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Meantime
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Posts posted by Meantime
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3 hours ago, Vaughan said:
I notice on Ferry Marina's website that the name Diamond Emblem is no longer listed. I assume they have been re-named and are a 10 berth boat, as the report says there were 9 persons aboard.
I believe there were 2 Diamond Emblem's. I'm guessing to avoid mistaken identity both have been renamed, it probably serves no good purpose to reveal what they have been renamed to, however only one has been tolled for this year. The one involved in the incident remains untolled for now.
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Much is said on forums such as this about the correct timings for a safe passage through Yarmouth and across Breydon Water, yet little reference is really made to the correct time to arrive at Yarmouth if intending to moor and not transit Breydon.
If your boat is too tall to pass under the bridges and the tide is ebbing, you are going to have to turn before the bridge in order to moor up. I don't think I have ever turned between the yacht station and the bridge and would hope to never have too. I personally make sure to never head towards that area unless I know I have very good clearance under the bridge. I only need 6ft 6ins, but there are occasions when there are less than that.
If intending to moor at Yarmouth on an ebb I would always head under the bridges to make my turn and then head back.
I have raised this issue before and given that the times of the tide move on a daily basis, I think the BA's fixed period mooring policy at Yarmouth is a safety issue. Overnight till 10am and daily 10am till 6pm means that people will often rush to depart before 10am in any tide state. The same is often true for arriving to make the most of their mooring period.
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4 hours ago, Vaughan said:
I might add that the normal maximum charge level for a battery is its 10 hour rate plus 70%. So one 100 amp/hour battery can be charged at 17 amps continuous. More than that and it will overheat and "gas off".
So if you have a 90 amp alternator you need to have the charge spread across at least 3 batteries in parallel. Most Broads cruisers these days have one starter and 3 domestic batteries.
As Vaughan says you can gas a battery by charging with too high a charge current, but equally you can gas a battery with too high a voltage even at very low currents. Typically a battery will start to boil or gas at 14.8V, which if the battery terminal voltage has reached that point is will be taking very little current. It is however at this point desulfation of the plates will begin to take place which is beneficial to the battery in small doses, providing you have a means of replacing any water lost over time.
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14 hours ago, Karizma said:
Related question - do some install battery chargers on their boats even if they have a separate inverter charger on board that provides 240volts as well as charging capabilities when connected to shore power ?
I have an inverter/ charger on my boat (Sterling Pro Combi), and a single solar panel, so wondering what benefits might be if I invest in dedicated battery charger(s)?
1 hour ago, Oddfellow said:Only redundancy. You already have a battery charger in the Sterling unit. Another would conflict with the Sterling unit if you were to use them together.
Redundancy is one questionable benefit, but there are several reasons not to use two chargers connected to the same set of batteries at the same time. Most modern chargers are intelligent software controlled three or four step chargers designed to sense the needs of the battery and charge and condition them accordingly. Add another battery charger into the mix and they will be sensing each other.
Having two battery chargers could also easily lead to you charging your batteries twice as fast and lead to battery damage. Your battery charger output should be rated at about 10% of the size of your battery bank. So assuming you have 2 x 110 amp hour batteries you have a bank of 220 amp hours. So your best size charger would be a 20A charger, this will ensure you cannot exceed the maximum current charge rate for your batteries. If you add in a second 20A charger you now have the ability to deliver 40A between the 2 chargers, or double the recommended charge rate which in turn will lead to damage to your batteries.
Most modern chargers will have some form of desulfation mode activated by a timer where for a short period of time a higher than normal voltage is applied to the battery to desulfate the plates. This process is good for the battery in small doses and can lead to acid being boiled off. Having two chargers would mean twice as many desulfation routines.
A modern 3 or 4 step battery charger starts with putting a bulk charge into the battery and when it senses the battery is near to being charged it will switch to a topping charge mode for a set period of time before switching into the final stage, float mode or power pack mode. They keep sensing the battery and at some point if a load is applied, or the battery naturally discharges to a certain point the battery charger will sense this and restart all it's charge steps again. Having two battery chargers connected would cause the two chargers to mis-interpret what is occurring with the batteries.
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3 hours ago, Cheesey69 said:
Keep in mind input amps from the shore, mine is 16amp, so no need to go wild with charging amps. 10 amps for me is plenty
Input amps and charging amps are two different things and are relative to the voltage and the total power. 16 amps at 240V input gives a t total power of 3840 watts. P or power = V or voltage x I or current. 3840 watts at 12V gives a total current of 320 amps!!!!!
A charger giving out 20 amps at 12V DC, is likely to be using around 1 amp of your 16 amp shore power supply. In reality due to power factor correction and power efficiency it is likely to be closer to 1.2 amps, but no where near your 16 amp supply.
