Independence - Updates | Maintenance & Care

[johnm]

Vaughan

Yes and yes. The 3rd and 4th would be covered by your "X and Y openings" but are:

Assume Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Damage Control State 3 Condition Yankee (These days they tend to leave off the NBC bit)

Close All Screen Doors and Hatches

Hands Out Of The Rig Of The Day Clear Off The Upper Deck

I might have queried Pots' order of things but ... different ships, different cap tallies

[socrates]

4 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

you're slipping Pots 

Aren't I just!

Neither was flag Bravo hoisted during refuelling, nor any broadcasts made either!

However I will confess to stating to all the crew prior to slipping Indy's lines bound for the lock:- HTHS,  SSDCU,  ANBCDS3CY,  CASDAH,  HOOROTDCOTUD   Took me a few mins to remember that lot!

Griff

Did you test main broadcast alarms? Close all screen doors and the wardroom scuttles?  Both watches of seamen muster on the flight deck? 

Funny how these things are stamped on our DNA. I suppose one is not permitted to say "seamen" these days.

[Polly]

As long as it wasn't FAB and LHDAB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Full Ahead Backwards, Left Hand Down A Bit' 

[Wyndham]

Enjoyed the update, Ta.

Someone wrote your interior got trashed during the sea trials, looks to me like it was trashed long before that.

I tried Griffs splicing technique, the splice came out fine but Mrs W is not talking to me now 'cos I kept throwing my tools on the sofa.

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, johnm said:

Vaughan

Yes and yes. The 3rd and 4th would be covered by your "X and Y openings" but are:

Assume Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Damage Control State 3 Condition Yankee (These days they tend to leave off the NBC bit)

Close All Screen Doors and Hatches

Hey, Jenny Morgan - that wasn't bad for a Pongo, was it??

[Vaughan]

21 minutes ago, Wyndham said:

I tried Griffs splicing technique, the splice came out fine but Mrs W is not talking to me now 'cos I kept throwing my tools on the sofa.

I did enjoy the teaching techique though. Typical Pusser -

"The rabbit comes out of the hole, runs round the tree, and goes back down the hole again".

But can he do one behind his back?

[Wyndham]

13 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

I did enjoy the teaching techique though. Typical Pusser -

"The rabbit comes out of the hole, runs round the tree, and goes back down the hole again".

But can he do one behind his back?

That's exactly how I was taught

Can he do this?

 

[SteveO]

To say nothing of HOYCAOWYS 

[Vaughan]

11 hours ago, SteveO said:

To say nothing of HOYCAOWYS 

I've just got it!

Wakey wakey, rise and shine!

 

[MauriceMynah]

I've always felt that we should stop reducing things to initials ASAP

[BroadAmbition]

"The rabbit comes out of the hole, runs round the tree, and goes back down the hole again". But can he do one behind his back?

Probably, never tried to be honest as I have never really worked out why sailors should feel the need or have the capability to tie bends / hitches behind their back!  Much easier to do it behind someone elses back imho.

As for the securing the rope around the deck cleat as per the video clip - Hmmm, with practise maybe,  but that too is pointless as my legs would never look that good in a million years!

Griff

[socrates]

7 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

"The rabbit comes out of the hole, runs round the tree, and goes back down the hole again". But can he do one behind his back?

Probably, never tried to be honest as I have never really worked out why sailors should feel the need or have the capability to tie bends / hitches behind their back!  Much easier to do it behind someone elses back imho.

As for the securing the rope around the deck cleat as per the video clip - Hmmm, with practise maybe,  but that too is pointless as my legs would never look that good in a million years!

Griff

TBH  I have never worked out why sailors should feel the need to do lots of things.

