Meantime

Yes similar principle to when you reach a hill you have to press the accelerator harder to maintain the same speed. The noticeable one is when stationary and you turn the rear screen demister on you will probably hear the engine labour slightly. My current car has stop start technology like most new cars and when stationary in traffic when the engine stops the air con will slow down to try and conserve energy, until a point that it feels the cabin temperature is not being maintained and then the engine will restart and the air con goes into overdrive.

Over complicating things also has hidden costs. Aside from the initial cost of the equipment, heavy discharging of batteries shortens their life, so there is a cost there, in addition heavy recharging comes at the cost of extra load on the engine, which in terms means more wear and tear on the engine, but also more diesel burnt. The governor of a diesel engine will regulate the flow of diesel to keep the revs constant. Therefore using more diesel when under a heavier load. It is noticeable when cruising if I put the 24V coffee maker on, you hear the engine note change, even though the revs remain the same. Likewise my friend has a cpap machine which is run of the 24V batteries. If we then make two or three cups of coffee before getting under way it is noticeable that the engine is under a heavier load for the first hour or so. This all means extra diesel burnt for the first hours cruising. It is often overlooked how much extra diesel is burnt in recharging batteries, which all forms part of the 60/40 split of fuel duty. As they say, nothing is for free in this world.

I use the 24V version of this onboard for making coffee, and that still gives the batteries a bit of a whack, but is kinder than using an invertor to provide 240V to use a normal coffee maker.

I'd start by looking at the power consumption of those appliances and looking at alternatives. A domestic kettle is normally 3kw and therefore boiling a kettle on gas is by far the best alternative, but you can also get 12V camping kettles and even 12V coffee makers. I have a 24v coffee maker on board which makes very good filtered coffee. A microwave would be up to 1kw, but you can get smaller 600w microwaves. The toaster, again I would seriously consider the gas grill, or even one of those stove top toasters you put over a gas ring. https://www.amazon.co.uk/litre-Plug-Portable-Electric-Kettle/dp/B07D9N6DTR/ref=sr_1_4?crid=T53K9KI8C1HQ&keywords=12v%2Bkettle&qid=1654332934&sprefix=12v%2Bkettle%2Caps%2C67&sr=8-4&th=1

One more thing I've just spotted Ray, in your picture the one top right it looks like you have some very thin wires connected directly to your battery. I'm assuming this is for a bilge pump and is meant to bypass the main battery isolator for when you leave the boat unattended? There should most definitely be a fuse close to the battery to protect the rest of the cable run which with a potential 520ah in reserve would glow very hot very quickly in the event of a short somewhere. Also I personally wouldn't be happy with those crimp connectors. Crimps can work loose and then start to arc. I wouldn't want any source of a spark anywhere near batteries that will gas when being charged.

