barnesPhil

No. Lead gel. I think the cost of lithium would finish my boss. He feels unwell every time he gets an invoice for the gel ones.

Hi James I imagine your problem is the dreaded baby wipe. This is an on going problem for us. We check every toilet before each boat goes out. The problem is wipes get caught on the toilets macerator and slowly get more and more torn until they jam the pump. It is very hard to tell if there are any wipes in there until then. Big labels in the toilet compartment seem to work best. Staff on handover should tell people about the problem. At least new customers. If you come again and have any concerns let us know before you leave and we can check the toilet. It is much quicker and easier on the yard where we are better equipped to clean up than on the river bank. Phil

Hi The battery bank is 24v although we are using 12 and 24v equipment. The battery is 1070ah 20 hour rate at 24v. It has a battery monitor connected which sends data to the display on the dash. The engine is fitted with 2 x 110 amp alternators. They will charge at 150amps at engine idle. Max output comes in above 1000 rpm. You only see the max output if the battery is very low or the inverter is loaded. Phil

Hi Gallipoli Please tell me more about your Sonnet plumbing problem? If you have had the boat 4 times and have the same problem we need to look at it? If you would rather you can talk to the office and they will tell you how to contact me directly. For the start of the season we will have one of each boat, with the second of each starting about May I think. That will be all for this year but we are planning more for next. We are looking at improving our web coverage. We will start with the new boats picture and videos but I would like to cover pictures and videos of the other boats. I think it would also be good to cover updates that we do on the older boats. I need to get used to doing this first. I also need to find a video star, me and Kerry are not keen on the role to say the least. Phil

Hi Bryan Encore Just to clarify the Encore's will have a gas cooker. I am quite sure that is a 4 ring hob with separate oven and grill. They also have a basic microwave and domestic type mains fridge. The spec has quite a large battery for a boat of the size about 8 kw. I would not expect you to have any problems. Serenade The Serenade which is the bigger of our new boats is the one with all electric galley. I have been told not to get techie when talking to customers but try this as a guide. The battery bank on Serenade is rated at over 20 kw in practice I would expect you would be able to use 10 kw regularly without any problems. The hob will use approx 1.5 kw per ring per hour. There are 40 led lights on the boat these use about 0.1 kw per hour, when all on. I would expect you to be able to run 1 ring on the hob for 10 hrs as they tend to cut in and out on temp. When I get a minute I will try this out!!! Hopefully that will give people an idea of the power in the batteries. The engine has a powerful charging system and can recharge the batteries at nearly 4.8 kw per hour. In practice the batteries won't absorb the charge that quick. Most customers run for 2 to 4 hrs a day and the batteries recover in this time. The dash panel will show you how much power you have remaining in the batteries and how much power you are using. We have 16 boats with similar systems and batteries is not something that causes a problem.

I will follow these threads where I can. This can be quite time consuming. Thanks for the pointers Jonzo. I have also written my password down this time too! We haven't put a sensor in the seat to stop it working when people sit on it. We have labeled and put instructions on the panel telling people to only use it whilst not sitting on it. The extra weight on the seat tends to just make the hydraulics pop the over pressure valve and it not move anyway. The boat goes out for the first time at the beginning of March and I am hoping that it will be almost complete by the end of this week. This will give me the opportunity to take it out for a day with the two young vandals I have at home, probably with there friends as well. I will let you know if they manage to break it!!! I will also look at the battery and cooking systems. I have taken the family out on our boats regularly and cook day to day meals with the hobs and microwave combi. This system works really well and as a rule you don't have to run the engine the batteries cope. The big plus on the system is that the other boat systems lights pumps and heating can almost be forgotten about because the battery can run these systems for a week at a time. The Serenade is in the water at present with people working on it. It has all the lights on the heating and the seat must of been up and down a hundred times by now. The batteries are still above 50% even after a week without charge. I don't mind criticism. My job is to make the boats as safe, reliable and appealing as possible. Hearing other peoples thoughts can only help.

Hi After discussing various options for the Serenade helm seat the clip on Facebook shows what we came up with. We tried a few ideas for the seats frame and this one is by far the best. We could cover some sections but others fit in with the base when it's lowered. We have tried our best to break it, mainly with slightly over weight engineers acting like big kids. As always when doing something different the unforseen can catch you out. The seat is very over built and the system has been setup to cope with the typical hire boat demands. The helm position is now more comfortable. The seat can be adjusted fore and aft and to some extent up and down. Everyone who has tried the seat has been able to find a comfortable position with a good vew of the river. As requested we have also made room for two. I'm not great at the posting comments thing but I will try and watch this one over the next few days. If you have any other queries I will do my best to answer them. Phil

Hi Everyone I'm Phil and I am one of the engineers currently working on completing the first of Brinks Serenade's. I have had a read through the comments above and just wanted to clear up a few points. The engine in the boat is a 50hp Nanni Diesel and drives the shaft through hydraulics the same as many of the older boats already in the fleet. They allow us to mount the engine away from the accommodation, making the boat quieter and smoother. We have not built it as a hybrid. Although we have been very pleased with the Rhapsody class in spite of one or two teething problems with the first one, we are unsure of the longer term running costs. The engine has an electronic speed control like many of our other boats. This helps keep the engine running smoothly when the batteries are charging or as engine load changes. The electronic speed control connects with the electronic throttle and eliminates the need for push pull cables. This makes the controls smoother and lighter along with saving installation time. We have fitted the large battery bank to keep all systems running on board. We have found over the years that large batteries are more reliable keeping all the systems running longer. I expect the batteries on this boat to last 10 years and in the long term the cost will be lower then the basic lesuire batteries. We are currently working on the helm seat. It is an important area and we are investing quite a bit of time and money on the problem. The intention is to make it seat two with electric adjustment up and down as well as in and out. However very much still on the drawing board watch this space!!!