 

[BroadAmbition]

To put in perspective just how big things are with Indy - Everything seems to be big, I suppose it's coz we are so used to our normal Broads type river craft.  Robin ordered some Biocide for her diesel tanks (Along with hundreds of other items that were taken down to Guz in the 'GriffTile' van)  In this case the chosen product is 'Hydra Fuel Plus Biocide' a whole litre of it!     (Now onboard 'B.A' we purchase Soltron in 500ml bottles, it lasts us an age as we are only using 1ml per 10 x Ltrs of diesel, we are currently on our second bottle)     So there's me thinking a Litre for Indy will be fine - Wrong again Griffin.  Indy's diesel tanks capacity is 2'400 Litres.  So the initial shock dose treatment used up 720ml of biocide, leaving 280ml left.  Indy's thirst on two 500hp diesels from Plymouth to Brundall will be far more than 280 Ltrs diesel so we will run out of the biocide.  As a consequence another litre of the stuff has turned up at my gaff.    (Only this coming Thursday we are going down to Guz on the train, no van.  Still there will be four of us to spread items amongst ourselves)  So Indy now has 1'280ml in stock which is enough to treat 12'800 Ltrs of diesel, that should do it, it had better do!

Other notes with Indy - She has a tap / hose from the fresh water system in the engine room! - Showing off or what?  But strangely no fresh water deck fitting around the anchor / chain on the foc'sle.   On a craft of this size with a hugely impressive polished s/steel anchor and a large amount of chain (Don't know how much - another job to attend to) you would expect there to be a facility to wash off the chain and anchor as they are brought back inboard, swinging it about by hand in the oggin is not remotely feasible, not even for a Greek God.    On mentioning this to Robin he smugly stated that in the cable locker up fwd there is indeed a plumbed in fresh water supply along with a 12v power supply already in place, just needs a deck fitting connecting up  and the jobs a guddun.   Smart boat builders those Traders have.

Griff

[grendel]

52 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

 

As for the securing the rope around the deck cleat as per the video clip - Hmmm, with practise maybe,  but that too is pointless as my legs would never look that good in a million years!

Griff

Why bother, just bring the young lady along to moor up for you.

[BroadAmbition]

Indy - Big Stuff continued:-

On the Sunday we moved Indy over to another berth between finger pontoons so we could launch the Williams rib, test the crane etc.  On completion we popped over to the fuelling berth to top up her diesel tanks. The fuelling berth being about 20ft long and us with 55ft of boat resulting the both the head and stern lines also acting as springs which was handy.  Now on the gauges on the wheelhouse helm, both were stating the tanks were full, we knew otherwise looking at the sight tubes on the tanks within the engine room.

So none of us knew how much diesel she would need, so I did a best guess and came to a figure of 400 x Ltrs, the rest of the crew offered their opinions based on mine, which was kinda imho, cheating, I should have wrote it down and kept my guess to mysen, their best guesses ranged from 360 up to 550.

Anyroadup I opened the balance pipe valves, the diesel nozzle was ceremoniously stuffed into the deck fitting for the Stbd tank and fuel commenced to flow.  I was in t engine room watching the site tubes, the Stbd was coming up nicely, the Port one however was much slower in keeping up.  The Stdbd tank was soon full and I heard the nozzle click off.  I shut the balance valves then went topsides.  Robin was grinning like a Cheshire as Indy had taken 'Only' 220 x Ltrs.  You should have seen his dish though when I gleefully announced instructions to transfer the fuel nozzle over to the port deck filling point   So in it went and another 150 Ltrs was taken on board.  A total of 370 Ltrs of diesel to 'Top her up'    Topping up? Ye Gods 'B.A' takes 157 x Ltrs from dry for goodness sake.  The price advertised was £1:20 per Ltr - Thankfully though that was the price for propulsion only.  Robin paid just £1:00 per Ltr for the 60/40 heating split allowance.  This is totally legit as to power the current heating system onboard one has to fire up the generator for the a/c to operate and/or the fan and tube heaters that Robin has dotted around the place, and of course next time onboard she will have diesel warm air system too.

Btw - Robins diesel top up guess was closest, only 10Ltrs off the actual total, I bet he wished he was miles off though!