I would caution against splitting off two of the batteries for sole use of the invertor. If you are planning on a 2kw invertor as Grendel said you are looking at around 170 amp draw, or 85 amp per battery. Leisure batteries are not really designed for such high current drain. Your 130ah batteries should never be drained below 50% which means in reality you have a usable capacity of 65ah which means that at full load on your invertor the batteries would last less than an hour. Leisure batteries are normally specified at 20ah and 5ah rates. This is the amount of capacity that can be drawn over 5 hours and the amount of capacity that can be drained over 20 hours. The 20 hour rate gives you more overall capacity because your drain rate is much lower and kinder to the battery. So your 130ah battery will provide close to its rated capacity over 20 hours, but much less if you try to draw it all in 5 hours. It will be considerably less if you try to drain it all in less than an hour. Bear in mind you have sealed batteries you are more likely to boil the acid of and kill your batteries in a very short period of time. Keeping all four batteries connected halves the current drain per battery to 42.5 amps per battery, which is still not a kind discharge rate for leisure batteries. I would reconsider if you really need an invertor that large? If you do, then I would add additional batteries just for the invertor installation and consider using cheaper FLA Flooded Lead Acid batteries because you have the chance to monitor and top up the water. Discharging batteries at that kind of rate will use water. Maintenance free batteries really mean, you cannot top up the water and therefore need to be kinder to them. As Vaughan said, you also need to look at how you are going to recharge those batteries as well. A second alternator is a very good option. Barnes solution was to fit a second 24V alternator and fit batteries in series to provide 24V. Doubling the voltage halves the current needed and therefore makes things like cables a lot more manageable as they don't need to be quite so thick. To answer your Q3, not at the same time. You can fit a changeover switch either manual or automatic, but you need to ensure that it is not possible for you to have the sockets powered by the invertor if you are likely to plug into shore power. The safest way is dedicated sockets for the invertor, or a changeover switch. A manual one is simple, you just rotate a switch and move from shore power to invertor power. More expensive, but more elegant is an automatic switch. These normally work on a priority of inputs. So you wire up your shore power and then the invertor to a lower priority input. The switch will always try and use the highest priority input first, i.e. the shore power and will then fall back to the next input, the invertor. One other observation I would make from your picture is that your split diode and fuse holder have exposed terminals. You can get Red protective boots that would fit over those connections. I would strongly suggest fitting some. See picture below.

Your not the first! MauriceMynah often goes to his boat planning to spend 10 mins cleaning it, and it often takes less time

You could say that. We even took out street lights and traffic lights!!!! I should add the driver did get out with minor burns and is ok.

Here in Essex we were a bit premature and lit ours on Wednesday evening!!! 38,000 litres of aviation fuel.

It looks like they do gearboxes and transmissions, but I will call them next week in case they do prop repairs as well. I'm sure last time it was done about 13 years ago it went somewhere along there.

Going to take the opportunity whilst the boat is out of the water to refurb the propeller. I seem to remember there was a place at Stalham near the staithe, but cannot seem to find any details on the web. Does anyone know if it is still there? or alternatively a recommendation for where to take it. Looking at the propeller it doesn't look too bad, just a few small blemishes on the very edge of two out of the three blades, but I might as well have it done whilst it's out.

Who knew all it took was on man to make the bar viable!!

I don't know the prices, but you are probably better off going through Mutford Lock in Oulton Broad, and buying diesel salt side. I believe Griff has filled up there in the past and it was cheaper then, than anywhere on The Broads.

In the picture below the left hand copper connection is the thermocouple connection to the gas control valve. This can just be unbolted without disturbing the gas connection. In the case of your thermocouple Ray it will be a spade connection. The middle connection is the oven thermostat and as the oven heats up it will start to close the valve to regulate the gas supply to regulate the temperature. The right hand silver pipe is the gas connection. The main body contains the valve and the solenoid. As you can see from this picture to replace the solenoid would mean disconnecting the gas. However the thermocouple is fine to replace. The picture below shows the thermocouple disconnected from the control valve. If you were to turn the oven on and hold the k.n.o.b in to defeat the flame failure valve you would be able to measure a small millivolt voltage between the copper body and the silver centre despite the thermocouple not being connected to anything supplying it with electric. It is purely the Seebeck Effect which is inducing a voltage at the cold end.

Although the thermocouple connects to the control valve, which contains the solenoid. They are two discrete separate components. A thermocouple does not have to be connected to a solenoid, and in the case of ovens the thermocouple is often 1300mm long. Again if the solenoid did need to be changed, that would require disturbing the gas connection, which in turn I would leave to a gas safe engineer.

