Viking23

Charlie' that's quite a good plan, I might adopt that too, all too easy to drop into a rut when there are issues in your life. Happy New Year to you and all the members and visitors to this forum. Richard

Thinking about the title of this thread and just watching "Where Eagles Dare" Duvet day today, we have the house to ourselves... This afternoon Muppets Treasure island, and the other day Muppets Christmas Carol. This got me thinking... If the Muppets did a film of exploring space, or a trip to the moon, would it be called.... wait for it... "The Muppet has Landed" lol Time for a cognac lol Happy New Year to one and all. Richard and Roz

Sorry to hear of your loss, our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. Richard and Roz

The problem with cutting through ice, however thick, is the constant nibbling away of the anti foul, at water level, once that has gone, it starts on any paint. I would guess +/- 2" around the water line, more at speed. On the canals some steel boats broke through 2-3" even more if they had the momentum, of solid ice, however it had devastating effects on any linear moored GRP boats, and reports of sinkings have ocurred as ice shards have penetrated the thin GRP hulls. We chose to be in a marina, so avoided this peril. So caution needed, best to travel slowly through already thin broken ice, than be the pioneer making the first break of the ice. In the old days where canals had to be open, they had ice breaker boats, towed by several horses, these boats were wooden and generally rounded hulls clad in steel plate, several men held onto a central rail and rocked the boat side to side as the horses pulled the boat and all it's crew. Must have been a very expensive situation, but the canals were the motorways at that time.

Try saying which ones you are short of, might help.lol

With the sad news of George Michael, I tried "Wham" and that was in there too, don't know the clue though.

I got 22 just randomly selecting bands, but I can't link many to the clues lol. some of those clues quite cryptic

I was shown this site to search for 99 hidden groups / bands, don't ask me for any answers. https://quiz.ifour.co.uk/?utm_source=ifour&utm_campaign=panel&utm_medium=web Good luck. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Now, was 10:44 Grenwich mean time, or BST, well got to be GMT thinking about it lol

Re galvanic isolators, having moved to the Thames and have now got shore power, I have fitted a galvanic isolator, I have discussed this in another thread, but, on installation day, I thought I would measure the dc voltage across the isolator, shore earth to boat earth, and I measured 150 mV DC now this voltage was blocked by the isolator, but that 150 mV would have caused a current to flow between my anode on my outboard, and mains earth, at best destroying my anode sooner than expected, and if left unnoticed then my aluminium prop and engine leg. I fitted a dehumidifier, and I also checked the ac component across the galvanic isolator, no significant leakage voltage. Now, something you may not know, the galvanic isolator can block 2-4 volts dc, (approx) depending on the design, but if you have ac leakage over this, then it puts the diodes into conductive mode, such that the dc current will now start to flow, rendering the galvanic protection useless. Sometimes this can be remedied by having an ac capacitor across the terminals, but this is quite controversial as it relies on high capacitance, and no one will say what value is best. Very popular in the USA. If you have a galvanic isolator, and you happen to trip a circuit breaker or earth trip, then you should test the galvanic isolator, as a possible high trip spike could destroy the diodes, rendering the isolator ineffective, and in case of an earth fault on the boat having no earth could be very dangerous. Easy to test, multimeter, 9volt battery with a bulb or resistor in series to limit the current, info on youtube. Hope it helps. Richard

Quite a lot of things going on in this thread, so I will address some points. Re 240 volt boat wiring, you have to use flexible mains cable, fair enough, but the conventional 13 amp sockets and chocolate block connectors rely on a single screw "drilling" into very fine wires, not a major issue for single stranded wire, for an experiment, connect some 2.5 mm2 flexible cable into a standard 13 amp socket terminal, tighten up. then slacken, then tighten, now disconnect the wire and collect all the cut strands of copper wire, and now look at the cable, it may have lost 30-50% of the wires capacity, and you have strands of copper loose to go anywhere in the socket. Now I regularly use boot lace ferrules, available in different sizes and colours. I tend to insert the wire and squash the ferrule onto the wire with pliers, then insert into the terminal. sufficient force is required to clamp the wire within the ferrule and always best to pull the wire with medium force, as sometimes the wire isn't clamped sufficiently, but you soon get used to that. Now, in the past, people have soldered or tinned stranded wires before putting into a screw connector, this is really bad practice, the reason being, under compression, solder tends to flow, and eventually the screw in the terminal will become loose, loose it's connection, maybe over heat or cause sparks or even catch fire. Richard

Wiring when random with no order is often called birds nests, now don't under estimate the advantage of birds nests, if you go for nicely loomed wiring, bundling up low voltage circuits with dirty mains, ie that running electric motors and then bundle up some low voltage transducer or sensor wiring, with or without screened cables then you are asking for trouble. A spike on a mains cable can be superimposed by induction and by capacitive coupling, into an adjoining cable, the longer it is run in parallel the greater the effect of the spike. It is always best to cross cables at right sngles so there is no coupling, hence the birds nest has a benefit. Birds nests, ie point to point, also provide the shortest cable runs Loom like with like cables together, keep noisy cables apart from signal cables. For example, don't bundle up your radio aerial down lead with the supply to an electrical compressor fridge, as you will get all sorts of clicks and noise on the radio as the fridge cuts in and out. Richard

Looking good, have you thought about a lifting handle, so it can be lifted with one hand ?

