MBA Marine

The money brought in directly from the weeks that a hire boat is on hire is a drop in the ocean, the hire companies have staff all year around, these staff spend money with other local businesses, the yard buys more consumable items as it freshens up their fleet over winter so more money is spent with local suppliers, the ripple effect is far greater than the pubs, eateries and gift shops.

I did not go back over Karl's work as such, the thermostat that he replaced was with a new one and he test it worked before fitting, he told me the new one opened faster than the old one when dunked in hot water, Vaughan you have me thinking here, Karl has said that they removed the water circulation pump as that is where they 1st looked for the stat but it was not there, it's location is behind a square plate on the port side of engine towards the fwd end, is there 2 stats? or should there be? The fact that the coolant seems to circulate the calorifier from start up would be a cause that the engine is slow to warm up but after 4 plus hours of cruising you would expect even the biggest of calorifiers to come up to temperature unless the tank has such great heat loss that the engine cannot keep up with the demand, now it has been said that the water from the taps is warmer in the summer, well the ambient temp of the tank would be on average 18ish degrees but this time of year closer to 5 degrees. Engine not run under load on my test, the boat is moored on a floating pontoon and people do not take kindly to having their moorings stability tested!! Now I have tested the engine temp with a infrared thermo tester we know the gauge is reading fairly true as the boat is well used we can say that under load the temp still stays low.

Possible, however this would dilute the antifreeze out of the engine and Karls family would have noticed some non too nice water coming out of there hot taps.

Not overly no, hence why It was not allowed to run long enough for the hose to warm. exhaust hose holds up a lot longer than you might think, but no not recommended to run it dry.

Thank you Karl, i wish there was something obvious. We ran the engine with all its cooling system intact at about 1/4 throttle for 30+mins and we did not get over 45degrees, After checking the tube stack was present and with the knowledge that what was exiting the header tank was coolant and not river water then fairly safe bet tube stack was intact. Head scratching time, for curiosity sake i removed the impeller and ran the engine for as long as i dared just to prove the engine would warm up with cooling, that it did, twas near 60 deg when engine stopped. The calorifier is a large badly insulated stainless cylinder, the coolant seems to be flowing around this from start up not after a thermostat opens, this must be heat sinking a lot of heat from the engine but in my mind with enough running it should still come up to temp, Karl has told me that after a long run on the river the temp still stays at 50deg, so i am thinkinking that the raw water pump has a bit too much flow and although the engine has a thermostat (new one) im not convinced it actually does much to stop engine coolant flow. plan of action, remove calorifer from system and see how the engine responds to not having it, if this does not prove to be whats keeping the temp down then look at restricting the raw water flow, to let enough through but not to much.

I know Thorpe island were doing their pump outs before 11 for that very reason, if you were to overnight at a yacht station then book your pump out for the morning before you set off.

A pump out station, water and bins at all manned yacht stations makes a whole lot of sense.

If you want a pair eyes to look at your system, or someone to advise and chat over a coffee, I would be happy to. I have a £30 minimum charge with a £20 per hour labour rate. I cannot magic the solution, you are working your way through most things that I would look at, but if you want an assist you may not have to mortgage your home.

I see plenty so badly worn on both sides that not only has the writing gone but the brass is paper thin in the middle, people do like to get their monies worth.

There was a few swimming pool moulds from another company but boat stuff all Aquafibre cast off's, certainly a mould tool graveyard when I last looked. I believe but maybe wrong all owned by Tilia properties. If i had read this earlier I could have taken a look as I drove past Rackheath today.

Aquafibre site is far from clear, unless something massive has happened in the last couple of months there are still dozens of moulds there, from small components to some large cruisers.

Overtime/double time, sunday rate? Pretty much a thing of the past now, sundays are more or less just another day of trade for many businesses and staff rota'd accordingly to cover the whole week. But for those people with young families weekends off are necessary to; one spend time with the kids, and two the (bracket i often fall into) spending time with kids whist the Mrs goes to work , take them for a bike ride, fix the punchers first, prep for work the next week, and at the same time trying to keep up with household chores and maintenance.

