Smoggy

Turn the heating off.....

There's a well respected engineer on the ybw forums (Vyv Cox) whose son is a distributor for planar and can give lots of advice on them.

Add to previous post, the chinaspachers generally don't come with instructions and if they do it's meaningless "chinglish" and the controllers have far more options so are more complicated for use by hirers as opposed to an owner that can fully familiarise themselves, it seems to require hunting down a faceache group to get good instructions. Also for anything being hired out they would need to make absolutely sure of any CE or UKCA certification is in place to cover themselves if there was any issues, it's no secret the chinese use a logo very similar to CE for "china export" (it's only the spacing that is different) so you have to be very careful. That said I have got a pair of chinese made racor filter copies to fit on my boat for £25 each instead of £230 each, I have swapped the o-rings for viton ones and will be fitting genuine racor elements but it will still be about £120 for the pair, they are both CE and UKCA marked. (I thing we are still accepting CE till next year now as the deadline got moved) As Mouldy says in the position of a hire yard I'd go for planar.

They would likely fit eber/webasto as spares supply is well established, as for cheap kind or good kind the chinese ones seem to be proving to be no less reliable than the vastly over priced ones it's just the ancillaries that are ok for vehicle use but not up to boat use, CO doesn't get trapped in vehicles as easily as they can have low ventilation and not exposed to a marine environment, hence for drop in replacement with other bits already fitted it's well worth looking cheapy chinaspacher. When you mention value for money both eber and webasto got huge fines from the EU for price fixing and their prices have not gone down, parts prices are ridiculously high and they are prone to killing ecu's, you can get two full chinerspachers for less than the cost of an eber ecu. If my eber D4 gives up I won't be paying over the odds to repair it, I'll just replace with the cheap option.

If the ducting size matched I'd likely go chinaspacher rather than eber/webasto spares prices. Just use the webasto exhaust bit not the flimsy Chinese junk.

When he gets to BA and finds he's remembered the beer and the food but left the boat keys at home he'll be singing 2 out of 3 aint bad.

Good to see they have the tech side of the business working well then.....

Why do people think posting stuff from private property (I include inside pubs in that) about other peoples lives without permission and posting online for all the world to see is ok? It's something that makes my blood boil. Last summer I got back to work after a holiday to find out someone was coming round to do a promotional video to be posted on youtube, I hadn't been asked so once the guy with the camera came into my little workshop he got it pointed out very abruptly where the camera would be lodged if he video'd me without my say so, I let him get two short bits from wrists down and stood at the back of one group still pic and no more. One guy that had just started didn't feel in a position to say no and a couple of months later got a strange message from someone he didn't know (or wish to) on faceache as face recognition had picked out his page from the vid, he ignored it and they went away but it don't always happen like that does it, it did reinforce my feelings on the matter and I think my guvnor got the idea that I wasn't happy about it. If you see them in there again scuttle the git! (gently and politely of course)

They don't use steam trains any more Carole. (oh yes it's norfolk, they may do) Bearing in mind there is already lots of marinas that side of the line doing fine.

Mine does southern rivers and sea and I'm not planning on taking it out again until 2025 when the next survey is due unless I have problems or hit something, it got new anodes and a coat of anti foul before Christmas when it was out having insurance work done so should be fine. Going between salt and fresh helps as most growth can't live in both.

If anyone finds themselves at the end of a holiday with 3/4 tank of diesel they have paid for they could always pump it out and sell it to me for 75p/litre if they feel robbed.... (I doubt I'd be the only taker) Don't try syphoning it, you'll probably drown and pollute the river with diesel.

If the underside of a hire boat was not cleaned or antifouled for several years it's unlikely you'd notice any difference Andrew, river fouling doesn't tend to affect fuel use or speed much (if at all) and broads boat speeds, I guess it's good for them to pick up any damage and fix sooner rather than later but if no water is getting in there's probably not much to worry about. If you noticed the difference as a hirer you would not worry as you'd be too busy trying to get out from under the boat and out of the river. A bit of fouling also stops the swimmers and paddleboarders sticking to the underside too.

The controller on my solar panel does both batteries, it can be set to the percentage of split in 10% increments, I have it set 10% to start battery and 90% to domestics during winter to give it a trickle and allow for natural discharge and change to all domestics during the season when it's being used more often, it's pwm not mppt but I couldn't find a two channel mppt version at a civilised price, I also have a fold up panel I can add to the system when needed. It means I can do an extra day in places like southwold when we get put on a private pontoon with no leccy otherwise by day 3 I need to stink the neighbours out to charge.

At least no-one has suggested a tow start yet or getting out and pushing.

It always takes longer to get the morning after pill, I hope she was worth it. 2 hours? Bloody hero!

Never worked out the logic behind a starter battery for each engine, once one has started there's an alternator helping the second start, when given some free batteries I did a little test, both engines with 30 seconds pre-heat and cranked simultaneously from winter cold, both fired up fine, it was a 90ah agm from a 5 year old BMW (manufacture date stamped on battery post). In normal use you never start both like that and always have a domestic bank to boost from.

My princess 30ds has a button at the helm that activates a solenoid between starter and domestic bank for jumping, you could just use a jump lead between isolators or battery banks. If all isolators are off there should be no power to the helm only fused power to auto bilge pumps and radio memory. Is there another isolator somewhere that you've not found?

Nah, it just means you get away with it more often and do less damage when it does go wrong.

I had my props tweaked by clements at little staughton and Paul's calculation was spot on, I told him the boat model and engines/gearboxes and he told what would have been on from new and recommended a slight re-pitch while he was refurbing them, max revs to 3900rpm as volvo spec and the 21-22 knots he predicted. Refurb and re-pitch was a much shorter lead time than new props and a fraction of the cash, the foundry was where the holdup was, he only had them a week.

My pic could be me peeing up the wrong tree entirely, I was going by Grendels description and looked on google earth.

There ya go. Terrace by the RSPB mark.

A different owner would make a world of difference, maybe worth someone trying then but not until. An interesting read, thanks for the link CC.

There is a very easy solution to nuisance paddle boarders.... Clickity click. That should scatter them (I want one!).

They can't just bring in new rules anyway, there's quite a long process to go through I believe. Any thing that isn't a law/bylaw would be nothing more than guidance and unenforceable, although that's never put them off before.

I did go to check on a paddle boarder once near the newcombe sand bouy south of lowestoft as I assumed he had got pushed too far out, got a big grin and a thumbs up so I carried on down the coast keeping the speed down till well clear, he was about 2NM out to sea on the edge of the main approach channel for lowestoft. I called lowestoft port control to let them know he was out there so they could warn any outbound craft as he wasn't easy to spot. Some are just awaiting a darwin award but I don't think that's a reason to ban them at all.