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5 hours ago, rightsaidfred said:
I have no technical knowledge but would have thought 3 days is about max for batteries, while volt meters are ok if you understand them I was always given to believe that a drop test was needed to define the condition of batteries.
Fred
A drop test is used to test starter or cranking batteries and is no good indicator for leisure or dual purpose batteries and is very likely to shorten the life of non starter batteries.
There are three main measurements for batteries aside from measuring the battery voltage. The CCA or cold cranking current which is the maximum power the battery can provide for a very short period as in when starting an engine. Typically this is in the range of 800+ amps, which plainly means a 110 amp hour battery will not last for very long, but it has the grunt to power your starter motor for the few seconds it hopefully takes to start the engine. You will all know how quickly that battery will go flat if the engine proves to be troublesome to start. The higher the CCA the better it is at starting engines.
The other two measurements are the C5 and C20 rates. These are the maximum amount of amps a battery can provide for 5 or 20 hours and it is not a linear equation, so remember this when trying to compare batteries. A C20 110 amp hour battery should provide 5.5 amps per hour for 20 hours. The same battery will more than likely provide 90 amps at its C5 rating or 18 amps per hour for 5 hours or a total of 90 amp hours. Less often quoted is the C10 rate. So always compare like for like. Generally speaking the less current you draw per hour the longer it will last and the same battery will give you more capacity. This is because all batteries have the ability to recover a certain amount of charge when left to rest. The slower the rate of discharge the greater the ultimate capacity. Having said all that about the "C" rates, remember that you should never discharge a battery more than 50% or you will shorten its life. The more often you do the quicker you kill the battery. If you do discharge a battery below 50% the longer you leave it discharged the more damage you do. So in reality you need to half the manufacturers quoted C5 or C20 rates to avoid killing the battery.
One last thing about batteries, if you need to fast charge either with an intelligent charger, or an advanced alternator regulator you are going to boil the batteries at some point. You'll get a greater depth of charge but it comes at the cost of boiling off some acid. Open lead acid batteries can be topped up and are best suited to fast charging. Sealed, maintenance free or AGM batteries basically mean they can not be topped up, or more importantly fast charged. They have vents to avoid them exploding and you will still boil the acid off them, but will not be able to top them up. Most advanced alternator regulators will provide a higher voltage than the standard output from the alternator, this comes at the price of shortening the life of your batteries unless you can keep topping them up.
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My first thoughts are I'm not sure you actually do have a problem. If your batteries are lasting three days between charges with the fridge on, occasional TV and other things like pumps and lights then I think they are doing ok.
You should only really 50% discharge your batteries so your 3 x 110Ah gives you a reasonable 165Ah usable. Which three days or 72hrs is approx a couple of amps per hour you have to run everything. The fridge alone depending on make could easily consume that.
You have told us a lot about your possible problem, yet left out quite a bit of pertinent information. Some fridges will detect when you are on charge and run the fridge harder in effect taking advantage of the external charging source rather than deplete the batteries. Some fridges even have an absorption unit which in effect charges up and stores the cold, letting it back into the fridge later when you are just running on battery power. The make and model of the fridge would go a long way towards determining the type of compressor and average current drain etc. Most compressors will sound noisier if struggling to run on a lower voltage, so your fridge going quieter is probably nothing to worry about.
Again the make and model of charger would be useful to work out how good it is, and whether it is good for conditioning the batteries or whether prolonged usage is likely to be more damaging to the life of your batteries.
One other thing of note on your batteries, you say they are Stirling, or are they Sterling as in the people who make battery chargers. I believe Sterling only sell the very expensive Lithium batteries which are excellent, but very expensive at around £600 per 100Ah battery. They also need specialist chargers and some form of current limiting charger between the alternator and the battery otherwise you will very quickly kill your alternator.
Confirmation on the make of batteries and make and model of fridge and charger would be useful, but at first glance I don't think you really have a problem, well with the boat anyway.
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19 hours ago, Smoggy said:
Took train to lowestoft and currently sat outside the jolly sailor at wakefield, dog found a fellow Romanian on the beach to run about with so needs a rest....
Hats off to you, that's one hell of a walk!
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1 hour ago, MauriceMynah said:
Perhaps you can enlighten me on a few points. I have to ask, is it thecraft or the morring that is designated as "residential". I have non residential moorings at Stalham yet I don't live their. I am moored there often but not as often as I am moored elswhere. Does that mean my moorings shuld be classed as residetial or not?
