Independence - Updates | Maintenance & Care

[BroomSedan]

Hi Robin, Thanks for saying hello and thanks to everyone who has welcomed us to the forum.

As we live 300 miles from our boat it is not an option just to pop down and check things for us either. Your engines look in a very snug position, set well inboard and surrounded by the fuel tanks which will probably work as a heat sink and keep the overnight temperatures up, and you do have 5 feet below the waterline which will be well insulated by the relatively warm river Yare. So let's remain quietly confident that all will be OK, fingers crossed.

Kind regards, Ken and Joan.

[Selsie]

Welcome BroomSedan, I'm a relative newbie !

Its a great place to hang out, lots of friendly members and banter.

[quo vadis]

ts a great place to hang out, 

You can be arrested for that 

[Smoggy]

54 minutes ago, quo vadis said:

ts a great place to hang out, 

You can be arrested for that 

Do you speak from experience QV?

[Guest]

5 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

Welcoming to know.

Although we would never considering living in an environment of say just 3°C - so long as that means water is liquid is all that really matters when we are talking about engine rooms.

As Paul mentioned also I also have the benefit of being able to seal the engine room off so no icy air can get in and take any heat away with it.

Sorry, don't get to comforted by the water not freezing, I checked the bottles today and noticed that the water was sparkling.

[Selsie]

11 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

Sorry, don't get to comforted by the water not freezing, I checked the bottles today and noticed that the water was sparkling.

MMMMM Perrier, posh boat ????

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Selsie said:

MMMMM Perrier, posh boat ????

Sadly no,  something in a plastic bottle from Roys

[Selsie]

Oh well one can dream,

On a serious note, we have an electric oil heater in the engine room, set at +5 degrees , a desiccant Dehumidifier  in the lounge (gives off heat as a bye product), drained down the domestic water, we leave all the internal doors open so the air can circulate.

Not a lot more we can do, it's so far so good.

BTW we have a Falcon 27 spc , Twin Volvo Penta petrols.

 

[JohnK]

This was in Canada a few years ago.

Not a great photo but a bottle of coke left in the car overnight and -18°c
My ex boss had worked in northern Canada and claimed -30°c is manageable but you start getting serious issues at -40°c
Coldest I saw was -26°c on a snow mobile! That was around Quebec and nobody seemed to think anything of it.
Scary stuff. I guess it’s just what you get used to and what local services are geared up for.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Vaughan]

I think we ought to congratulate Robin on his thread reaching 100 pages!

 

[Siddy]

Another great video which I didn't watch the other night saving it to watch in the pub when I went back up North, Which turn out to be last night so I was sat in the pub in Newcastle and them waiting to shut at 9pm due to weather!!

I'd just drove up due to a work issue took 3 hrs. My screen washers iced up so pulled off the motorway and went to get a 4pint milk carton of water from the back which was a solid block of ice. I had to sit and let the engine heat sort the pipes out.

 

[grendel]

I have been running with neat screenwash, and the other day when I recorded -14 in the car, the washers didnt cut in until it got above -5

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Selsie said:

Oh well one can dream,

On a serious note, we have an electric oil heater in the engine room, set at +5 degrees , a desiccant Dehumidifier  in the lounge (gives off heat as a bye product), drained down the domestic water, we leave all the internal doors open so the air can circulate.

Not a lot more we can do, it's so far so good.

BTW we have a Falcon 27 spc , Twin Volvo Penta petrols.

 

I'm on the boat tonight, as I don't think I will make it back to Buxton (Norfolk) due to the new snow as it was drifting quite deeply just outside the village when i left this morning. Erbespatcher is working well with a comfortable 20 C temp.

 

[Wyndham]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

I think we ought to congratulate Robin on his thread reaching 100 pages!

 

I think we should  tooand start another sweep stake on the date 200 pages will be reached.

[Broads01]

I watched the Weymouth-Brighton video this morning. I really enjoyed it. It says a huge amount for Robin's film-making abilities that I enjoyed so much even though I could never see myself as a sea-going boat person. It was brilliant to have Sheila behind the camera to capture bringing the boat into Brighton Marina as it gave us footage we wouldn't otherwise have seen with Robin being very much engaged at the helm. 

[LondonRascal]

General Update:

I will work on the next instalment of the Blog, plus an update filmed two weekends ago onboard as soon as I can as I know people are eager. To be honest, there is not too much left to come in the delivery Blog because once we past Eastbourne things began getting lively and continued to as we progressed along the coast get ever more rough. I should have perhaps just got the camera wedged somewhere and left it roll to have given some insight but at the time it really was not on my mind as we had fishing pots you would see then loose sight of as another bunch of water covered the screens or a wave trough took you out of sight of it so you had to be focused on that together with float switches sticking and Charlie bravely off down to investigate while being flung around making something that was a piece of cake when alongside a real challenge especially the further forward you go lifting off the cabin sole as the boat's bow became air bourne for a couple of seconds prior to meeting the next wave and burying itself again.

So, this is just to rely some information I have had from Norfolk Yacht Agency (NYA) who have begun working on the boat this morning. I cannot praise them enough - an email and a phone call to go over things they have been working on and finding out issues and I am learning yet more about this fuel system, the tanks and the manifold. 

