mbird

But that's because you only have one, you silly boy

Interesting to see that's been modelled on Rhinocerous software Clive. I know a few architects use that, but not boat designers!

Hadn't thought of that! Maybe not such a good idea then. A "T" piece in the pipe before the water pump with a ball valve might be the answer for winter use then, I could fit some hose to the other end of the ball valve and stick it in a bucket of neat antifreeze, opening the valve with the engine running to suck it in. That should mix the neat antifreeze with the raw water being drawn in I would guess.

Hi all I thought I knew how to winterise an engine okay, until I tried today with the engines in the new boat! On most broads cruisers, the weed filter is placed between the water intake and the raw water pump. It is therefore a simple matter to unscrew the lid of the water pump and pour in antifreeze whilst the engine is running to get it circulated around the engine. Today I tried this on the AD41's ..... and got a face full of river water and antifreeze . Upon investigation, it seems I had assumed the setup was the same, and I was wrong. The water intake from the transom shield first goes through the water pump, then the filter - or in this case vertically up into my face as the lid was off the filter . This seems a bit odd to me as any crap sucked in through the water intakes then goes straight into the pump to help wear the impeller before being filtered out. I did find a live shrimp in one of the weed filters, so I can only assume the journey through the water pump is a comfortable one! In the end, I sucked as much water as I could from the pipe on the outlet side of the filter, then filled it and the filter body up with antifreeze, replaced the cap, and kicked the engine over a few times to circulate the antifreeze into the heat exchanger. This seems far from ideal to me. I want to be able to use the boat over the winter and then just quickly re-winterise on return to the mooring. Is there an easy way to do this? I thought about trying to make some adaptor for a little pump I have that would fit into the outlet opening of the weed filter, to force antifreeze into the engine from a bucket. Has anyone else managed this? For now, I've left the engine bay tube heaters turned on to be safe!

On my maiden voyage at the helm of a twin engined vessel today, I left both engines running, but only had one in gear when going slowly in the marina. Both the power steering and calorifier are connected to the starboard engine, so that really determines which one would be used. However, today I realised that if I tried to make a sharp turn to starboard, with only the starboard engine in gear, things didn't happen as I expected and the turn was much too slow even at full lock (I found this out coming down the dyke into the marina!), so I had to quickly disengage starboard, and engage port to make the turn. I would not have made the corner without a bit of a three point turn if the port engine was completely off.

Claire's not trying to get you back for something you've done wrong is she???

That is very odd. I can't think of anything that would cause that, other than what has already been mentioned. I thinks I'm right in saying, Col, that there are no glow plugs on these engines, unless they were specified as an optional extra. They rely solely on compression to start when cold. I'm also pretty sure there are no sea cocks on the water intakes, as the pipes fit directly to the transom sheilds.

Nice to see TB made it to her new home! Good to see you getting out there with your new camera Col. Good shots.

Superb shots Bruce! When you didn't post any of your up for a while I did wonder if you'd forgotten the batteries for your camera

Not quite the meaning I was trying to get across, but hey, if there is a job offer ...... !

Hi Neil Not as such, but during the season I help out at DRL Marine in Ludham (Womack water) doing a bit of servicing and trial runs on busy days. It's all voluntary, but I just enjoy it. As I moored my boat there until this week, I gots much help and advice from Darren, it seemed only fair to repay him with a bi of my time. It is jolly good fun though, trying to teach virgin hirers how to handle a 42 footer in a stiff breeze ..... and then we make them do a stern on mooring too