A lot of it comes done to semantics. Technically it is the mooring berth that has to have planning for residential use, or not. I believe to be classed as residential it has to be your primary address for postal communications. A previous marina I moored at was happy as long as you were having your mail delivered elsewhere to your "main" address as then they just viewed you as a "very frequent" visitor to your boat. Therein lies the main issue. I have a house and a boat, how often, or how many nights would I have to spend on my boat for it to be classed as residential use? I am planning on coming to the boat for a week and using it as a base so will be living on it for a week. To me I shall be living aboard for the week. Is that in breach of my mooring terms.
A lot of marinas say no residential usage, because they don't have planning for such, but don't actually state what residential usage is. Is it a number of nights onboard? is it having no other postal address? For the most part I think it's just box ticking to keep the BA happy. When you look closely there are very few marinas without people living quite happily on board their boat. I have seen adverts for a few that do state very categorically no residential usage, but for the best part most marinas seem to turn a blind eye.
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A look at the BA compound at Thorpe shows that for one reason of another there seems to have been a lot more abandoned boats recently. The majority in the compound seem to be of reasonable condition. Does make you wonder if the BA are more targeting seizing the boats where they have a reasonable chance of recovering their costs when the boat eventually goes to auction?
Going off at a slight tangent, my understanding is that the landowner is responsible for policing and evicting people illegally moored on their property. Lots of precedent here, the BA saying that it is up to Network Rail to get boats moved of the railway embankment at Thorpe, the BA taking on Pye's Mill from the local council so that the BA 24hr mooring byelaws can be applied etc. So why is it that in some places the BA spend money placing BA no mooring signs on private property? Surely any no mooring signage should be placed at the land owners expense? and shouldn't carry official BA logo's etc.
There is plenty of mooring on the approach to Norwich which whilst more than likely privately owned has public access, and carries BA no mooring signs. A cynical person might think it is because they want to drive boaters into the yacht station where you have to pay the BA to moor. However between Surlingham and Bramerton on the North bank there is some reasonable wild mooring spots and in the past I've seen boats moored there, but now there are BA no mooring signs, yet this is arable grazing land presumably owned by a farmer, so why are the BA, not the land owner placing signs here. Yet if you go even further up stream just barely 100 yards before Commissioner's Cut there are a few boats wild moored that have been there for years and no signs are placed or action taken? It just seems so random.
In effect all wild moorings spots are owned by someone, so why does the BA decide to police or place signage for some, but not all. It's a good thing that they don't and I don't see why they should when it is the land owners responsibility to take action, so why therefore do the BA place no mooring signs at some when presumably they have no ability to take action unless the boat is not tolled, insured or has a valid BSS etc.
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44 minutes ago, CambridgeCabby said:
IMHO what the BA needs to do is permit more residential moorings in marinas , and encourage these permanent wild mooring occupiers to use them .
I should also add that over the years I have met many live aboards who are wonderful individuals with respect for the Broads , other boaters and who are an asset to the area .
In the marina where I moor residential moorings are not allowed, or at least not as far as the BA is concerned, but there is now approaching double figures of "very very frequent visitors" to their boats. I think you know what I mean. It has always been the case in many marinas, although there are a few marinas that strictly abide by the rules and don't allow residential usage. The point is, if you want to live on your boat and know where to look, you can find a mooring in a marina, however like all marina moorings they have a cost, and that is why you will never stop the wild mooring and hogging of popular wild moorings as they are free.
It would be nice however for the BA to make it easier to legitimately live aboard your boat in a marina for those who are happy to pay for their residential mooring.
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Just now, annv said:
Hi Andy there are river bank moorings(you will need pins/stakes) on the left just through the bridge with steps back up to the road to reach the hotel or the cafe/ produce shop just past the hotel on opposite side of road. John
Not any more there aren't. They were sold at auction I believe a while back. When I went past this year it just says private no mooring.
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Definitely not the right way to wire the switch up, but going back to basics you say;
16 hours ago, fishfoxey said:( to stop me accidentally leaving it on ).
Most fridges have an off switch as part of the temperature control. If you turn it fully one way it will normally click off. Surely adding another switch isn't going to stop you from forgetting to turn the fridge off? However that leaves me to think that your worried about leaving the fridge on when you leave the boat for a long period as in when you go home. Surely you have a main battery isolator and you remove the key, or turn this off when leaving the boat for long periods? and the fridge should be wired after the battery isolator so that it is also turned off when you leave the boat?
Apart from other stuff I might do when leaving my boat to go home, I have the rule off six. I have four battery isolators which all get the key removed, turn the gas off and close the raw water seacock. Other things might get done depending on the time of year and how long I'm intending to leave the boat, but those six things are the absolute safe minimum when going home from the boat.
52 minutes ago, WherryNice said:As already said you only need to switch either the live or the earth not both
I would never switch the neutral and never the earth which in effect are one and the same thing. The back of most fridges is encased in metal which will be connected to the negative of the fridge. If you switch the negative, you only need any other piece of earthed or negative metal or wire to touch the chassis of the fridge and the fridge is turned back on again.
