, toilet and shower), TV, inverter, etc., then you can count on using up to 200 amp/hours a day out of the batteries. If you are moored for the night and have not cruised in the day, you are going to need a charger which will put all that back into the battery banks in 8 hours overnight. The regulator will cut down the charge as the batteries "come up", so 40 amps capacity will be necessary to do the job. Second reason is that a 40 amp charger will provide the power for the fridge and all your domestic use overnight without loading the batteries. In the same way that, when driving your car, you turn the headlights or the wipers on and the alternator immediately compensates for the load and does not drain the batteries. The battery in a car is fully charged at all times, which is why it lasts for so long, as it is not being "cycled" like the domestic batteries in a boat. So a little 15 amp charger is just not enough to give you these advantages. Edited with another thought : Chargers (and inverters) give off a lot of heat and so they must have good ventilation. It is no good hiding them away in a little cupboard. They should ideally be close to a hull vent. Bad ventilation is the most common reason for failure.

For me, that would not be powerful enough. If you have a boat with electric fridge and all the other electrics then 20 amps would be minimum. I would be a lot happier with 40 amps.

Tell me about it. . . .

I would certainly have a sniff around that Freeman 23. The interior may well still be in good order.

Back in the 60's there was serious pressure about pollution from boats and extremely adverse press publicity, which was itself killing off the Broads quicker than the sewage! So all the boatyards designed, manufactured, installed and paid for, the system of holding tank toilets that we know today. It was only after this was in place that our suspicions were proved right and all the experts found that it made pretty well no difference! So then they went searching after unprocessed sewage from towns, and the leaching of chemicals off farmer's fields. I don't think the issue of "grey" water from washbasins and showers, has ever been properly addressed. At least not in this country. It involves very large holding tanks and a complicated system to pump from the basins and showers into the tank. Most existing Broads cruisers could not be adapted to such a system. Not enough room. The Crown Grand Classique, a luxury 10 berth boat in France, has an 800 litre holding tank system, for black and grey water. One small point - polluted green water does not grow weeds. It is cleaner, clear water that allows the sunlight onto the river bottom and allows the weeds to grow. It has also (thankfully) allowed the lilies to grow again, which had become almost extinct during the early 70s.

At the risk of stirring the s X X X, it has been proven over many decades by many experts that waste from showers and galley washing-up water is worse for a river than sewage itself. It has also been recognised that the old problems of pollution on the Broads came more from nitrate pollution by agricultural fertilisers than from sea toilets.

Peachments in Brundall should know as it will be a Dowty system that they probably supplied.

The boat is one of the early AF 42s with the front seat moulded into the cabin front. Built in about 1976 by NBY Co on behalf of Richardsons, then owned by Rank. They were built as a centre cockpit sliding canopy but this one has the canopy fixed permanently with a flybridge added on top. There doesn't appear to be a hatch to give access to the inside, so I suppose you climb up there from the aft deck.

Spotted on the Canal du Midi at Homps this afternoon. This must be one of the ex Beaver Fleet Fleur du Midi, which were called Flamingo when with Crown Blue Line and was obviously sold, rather than convert her into a Cavalier. Not a bad job of creating an upper steering position. I have seen a lot worse!

Whoops!

I suppose the trident refers to Neptune?

The bank in that area is clay mud with thick reeds on top. When a boat drives into wet reeds they bend over in front and act like a greased slipway. It is amazing how far a boat will go into reeds, before it stops! You then have the problem of launching it again. On one occasion we actually had to build a slipway out of old railway sleepers to put behind the boat and then pull it off with a couple of big tow boats.

Looks more to me as though they drove it full speed up the bank.

Something else I like about the hydrogen idea is that its factory production could be entirely powered by wind farms and parks of solar panels, so no pressure on the national grid and genuine "green" sustainable energy. I have always been rather sceptical about windfarms as they don't work when there's no wind, but this could be an excellent use for them.

It is also a question of "horses for courses". The efficient use of electric propulsion for day launches has been proven over many years by the Phoenix Fleet at Potter, among others. An electric cabin cruiser is a different matter as it has a much larger hull to push through the water and also has all the electric consumption from being fitted out for living aboard. I quoted a 27 kilowatt motor as (from memory) that is the power rating of a Nanni 4220 engine. In the 70s all the then - new river inspectors launches were running on butane gas, on the same principle as a factory fork lift truck. I don't know what happened to that experiment but it was very successful at the time. Still a fossil fuel of course but quiet and smooth, economical, with no pollution whatever other than CO2. Electric boats are nothing new on the Broads! My father had one of the first ones, in 1946 - bought from Wrights of Ipswich and powered by the starter motor off a Morris Navigator. It had a bank of four 6 volt batteries which were surplus from wartime army lorries and could go back and forth across the river in Thorpe several times a day, for 3 or 4 weeks before the batteries were changed for re-charging. It was still in regular use right up until we moved off the old gunboat and bought a house, in 1989.