Excellent news about the camera, Trevor With regard to the flashgun, no, you do not have to use a dedicate flash BUT if you don't you will lose an awful lot of functionality. The flashes that will use all of the camera functions, and communicate with it properly are the 430 ExII and 580ExII. The former is about £175 and the latter about £100 more on ebay. I stuck lucky and got an almost new 580 ExII from ebay for about £150 a couple of years back. The 580 is more powerful, with more cusomisable settings, and the ability to be used as a master trigger to fire other slave flashes in a multiple slave setup, but for the majority of "family snap" type siuations, the 430 is plenty good enough. As always, it really depends on what you want to use it for. I believe the investment in the dedicated flash is worth it. The pop-up flash can produce horrible washed out facial tones, and is not powerful for anything over about 10 feet. The 430/580 have the ability tilt the heads to bounce the light off the ceiling to give a much more natural feel to the photo without harsh shadows. When the flash fires, the camera uses ETTL metering, which basically fires the flash very quickly, takes a meter reading, adjusts the exposure and flash power, then takes the shot whilst firing again. All of this happens within a split second. These flashes also recognise what size sensor you have in the camera, and the 580 also knows what focal length lens you are using and physically moves the flash bulb nearer or further from the diffuser lens to compensate for the amount you are zooming. When adjusting the zoom on the lens, you can actually hear and see the flash altering the position of the flash bulb. Hope that helps answering your query

Would the same apply to a Jabsco electric toilet, David, like the one fitted to our new boat?

Some of the older Blakes boats still do have that sign. Rather than being self-riteous, it is a fact of human nature that all sorts of directions etc will be ignored. On the trial runs I helped with last year, a specific point was always made about the toilets and organic matter only. They still came back with moist wipes, sanitary wares and even knickers in the holding tanks No matter how hard you try, a very small minority always ignore you!

I'm not too sure about the inner workings of the catalogues, and I reckon Bruce will probably be your man for that. However, I have no real delay in seeing the thumbnails, but they are displayed in very low quality for a few seconds before they get rendered correctly. I only have about 1500 images on my hard drive as I am very ruthless about what gets binned, but even so, they are all there. I do wonder whether your problem may be the USB connection. As I understand it, the developing data is kept with the original photo file, as any editing does not actually alter the original file taken by the camera. Therefore, I assume the browser has to locate the editing data for each picture in the browser, each time it is viewed, and having the pictures remotely on a USB drive is going to be terribly slow compared to a local hard disk. I used to use ACDSee too, and really liked the thumbnail functionality, but unfortunately the image handling wasn't any where near LR's capabilities.

Lovely crisp shots Col

Brilliant shot again Dave This might sound a silly question, but is anything visible on the moon's surface from the lunar landings, with a camera and telescope good enough?

That's the one I've got. It is pretty good for wildlife, though a little slow for low light conditions. It's the one I used to get this little fella. It's a little fuzzy due to camera shake at the extreme zoom, but I wanted a big fat closeup.

Your skeg is a different arrangment to mine Keith, with the rudder shaft dropping though a hole i nthe skeg as Strowager described. It seems the most likely causes are either corrosion around this area, a foreign matter wrapped around, or the packing at the top of the shaft.

Hi Keith It sounds as though you may have a stern gland arrangement on the rudder, so it could conceivably be the packing. However, Tranquil Breeze, didn't have that arrangement, so I'm not too sure. It could easily be wear in the pintle bush (the circular collar welded to the top of the skeg that the bottom of the rudder shaft sits in), but the only way of knowing os a lift out. It's not just the cable becoming worn is it. or a kink in in the cable if it's been trapped by something?

That would certainly be the stuff Barry .... if you could afford it £12.99 for 2'6" seems a bit bloody expensive though!

Oh I see. That's a novel idea! So basically the bow area will displace more than the aft. I suppose that is dependant on having more weight in that area though, otherwise it'll wheelie

Hi Clive What is the idea behind having the bow section deeper than the aft section?

Thanks Paul. After a bit of research, they were the cheapest I could find online, but I intend to do a goodley bit of bartering at LIBS in January

Hi Barry. I used domestic insulation from B&Q! They do stuff on a roll which is a bit like bubblewrap, but with silver foil on both sides too. The roll was about 18" wide, so I basically cut it into 3" wide strips and then wrapped it around the warm air ducting and secured with cable ties. It probably wasn't as efficient as the bespoke stuff, but then it was probably a darn sight cheaper! Before we put it on, the hot air ducts were too hot to touch for long when the heater was running, but after I wrapped them, the insulation got warm, but nothing like as hot, so it must have been keeping more of the heat where it was meant to be, rather than warming the bilge. You can just see it in the photo below running by the side of the engine just below the alternator.