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3 minutes ago, JanetAnne said:
I've never been a fan of these type of isolator because you can very easily run the boat off the wrong battery and end up with everything flat.
Who would do something like that!
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18 hours ago, grendel said:
update on the electrics, 3 hours cruising isnt enough to get the batteries to the point of keeping the fridge going all night and starting the engine next morning, so the mystery of the battery still isnt solved.
16 hours ago, JanetAnne said:Mystery solved
Needs more than 3hrs cruising then!
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7 minutes ago, vanessan said:
That’s better, thank you. Next question, any access for walks?
The OS app shows the Angles way about half a mile from that mooring, but no official walks along that bank. The mooring looks to be unofficial and any paths leading away from it to The Angles way would be as well. Having said that the path looks reasonable from what I can see using the serial view, but would depend on whether you met a friendly, or unfriendly farmer on the way!
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59 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:
Now underway to find a wild mooring on the Ant. Bbq, fishing & rampant sex on the bank in the evening
Ok - I admit it, I made the last one up
In the daytime then
Whatever next 
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31 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:
Delayed sailing. At Dunes cafe for a riverside breakfast
Griff
Purdey looks like she would rather be on the boat
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15 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:
2,200rpm - Wow, that would give us about 8mph and a decent consumption of Dyno juice
Griff
That's why I was asking about the engine earlier in the thread. I reckon at 2200 revs I'd need a lookout for the water skier I'd be towing!
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Would the battery happen to be from Multicell? I've had a couple which will quickly charge to 12.7V and after a short amount of discharging will quickly drop to around 11 or 105V. Seems like they develop a fault where one of the cells suddenly has about 10% of the capacity of the other five. Had this now on 2 out of four Multicell batteries, never had it on any other make. Generally if a cell fails it fails permanently, but the Multicell batteries reach a point where one cell is capable of taking some charge, but not holding it for long.
Also worth noting that on batteries with a magic eye, it is only giving you the condition of the one cell with the magic eye, they are pretty much next to useless really. A good way of selling more batteries.
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2 minutes ago, Malanka said:
You're a cheeky man Charlie Griffin, you know very well some boats do and some boats don't steer well in reverse. I describe steering as being able to move left or right depending on wheel position not just always going to the left.. lol. It's not that they don't steer at all, they're just rubbish at it to such a degree that it's not worth trying for some. Rudder size and location is very important and it's different in many woodies, well it is on ours and yours too.
That poor man will spend the rest of his holiday trying to make his rented boat go the direction he wants in reverse. Come to think of it that might be fun.. Maybe I'll just change my advice to "yes mate saw away at that wheel it always works for me" and go back inside.
Yes now I think about it well done that man .....
M
How the boat ballasting changes over the course of a week also makes a difference to steering in reverse. For the most part my boat will prop walk to Port in reverse. The foul tank in on the Port side, the diesel tank is on the Starboard side and the freshwater tank is midship, but mostly on the Port side. When the foul is empty, the diesel full and the water full it will reverse relatively straight and have some degree of steering. As the week does on and the foul tank fills and the diesel starts to empty then the prop walk to Port becomes more pronounced and steering in reverse just makes the prop walk more or less pronounced.
I remember a BA ranger trying to issue advice as I was stern mooring at Ranworth which I ignored because I knew my boat better than him, and how full the various tanks were.
It's not unusual for me to ask guests to move to the Starboard side when doing a stern on mooring to improve the steering.
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5 hours ago, Hylander said:
Can we have some suggestions for a caption as to what Robin is thinking.
They told me I'd find Broad Ambition here!
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25 minutes ago, Smoggy said:
Which begs the question, should they be going to the wooden boat show?
It's a good point because most boats have a degree of wood in them somewhere. All my bulkheads and cabinets are made from wood, but the hull and superstructure are GRP. Surely to qualify as a Woodie it should have a wooden hull AND superstructure?
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Just out of interest has Water Rail only got the one diesel filter? Its quite common to have a pre and final filter. If so you might want to change the other one.
On my boat I have the CAV style filter with water trap, followed by the final spin on fuel filter.
Interim Accident Report
in Broads Chat
Posted
I'm not sure, but I'm guessing the mooring is not far off half a mile long. As often witnessed at Reedham, the rangers cannot be on hand at all parts of the mooring to assist, especially when there is a couple of arrivals in different parts of the mooring with perhaps one other departing. Add in the fact that double mooring is also allowed!
Mooring fees should be for a 13 or 26 hour period with people strongly advised to time their arrival at slack low or slack high water, when there is the safest opportunity to turn before the bridge if needed.