Those berthing ropes in the blog, what Robin neglected to mention was that I hand scrubbed with a stiff brush the lot of them with a solution of algae remover, took me hours it did.  Some of them were so green in places they were nearly black.  After the machine wash I was astonished as to how clean and soft they were.  They are however hugely too heavy for even Indy's weight / size.  Yes they look pretty but also are pretty hard to work with, especially when wet.  You would need to use a dedicated heaving line to get an Indy Line ashore of any distance over about 20ft

Griff

 

 

[Guest]

Well yea at around 1.5 mpg I guess you will use a fair bit ( do not bring the bill to me ) .

In fact we could have a sweep on the total fuel cost or amount used ,only for members not onboard with inside information  , 

Simon and Garfunkel sang a diesel saving song a long time ago 

" slow down you move too fast gotta make that diesel last

Kicking off of a couple of waves looking  for fun and feeling groovy" ( sick)  

Still no worry's the Arabs will be happy .

 

[grendel]

is it wrong that I keep checking back for updates as I get the camera gear ready for next Sunday when they are due to come past kent.

[NonTecky]

5 minutes ago, grendel said:

is it wrong that I keep checking back for updates as I get the camera gear ready for next Sunday when they are due to come past kent.

Nope!

I would be very keen to know how I can track her progress next weekend! Robin if you could let us know her vessel ID please?

[Guest]

7 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

Indy - Big Stuff continued:-

On the Sunday we moved Indy over to another berth between finger pontoons so we could launch the Williams rib, test the crane etc.  On completion we popped over to the fuelling berth to top up her diesel tanks. The fuelling berth being about 20ft long and us with 55ft of boat resulting the both the head and stern lines also acting as springs which was handy.  Now on the gauges on the wheelhouse helm, both were stating the tanks were full, we knew otherwise looking at the sight tubes on the tanks within the engine room.

So none of us knew how much diesel she would need, so I did a best guess and came to a figure of 400 x Ltrs, the rest of the crew offered their opinions based on mine, which was kinda imho, cheating, I should have wrote it down and kept my guess to mysen, their best guesses ranged from 360 up to 550.

Anyroadup I opened the balance pipe valves, the diesel nozzle was ceremoniously stuffed into the deck fitting for the Stbd tank and fuel commenced to flow.  I was in t engine room watching the site tubes, the Stbd was coming up nicely, the Port one however was much slower in keeping up.  The Stdbd tank was soon full and I heard the nozzle click off.  I shut the balance valves then went topsides.  Robin was grinning like a Cheshire as Indy had taken 'Only' 220 x Ltrs.  You should have seen his dish though when I gleefully announced instructions to transfer the fuel nozzle over to the port deck filling point   So in it went and another 150 Ltrs was taken on board.  A total of 370 Ltrs of diesel to 'Top her up'    Topping up? Ye Gods 'B.A' takes 157 x Ltrs from dry for goodness sake.  The price advertised was £1:20 per Ltr - Thankfully though that was the price for propulsion only.  Robin paid just £1:00 per Ltr for the 60/40 heating split allowance.  This is totally legit as to power the current heating system onboard one has to fire up the generator for the a/c to operate and/or the fan and tube heaters that Robin has dotted around the place, and of course next time onboard she will have diesel warm air system too.

Btw - Robins diesel top up guess was closest, only 10Ltrs off the actual total, I bet he wished he was miles off though!

Those berthing ropes in the blog, what Robin neglected to mention was that I hand scrubbed with a stiff brush the lot of them with a solution of algae remover, took me hours it did.  Some of them were so green in places they were nearly black.  After the machine wash I was astonished as to how clean and soft they were.  They are however hugely too heavy for even Indy's weight / size.  Yes they look pretty but also are pretty hard to work with, especially when wet.  You would need to use a dedicated heaving line to get an Indy Line ashore of any distance over about 20ft

Griff

 

 

I'm not sure I have got  this , surely if you open the balance pipe between port and starboard the level will equalise pretty smartish it is after all 1 1/2" tubing and 15 psi pressing down on the surface n more at the bottom of the tank , i don't get how its possible to put 220l in one side and 150 In the other,  that's the whole point of dual fillers and a balance pipe  it saves dragging the fuel hose over the superstructure and I would have thought a 1 1/2 " tube would have levelled pretty much instantly , though you might have to wait a moment for the tanks to catch up given the rate fuel is dispensed though that should be quite quick to recover levels on both tanks .

