Meantime

I deployed the subtle art of keeping on the right side of moderation, I hope! I kept it as a light hearted jovial dig, but I'm sure most knew what I was thinking!

I still have one on my boat from the days when it was a hire boat. It has a cross piece a bit like a sword to ensure it can only go in so far, thus it never touches the bottom. It has four marks on it effectively dividing it into 5 sections, so 20% per section. I'm not sure just how far of the bottom of the tank it reaches, but I never run the tank too low anyway. I always track the mileage since the last fill and very rarely use the dipstick. I thought it was more for environmental reasons they were removed from boats. If I use mine which is rarely, I have some rag handy and wipe as much diesel as possible of the stick, then leave it in the sun to dry before it goes back in the gas locker. The rag then goes into a plastic bag and disposed of properly. I can imagine some being returned to the locker without being wiped, or drips being left to drip over board, or worse washed in the river water etc etc. If they are wiped what sort of cloth has been used? was it dirty? did it have grit or fluff on it etc.

I'm not so sure about that, our toll money seems to pay for a fair few at Yare House

I must confess I just made it up on the spur of the moment, it could do with some refining. I'll look into improving when next sheltering in the pub from a cold boat.

I don't have the ability to phone my heater, but do have a timer on the thermostat, so normally set it to come on at 20:30 for a couple of hours to warm the boat up before we return to the boat. However I must confess there have been occasions when that plan doesn't work too well, like when you return after last orders or after a lock in to find the heater turned off an hour or two ago.

I must confess the best way I've found of improving the heater fuel economy is to stay in the pub longer. I've even found that the closer you sit to an open fire in a pub, the longer you stay and therefore the less diesel you burn on heating. I've tried to demonstrate it with the following formula distance from fire * outside temp = resistance to leave pub. number of pints / hours spent in pub = hourly pint rate price of a pint * hourly pint rate - cost of running boat heater = £s per hour £s per hour * resistance to leave pub = a figure which if high means its time to return to the boat, if low its time to get a round in.

My Mikuni heater is rated at 5kW and uses between 0.19 - 0.60 l/h. That's the official stats but what does it mean in practice? Well as the diesel all comes from the same tank and there is no hour counter on the heater it's hard to say definitively. What I can say is that in the Summer I get about 2.6 - 2.7 miles to the litre and n the Winter this drop to about 1.9 - 2.1 miles to the litre. The difference being the fuel used by the heater.

I'm not convinced on the use of Winter tyres we get too much of a varience in temperature in this country during the Winter. Winter tyres have a cross over point of around 7 degrees C at which point they become worse for stopping than Summer tyres. Looking at my home weather station for last year we regularly had temperatures above 7 degrees during Nov / Dec 2020 and Jan / Feb 2021. Taken from the Dunlop website "In the UK, it is recommended to put winter tyres on your car when temperatures drop below 7°C. On average, temperatures usually fall to these levels between November and April. But there’s no specific date, and temperatures can be vastly different in urban areas compared with rural areas. So you need to keep an eye on the temperature where you are and when it drops below 7°C, that’s when you should consider changing to winter tyres. Once temperatures start to rise above 7°C in spring, it’s time to change back to summer tyres."

Morrisons at Pakefield has petrol and diesel. Petrol was £1.34.7p

It amazes me why people drive through water that deep> For one thing a man hole may have been dislodged by rain water, that's apart from the damage that can be done to the engine.

What Darren from Hemsby lifeboat actually said was "we think there was probably too many people on the boat" he didn't say there was or it had too many on board. I'm sure there will be an investigation and then we may get to know the fuller facts. Darren actually said they didn't get to the bottom of why it sunk. Again what Darren actually said was "Lucky enough the womans son diverted the boat towards the bank, which actually saved them"

If it was a private day boat, then there is no limit. Still yet to see or read anything which gives any definitive facts.

You're not missing out. It's like a Facebook, but just for your local neighbourhood. The local area is divided up into areas similar to an area that your local councilor would represent and then people join their local group and post about things that are happening locally. A bit like Facebook meets Neighbourhood Watch, with a bit of Gumtree thrown in for good measure.

I must have missed it, but I cannot for the life of me see anywhere that has described the boat that sunk. So it still could be a large boat, a day boat, a picnic boat, hire or private, unless someone knows better. There's been no new updates on Faceache or the EDP website, so why assume!

You've forgotten about Nextdoor!!! They're still posting the locations of petrol stations with fuel on there.

Things are getting serious, due to panic usage there is now a shortage of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram!!! Unlike petrol and diesel though, they won't be missed.

That's off course assuming it was a hire boat! Was it a picnic day boat? Was it a private boat. The EDP describes them as passengers and doesn't mention a hire boat. The main thing is they are safe, I'm sure the facts will come out in the fullness of time.

I would think that's highly unlikely. The Government had the choice of removing duty for the propulsion element after Brexit. It didn't and it won't because now it has carbon emission targets to hit, which would have led to increased duty on Red even if we hadn't entered the Common market.

Yes, but I think you know what I mean at least they don't speculate, although then again!!!!!!

Not at all controversial, all discussion is good discussion. As well as Vaughan I was thinking of Grendel when I mentioned experts in the field. His experience in his day job would I suspect be very good input here. Whilst I get your point about boat engines being less powerful, that has to be balanced against boats probably covering more hours per day than the average car as well as a lot of other domestic electrical demands on board.

Here's the link to the article on the EDP website. It says nothing about where, or even if the boat was moored. Probably best to keep referring back to the EDP website and see if any further facts get updated. I sense the mods fingers on the button. I have lots of questions in my own mind, but lets wait until more facts are revealed. At this moment I don't think we even know what type of boat it was. Day, picnic, hire private etc.

The current points are nowhere near capable enough for full scale charging of boats. A typical BA post may have 2 x 16 amp and 1 x 32 amp outlet on it. Compare this to fast chargers for cars on forecourts which are rated at anywhere between 7-22kW. At 240V this is a shade over 4 amps per kW so the 1 x 32 amp outlet is capable of the lower end of forecourt fast charging with the capability to supply one boat with 7-8kW. If you think the petrol forecourt queues for diesel and petrol are bad now, it would be nothing compared to the queues for fast electric chargers on the Broads without a significant expansion of the network. I suspect one of our members could give you chapter and verse on the kind of supply infrastructure that would be needed to be installed to supply the kind of power needed to the moorings. I don't know for sure, but lets assume your average all fully electric boat capable of 5 to 6 hours cruising per day would need a similar battery to that found in your all electric car, then at a mooring for 10 boats you are going to need somewhere in the region of 150 to 200kW supplies or getting on towards 600 amps. Lets be conservative and say that you can afford to charge at a slower rate and most boats stay on a mooring overnight for at least 12 hours then you could half that, but it is still a massive amount. It's not a new or unique problem. Its all very well the government phasing out petrol and diesel cars by 2030, but the countries electric infrastructure simply isn't ready for it. I think Vaughans comment has it absolutely spot on.

That would be very interesting. I suspect one of the biggest issues is going to be getting the charging network in place. Possibly easier to do canal side in urban environments, but far from easy for most of Broadland. In parts of The Waveney valley they have spent money getting rid of overhead cables. You would need a full blown network to support 100's of boats recharging river side.