I took a look at the splendid nature reserve that is 'Morning flight' yesterday as I assisted Andy in taking a boat from the basin for repair. She's a wonderful old ship wreck. Love the Avatar Vaughan, do let me know next time your propping up the bar in the Buck and i will try and get over to share the load! Be good to have a yarn.

Try Will Kirby, Freshwater marine. He's an alright sort of fella with certifications to his name

one does like a challenge, I have had my share of perky Prima fun of late, one key factor when getting parts is to find out if its a genuine marine engine or a LDV van engine, very different beasts.

I don't currently have a boat to toll, but if the people are unhappy then perhaps they should unite and create a coup to force a change at the helm. I'm not a political man but I can see British politics is getting a reboot, the BA are well overdue the same.

Anywhere further North and i would be looking at remortgaging property, but Reedham is just a bit of a ball ache to get to on a daily basis. Now if City Boats was cheaper that would be a different story, not much closer but so much easier for me to get to.

It's a changing world, if the small yards are to stay solvent they need to up their game, phrases such as 'it's always been like that' and 'that's how I have always done it' need to be stamped out. People expect more for less now so the operator has to find ways to achieve this by streamlining and trimming the fat off the edges. I have bumbled around many yards subcontract over the last 10 years, some with hire fleet/day hire and some not, the one common theme through all of the ones that struggle (some are now gone) is that they work in chaos with no order, little stocks and what stocks they have cannot be found as they were never assigned a home, yards that work this way hermoage labour costs. I hope those that read this don't think it's directed solely at them because as said this I have witnessed at many different places. The larger yards have systems implemented and a management hierarchy that makes sure staff know their roles, the task they need to complete and when.

The grey amphibian with hi-ab crane of Rogers has a functioning engine and is operational, would be good fun to mount a large water cannon on the front and patrol up and down hosing idiots!

I have no knowledge on how much value these banks have but they would contribute to the coffers and removing the glass and tin would reduce the volume of refuse that would need finance for its removal, im sure its less simplistic than my head makes but it's hard for me to see how it would be anything but beneficial.

Recycling has to be key, from what I have seen glass bottles and cans make up a high percentage of the hirers waste, so instead of general waste bins why not push people to sort their waste, bottle and can banks pay for themselves and generate money, any money raised from them could go towards paying for a general bin.

Karlos you are welcome to give me call, but before you start spending money just have a little look at something, the heat exchanger (big thing with rad cap on top) at either end you have a round stepped rubber end cap with two hose clips, undo the two hose clips and slip off one cap, water will come out, what you should see is a cylindrical object protruding out and looking at it end on there should be a series of holes (tubes) down the middle. If you take the cap off and find just one big 3" hole then your'e missing a tube stack. your engine does look like its been ran hot and whipping the thermostat and tube stack out are a naughty way of getting a engine to run cool. If the tube stack is there then reassemble and top up with coolant. If its missing then you will need to start spending money.

I was late to the party, but yeah alternator excitation thingy it's like Vaughan says. one more little point, the light illuminates as it finds a ground through the alternator when the alternator spins up this ground becomes a live, put a live to both sides of a bulb and it goes out, but further to this if a relay is being used to charge two battery banks from one alternator the live to pull in the relay is often the excitation live, so getting to the final point a lack of excitation can lead not batteries that are not very excited at all in fact they could be a bill dull and flat. Charging batteries can make some warm acid but what does all this really have to do with hot water?

I say change it and get a spare for the boat. slight digression but a common trick is to keep the old as a spare, this gets my goat a little and when i service a engine I cut the old belt open so it can't be reused, next service i will use the boats spare belt and replace the spare with a new.

No advertising here but make sure you shop around a bit with who you use, labour costs vary a lot. Not sure if Toby Cox is still doing engine work sub contract for Sutton Staithe if so he gets my recomendation knows his stuff and is a nice guy but other services are available.