Re the ropes , don't I know it hand scrubbing is the only way really if its engrained though a wash in the washing machine  ( in an old pillow case ) does make them incredibly soft to handle , incidentally iv seen quite a few marinas where the washing of ropes is banned in the marina washing machine's.

[grendel]

how big is the vent pipe on the tank, maybe you would need to crack the filler to get faster flow, and it also depends on the delivery rate.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, grendel said:

how big is the vent pipe on the tank, maybe you would need to crack the filler to get faster flow, and it also depends on the delivery rate.

Vent pipe is most likely 16 mm to suit the common flame arrest vent fittings , that said it really shouldn't be a problem there are dozens of broads boats with one filler cap on one side and twin tanks with balance pipe both tanks having vents , yes the delivery rate will make a difference but it should level across both tanks pretty quickly , now from memory they came back in on the SBD engine hence it needed more fuel In that tank , but upon opening the valves that should equalise , I'm not sure as to why not run with the balance pipe open it can't be for fear of cross contamination because as as soon as you open up the balance pipe to fill up cross contamination will happen anyway as the pipe is at the lowest point where the danger is , I'm like the tanks themselves baffled .

[BroadAmbition]

I too was thinking that both tanks would have levelled pretty much instantly but they didn't.  This could be due to a number of reasons.  The vent pipes diameter could be reducing air flow, the tanks could be internally baffled to prevent surge / frothing at sea too. There is a fair distance between the two outer tanks and travelling through the balance pipe and centre lower tank, all these combined factors must be the reason why they are slow to equalise.   Opening up the other deck filler would have surely helped - We didn't do this but will do so next time and see if that improves matters.  When we had completed fuelling both tanks were brimmed, that is to say the diesel was up the filler pipe to the nozzle clicking off, which is higher than the site pipes of course.

The nozzle is the same size as you find at roadside filling stations, and I'm assuming the delivery rate Litres to the minute would be about the same, so not ridiculously fast.

I have as of yet not eyeballed the vent pipe on the three tanks, this is one of a few items that I want to attend to this coming Thursday afternoon.

Tracking Indy during her travels - Robin is onto this one, he is hopeful it will happen and be fairly easy for all formites that want to follow her progress can do so, he'll be along soon to explain.

Griff

 

[LondonRascal]

The next update video is almsot rendered and ready to go off to You Tube and once has been processed I will post it here - a good one this, as features the Sea Trial footage.

Having spent out about £400.00 on labour to confirm there was no issues and blockage with the balance pipe one just has to take the best guess (and there are so many) but I think it is all is about the centre fuel tank. Most boats have twin tanks few will have a third. That third centre tank is lower than the two 'saddle tanks' so filling with fuel on starboard side, with balance pipe valves open should get fuel moving over to port and equalizing rapidly - I bet it would if the centre tank was not there.

But with the set up as it is that fuel in the starboard tank has to come through the pipe, into the centre tank, out of it along more pipe and into the port tank must have some effect because it does happen but it happens slowly. The fuel polishing chap was the first to raise the point, it is also so that when in choppy sea conditions if fuel began heading over to one tank under force (e.g. a suddenly heave to port) it would not drain back and equalize as fast as it came in so you could well begin to have a fuel imbalance issue that would accelerate as more fuel came into one side and that list encouraged it to happen at a faster rate.

Now Charlie raised a good point (not shown on video) that the centre tank seems to have a larger diameter fuel supply pipe leaving it that either the port of starboard tanks -  which would suggest it has the capacity of flow to serve both engines should you so wish from the centre tank. I was on You Tube looking at some long distance displacement boats from Elling which are like Traders, just I would say even better built and engineered (and cost more) but they have a fuel manifold system too to direct fuel from and too different tanks.