Firstly they carefully removed the fuel stand pipe from the centre tank but found the tank under pressure still and full. so it was quickly back in investigations begun on just how the tank was getting fed with fuel even though four separate valves in the balance pipe connecting the centre tank to the two wing tanks were closed. A lot of head scratching later and turns out the fuel delivery manifold is supplying fuel to the centre tank (return balance) all the time - even when there is no engine/generator running - and since the main large diameter balance pipe was closed, all the pressure was heading down a much smaller copper pipe 'injecting' fuel into the tank - this fuel therefore needs somewhere to go - up the vent pipe until it reaches the level with the wing tanks - and you have a split in the vent pipe as we know I do, you get the fuel coming out there again. Of course when I have the heater running or generator trying to take pressure and fuel out the centre tank, the pressure is greatly reduced which means I was lulled into thinking it was getting better - but leave it all off for a few days and it is returns just as bad as ever it was.

So NYA traced all the lines from the manifold and worked out if they turned off the centre return feed in the engine room and then also the main fuel shut off under the saloon seating this fully isolated the fuel system and fuel stopped entering the centre tank once and for all. They then could drain some out and begin working on the stand pipe for the heater fuel supply. Just as in Plymouth with people working on the fuel system and so on I am loosing more fuel this way than I am burning it so I think a spring time trip out and top up at Broom will be in order.

NYA then had a look generally at the heater installation, I have to say it never looked that great and there are a number of connections where the ducting joins together which were loose (literally had come apart) but it has transpired the heater bracket that the heater sits on and the heater that sits on to the bracket was loose.  They could not understand how all the fasteners would universally have come loose to the same degree, so can only presume they were finger tight to begin. NYA have now gone over this and secured all the fasteners. They are now working on what the best course of action will be as per the vent pipe split form the centre fuel tank. Not only to cause it to comply with the BSS but also so it cannot split again by being able to rub agaisnt anything else.

I thought be nice to update the thread with this while I am able before I can post some more videos.

RIB Naming

As you know, some time back I put out the idea of people naming the RIB and some interesting names were put forward, however you will also note I did not promote the 'naming of the RIB' idea too much because I frankly I had not figured out the best way to run such a competition - would I just pick a name I liked? Or would I put names to a vote etc so in the end I put the idea on hold.

In the mean time Shiela has been talking about the RIB a lot - she is dead keen on this and has ideas about us taking it out to the likes of Bargate, dropping a mud weight and having a picnic or going to the Surlingham Ferry on it for a meal. She also came up with a name.Now she looks after two toddlers and for some reason they have called her ' Picca' and she said why not called the RIB this? Well I liked it because it is very unusual, sounds cute, and has some meaning behind it representing Shiela so that is the name we are going with for the RIB so I need to get the RIB cleaned up, get some new tie down straps, a cover and some decals for the new name.

[keifsmate]

3 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

She also came up with a name.Now she looks after two toddlers and for some reason they have called her ' Picca' and she said why not called the RIB this? 

My brother and I used to call our Grandfather (Mum's Dad) Pom Pom. Why is lost in the mists of time and the question is unanswerable now as both my parents have gone. Maybe we called him that for the same reason as Sheila's toddlers! 

[MauriceMynah]

I really must wear my glasses, I read the above as Porn Porn.

[finny]

16 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I really must wear my glasses, I read the above as Porn Porn.

No you was right first time MM .................can't beat a bit of boat porn 

finny 

[LondonRascal]

[finny]

10 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

I don't mind doing a safety audit on the pool 

finny

[LondonRascal]

I have just finished editing the final part of the delivery trip Blog, and I have to say depending on the mood you are in does rather change how you produce content. Going over things and narrating how I was feeling at the time brought things back as to what everyone dealt with and contributed. I can't post the finished video just yet, as it is going to have to render overnight so tomorrow late afternoon expect it to be ready to watch on You Tube, but what I can share now is the short segment.

This shows some of the memories, prior to our leaving, during and up to arriving in Great Yarmouth. It shows the photos, that covered our journey and the crew who did so much and without whom none of this would have been possible, finally not to mention the safe, incredibly well built Trader 535 - Independence herself.

Let's think positive 'Forumites' - we have a season of cracking boating starting up soon time to forget differences and focus on a shared passion: messing about on the water.

 

[Selsie]

21 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

Let's think positive 'Forumites' - we have a season of cracking boating starting up soon time to forget differences and focus on a shared passion: messing about on the water.

Well said Robin, I'm literally raising a glass to that, and a decent Rioja to boot !!!!

[finny]

The best is yet to come me thinks .......getting to know and have total trust in your boat takes time but it does come and it's very enjoyable . I keep saying I will do a. Write up on my boat delivery a  freezing February day I never thought so much could happen i one day - total shitter on the day but I still have a crafty grin  when I reminisce 

enjoy Robin 

finny

[KatieR]

Lovely slideshow Robin and a great track too-  made me fill up a bit there, especially what looks like your shot of her arriving at GY. 

You have a beautiful and very capable boat in Indy, and a group of even more incredible friends.

Lets really hope for a lovely, lazy summer of messing about on boats for all of us to look forward too!