So my comment was obviously not aimed at you and gave you no reason to call me silly. This subject (whether about propulsion or domestic supply) is all about infrastructure. There are not enough electric points now and there probably won't ever be, at this rate. Too many agencies involved, too many planning restrictions, too much disturbance of crested newts and all the rest of it. To say nothing of who is going to pay for it and where the generation of all this "green" energy is going to come from. Not from the existing national grid! It's no good getting too upset about an engine running at a steady speed on a mooring, if the person doing it has been given no practical alternative.

Powered by an old Field Marshall tractor!

I cannot see any way that you should think my comment was aimed at you personally, especially as I said I had already posted this before. I don't need to be called silly either, please. If electric propulsion in boats is to come, then this is the equipment that will be needed to provide the charge for them. If it is needed by a car, then it will be needed even more by a boat, with accommodation on board as well as a 27 kilowatt (minimum) propulsion motor. Existing shore power points on the Broads are simply "mains" plug points. They are not powerful enough to charge electric boats (on DC current) overnight.

I have posted this before and the question is still the same: Is this what we want to see on the Maltsters' Quay at Ranworth? Because if we have electric boats then this is what will be required. there is no alternative. Somehow, I doubt if I will live to see the day!

Interesting discussion, which has been covered a few times, on the forum! On a modern boat with all the "goodies" - let's leave out the microwave for a moment - shore power is not necessary if you are cruising for 4 hours or more a day. Unfortunately a day's cruise on the Northern Broads is normally shorter than this. Even a run from Acle to Yarmouth is less than 2 hours. Hence the need to top up the batteries by running on the moorings. There has always been a trend on boatyards, to fit new gadgets to attract customers from other yards. It used to be "look at us - we have fitted fridges!" or "look at us - we have fitted showers!". this ends up with everyone trying to "keep up with the Jones's" and can be very expensive for a small operation. When electric fridges first appeared in the 60s, boats didn't even have domestic batteries. A charge splitter was a totally new gadget! I have always believed that motor cruisers should be autonomous. Able to moor anywhere out in the country without needing to plug into the bank. That, surely, is the whole point of a Broads cruise? You don't want to have to spend every night in a boatyard basin, plugged into the workshops! There is another unavoidable piece of logistics, with electric powered boats. If a yard is operating 10 boats, then every major location on the Broads will have to have 10 charging points, as they might all want to spend the night in the same place at the same time! There was a very expensive experiment with electric boats on the Canal du Midi a while back and the lack of charging points was what killed it, after only one season.

I well remember, during the height of the Jenners Basin saga 2 or 3 years ago, when Norwich CC proudly announced that they owned the river and the river bed, right down through Thorpe and so boats were not allowed to moor on the river front on the island. I wish my father had still been alive when they said that! So if they insist they own it, then up to them to maintain the maritime navigation, along with its lifting bridges. "What's sauce for the goose . . " and all that.

Unfortunately the old fashioned BMC engines are difficult to bleed and will stop if they draw in the slightest amount of air. The Perkins is not all that much better! Modern engines like Nanni with a common rail or "jerk" type injector pump, are pretty well self bleeding. I would still suspect a problem with the sediment trap filter. It only needs someone to stand on it when working on the engine, to disturb the pipe connections.

I wondered about this yesterday. If a joint is leaking diesel when running, then it is not drawing air, and will not stop the engine. Air will be drawn in anywhere on the suction side of the lift pump, so check the banjo joints on the sediment trap filter and check the filter has not been fitted with the rubber washer out of position. Very easy mistake to make. Could also be the diaphragm of the lift pump.

I have to say I think that would be prudent. When I first saw this I made a few jokes, to keep it light hearted but as the day wore on it started to take on possibly contentious overtones. Especially when I saw Griff ranked as a rookie! What finished it for me was the appearance of the title "grand master". Not at all appropriate for a discussion forum about boating holidays on the Broads. This is not a masonic lodge.

No you're not. You're one of the Usual Suspects!