Some (I am sure Charlie will too) may disagree with me but for the time being I want to go down the road of "if it is not broke don't fix it" so we have three tanks we could take fuel from any of those by using the valves on the manifold but I want to take fuel from port and starboard with the balance valve closed at sea. When we fuel up - open balance valve fuel slowly will come through which will ensure fresh fuel does reach the centre tank. Yes we could run off centre only but the only benefit to that is you would be drawing fuel down from all tanks but none of this fuel is now old stock, it never had any water present in it, has now been treated with Biocide and has been polished so it is about as good as it gets.

[LondonRascal]

By the way just found that Navionics  (and the chart data they provide to modern Plotters) can be seen and used for free at: https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@6&key=_c}yHz_L

Very handy stuff this, and shows the difference between modern electronic charts and paper charts.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

The next update video is almsot rendered and ready to go off to You Tube and once has been processed I will post it here - a good one this, as features the Sea Trial footage.

Having spent out about £400.00 on labour to confirm there was no issues and blockage with the balance pipe one just has to take the best guess (and there are so many) but I think it is all is about the centre fuel tank. Most boats have twin tanks few will have a third. That third centre tank is lower than the two 'saddle tanks' so filling with fuel on starboard side, with balance pipe valves open should get fuel moving over to port and equalizing rapidly - I bet it would if the centre tank was not there.

But with the set up as it is that fuel in the starboard tank has to come through the pipe, into the centre tank, out of it along more pipe and into the port tank must have some effect because it does happen but it happens slowly. The fuel polishing chap was the first to raise the point, it is also so that when in choppy sea conditions if fuel began heading over to one tank under force (e.g. a suddenly heave to port) it would not drain back and equalize as fast as it came in so you could well begin to have a fuel imbalance issue that would accelerate as more fuel came into one side and that list encouraged it to happen at a faster rate.

Now Charlie raised a good point (not shown on video) that the centre tank seems to have a larger diameter fuel supply pipe leaving it that either the port of starboard tanks -  which would suggest it has the capacity of flow to serve both engines should you so wish from the centre tank. I was on You Tube looking at some long distance displacement boats from Elling which are like Traders, just I would say even better built and engineered (and cost more) but they have a fuel manifold system too to direct fuel from and too different tanks.

Some (I am sure Charlie will too) may disagree with me but for the time being I want to go down the road of "if it is not broke don't fix it" so we have three tanks we could take fuel from any of those by using the valves on the manifold but I want to take fuel from port and starboard with the balance valve closed at sea. When we fuel up - open balance valve fuel slowly will come through which will ensure fresh fuel does reach the centre tank. Yes we could run off centre only but the only benefit to that is you would be drawing fuel down from all tanks but none of this fuel is now old stock, it never had any water present in it, has now been treated with Biocide and has been polished so it is about as good as it gets.

Robin if and it clearly is the third tank is lower than ybe other 2 then if the valves are open to that tank it will fill first via gravity the other 2 tanks will fill at equal rates because the balance pipe between them is open  basically making them one big tank no matter which side you fill from , once full you can then isolate if you wish the third tank as a reserve but seriously the balance pipe between stb and port needs to be open to equalise the balance of fuel if its taking some time to do that you have a  problem given that the balance pipe is a large enough diameter which it is .

What if you lose an engine for what ever reason you could and will end up with unbalanced fuel load if the pipe between them isn't open and doesn't react quickly that what its there for as much as the ease of filling up from one side of the boat , what happens if the hose won't reach the other side ? You have one choice rotate the boat regardless of what the weather is doing etc , both inconvenient and totally hassle never mine time consuming , the don't fix it bit I get if its working correctly and logically and any other way its not .

Unbalanced fuel load at sea across the boat in a heavy swell is not only unsafe its potentially life threatening and no I'm not over stating that point its totally dangerous .

Now hopefully since you have had the fuel polished , changed filters etc and using an additive then both engines will keep on running , but I'm sure I don't need to remind you that fuel problem's stopping an engine is only one part of it there's a lot more that can an hopefully won't go wrong , that leaves you with using one engine and fuel off one side making the unbalancing problem worse the further you go and you might have to go some time to find safe haven , this Robin is one time when you need to not be and don't mean this with disrespect but you don't want to be flippant about this its a serious issue if it takes so long to react ie equalise between the tanks .