Its interesting because even Thomas Seebeck who discovered the effect, hence the name Seebeck effect initially believed it was due to magnetism. What is the Seebeck Effect? The Seebeck effect (often misspelled as ‘Seeback effect’) is the build-up of an electric potential across a temperature gradient in different electrical conductors or semiconductors. For example, a thermocouple measures the difference in potential across a hot and cold end for two dissimilar materials (e.g. an electrical conductor or semiconductor). The potential difference measured is proportional to the temperature difference between the hot and cold ends. This phenomenon was discovered by German physicist Thomas Seebeck (1770-1831). Seebeck discovered this by observing a compass needle which would be deflected when a closed-loop was formed between those two different metals or semiconductors. Seebeck initially believed that it was due to the magnetism induced by the temperature differences and he called the effect as a thermo-magnetic effect. However, Danish physicist, Hans Christian Orsted realized that it’s an electrical current that is induced, which because of Ampere law deflects the magnet.

Indeed it is the presence of two differing metals that often causes the confusion. The Seebeck effect describes the way in which electrons are caused to move down a conductor when it is warmer at one end than the other. Where there is a temperature gradient along the conductor. Whilst this creates a voltage, if two wires of the same metal are used then the voltage at the opposite ends is the same and since a potential difference doesn't exist no voltage can be measured and there is no voltage difference to operate a solenoid. By using two different metals the voltages generated are different and thus a potential difference exists at the cold junction end which is enough to operate a small solenoid.

I beg to differ. The voltage created by the thermocouple will cause a solenoid to engage at the cold junction end and it is this that you will hear click as it disengages about 20 seconds after the flame has gone out, but it is most definitely operated by voltage induced as a result of using two differing types of metal in the thermocouple. For a fuller description it is worth reading here

For reference, this is the more usual style of thermocouple with a nut on the cold junction end, that could look like it is a gas style connection, again though it is only an electrical connection and can be disturbed and replaced without breaking any gas seals.

In theory yes because you are only working on low voltage electrical connections. It is also a fail safe device so if you fit it incorrectly you'll have the problem of it not staying alight. I say in theory because to access and change the thermocouple there is the slight possibility of disturbing a gas joint unintentionally. If you have a bubble gas leak detector as part of your gas installation then it should be easy to check for unintentional leaks. As long as your very careful around any gas joints then you should be fine.

Some thermocouples do come with a spade connector such as the Hotpoint one below. Thermocouples are not a bi metallic strip, although you are right to suggest there are two different types of metal used in a thermocouple. When metal is heated is causes electrons to flow away from the source of the heat. Differing metals have slightly different flow rates. If you join two different metals and place this joint in a flame, known as the Hot junction, electrons will flow away from the Hot junction at differing speeds thus creating a small potential difference, voltage at the other end known as the Cold junction. This is plugged into the control solenoid and used to keep the gas valve open. Once heat is removed such as when the gas blows out the probe cools down and the voltage stops and thus the solenoid drops out cutting off the gas.

Personally I'd do as Ray suggested. That in line filter looks a bit grotty inside. If that was my boat I'd remove everything back to the tap coming out of the tank. I would then fit a T piece with another tap and a hose going down into the bilge. This will allow you to easily drain down your tank for the Winter or to replace the water if the boat has been left standing a few weeks without having to pump the whole tank through the taps. Next take Blue food grade hose from the other outlet on the T piece to a new variable speed pump. The latest Jabsco ones will come with a new in line filter that clips directly onto the inlet of the pump. Finally take the output from the pump in Blue food grade hose to supply your taps / hot water calorifier. Result, much simpler system, easier to maintain and consistent temperature water at any flow rate.

Byelaw 84 Emission of Smoke or Fumes or the Making of Noise The master of a vessel shall not permit the vessel to emit smoke or fumes or make any noise or nuisance which gives reasonable grounds for annoyance to any other person. The above is the actual byelaw, as opposed to the oft quoted unofficial BA advice which contravenes their own byelaw, re running of engines after 8pm. The advice leads lots of people to assume it must be legitimate to run engines before 8pm, NOT if it is in contravention of byelaw 84.

Now if it was a smart phone it might have predicted the forthcoming precipitation!

It had been scheduled for half a day and they are now saying that due to the complexity up to three days is needed. The principle MAIB investigator is also being called.