I just read the trip advisor review, and the OP was also concerned that dogs could cut their paws on broken glass. Double standards here, why on earth should dogs be allowed in the "Children's Play area" in the first place? It s important to contact the relevant people or authorities when hazzards are seen, however all too often, people assume that someone else will do it. I was in a major retail shop once, I noticed a display stand that had the usual horizontal thin product support rails, unfortunately it was at child eye height, and any child walking around the corner of the aisle could have easily been impailed on this spike, with possible sight loss or other head trauma. I stood by the hazzard and in my projecting Teacher's voice, I called over an assistant to get the manager and get the hazzard removed. Within minutes, it was sorted. Now imagine, if I had ignored it, not my problem, not my responsibility, and in the local newspaper or on local tv, you hear about a child loosing their eyesight, in "That Shop" now how would you feel if you could have prevented this but took a don't give a dam* attitude. So if you see a hazzard, report it, prevent other children going on it, until it is either fixed or the item isolated from use.

I had a friend in the police, and many years ago he was asked to join a "certain group" they said it could improve his career, he had his own opinion and would rather get to where he wants by his own efforts, so said no thank you. I also have some friends in that "certain group" one of their policies is to support fellow group members, and if there was a choice, to give business to fellow members. So no doubt a few nudge nudge wink wink say no more deals went ahead, and still does. Now this bit is a bit of a joke lol... I was asked to join the NBN forum too lol...

The reason the link didn't work is you have a typo not Arther, but Arthur. lol

"Spirit of levity" ... levitation ! so is the new fast patrol boat a hover craft, just what the BA need for rescuing stranded crews from Breydon Water lol.. One day, just one day they will get the right boat for Breydon water, rather than a deeper drafted boat than the one they are trying to rescue that is stuck in the mud. lol.

Sounds like a very good "tip" lol Some of my older ones have turned blue, and brown so have probably lost their edge long ago. In fact I still have all the tips I have ever bought lol The most recent, were a set of 1/4" ones from Aldi, so far so good.

i must admit, when I saw the word router, my thoughts turned to my old Black and Decker router, I used it for the first time in 3 years last week, you forget how versatile these tools are especially with nice new sharp bits lol.

Re ferry, if you could ask BA if they would make Spirit of Breydon available for the day, it could be a great PR exercise. A few trips for toll payers might help to convince them that SOB was a good investment. Mind you, it might take more than a few trips to convince me lol

From the labelling, it implies double insulated so there must be other components in what appears to be the plug top, the capacitor in the control unit is 16 volts there are 4 diodes that probably make up a rectifier, I would guess, and only guess, that the voltage out of the plug is less than 8 volts ac, giving 12 volts DC for the led's so there will be several strings each of a few led's and one resistor to limit current per string. The long thin device might be a a control circuit that enables various flashing effects, selected by the single push button switch. Please check the voltage that is going to other optional sets of lights and you should find it is not mains voltage. If you can open the plug top, please post a picture. Hope it helps. CAUTION ... There are a lot of imported lights that have a CE mark, because the UK and Europe require it, BUT it should mean that the unit has undergone various tests for safety. There should be a "Declaration of Conformity to various EN standards, many units have never been tested so proceed with caution. Richard

Well the life belt has just this minute gone, but who took the 3 boats lol...?

Now which sad person is going to watch the HW webcam, and capture the guy actually putting it back lol...

I'm surprised that HW haven't sorted this out, I know this forum is regularly checked by some of their staff. I can imagine a few people coming down to the Staithe especially if there was ice on the river, you often see items picked up off the ground and surrounding area thrown onto the ice, stones, bricks, logs etc, usually thrown in an attempt to see how thick the ice is. Most of us have done it lol. A stone thrown onto a frozen canal, the sound ricochets for a few seconds, quite eerie. I don't believe for a moment, that anyone would climb onto a boat and remove objects like life belts to throw in the water, but if one is left lying around, then that might be a different situation. If someone tripped over it and injured themselves, I wonder who they could get compensation from? Come on HW take care of the little detail, and then continue to work hard in preparing your fleet for next season. Richard

For any successful business, you must know who your customer base is, so without disclosing any sensitive marketing information, what is the breakdown of your customer base? Having run a business myself in an industrial environment, I would think the breakdown might be something like this, but of course you are dealing with the public and not businesses like I was, so apologies if I have made too many assumptions. Repeat customers I would think would be the main part of the business. Referals from word of mouth or blogs. Internet advertising, pop ups etc DIrect Mailshots to previously interested parties Media advertising, boating magazines etc Using a hosting company to do the marketing and booking like Blakes and Hoseasons etc Direct mail shot to unqualified customers, ie random names. I would think that as you go down the list above, you have increasing costs and overheads but with less and less return for your marketing investment. I am not really sure how say Hoseasons fits into this, more and more customers are booking direct with the yard, I would think that Hoseasons would be targeting new customers, via travel agents and direct brochure supply via adverts in the TV and Radio Times at Christmas for example.