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23/02/2010 BELLE’s
BLOG has moved - you will find it here BELLE BLOG |
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25/11/2009 It’s been a BLOG-less
year ……... A combination
of guilt on our part and pressure from others has spurred me into updating
this BLOG. As I have said before,
writing about the tedious and day-to-day aspects of boating life is not for
me. If you want that sort of
thing, then there are plenty of other boating related websites around for you
to visit. So, what can
I write about? Its got to be
boating related tekkie stuff of course – here are some tekkie things
from 2009 that might be of interest: Blacking BELLE had her
hull blacked early November 2009.
Like her first blacking around mid-October 2008, we were nervous about
craning or dragging BELLE back onto dry land, so we opted again for a more
genteel and less stressful approach by utilising the covered dry dock at
Shobnall Boat Services in Burton-on-Trent for a weekend. BELLE was slowly and gently lowered
onto support blocks at the bottom of the dock as the water was pumped
out. No need to stash all of our
ornaments away and tie things down, etc. in readiness for dangling from a
crane like a 20 tonne conker or a good rumbling/shaking whilst being dragged
up a quayside by winch at what appears to be an ‘unhealthy’ angle
of inclination. It took less
than an hour to drain all of the water out of the dock and before we knew it,
the lads were steam cleaning the hull clean. Thereafter we were left to get on with
things. This sort of job is not
for the work shy – it was certainly a weekend of hard graft. Having scraped / wire brushed off all
of the loose stuff at and below the waterline, we managed to subsequently
apply four separate coats of International
Intertuf bitumous black paint to the entire hull and we touched up the
red and white banding around the stern.
There was no serious rusting or pitting of the hull to be found
anywhere. We maximised our use of
the covered dock and re-painted all of the white roof panels. This time
around BELLE had been in the water for a year. She had been in the water nearly two
years when we blacked for the first time around mid-October 2008. The decision to black this time was
mainly driven by the expectation that the anodes would need replacing, but,
much to our surprise, we found that they were still serviceable. In all probability we shall be in the
dry dock doing it all again around October/November 2010. Some might view this as a bit
OTT. However, BELLE is our home
and we want to keep her in pretty good nick right from the start. Satellite TV Whilst the
Freeview digital terrestrial TV signals are usually well received on-board
BELLE, there are times when the reception is poor, particularly when we are
cruising. Sometimes switching to
analogue works, but clearly the program choice is very limited. We wanted something better so decided
to install a satellite TV system.
Having scoured the market, we opted for a CAMOS SAT-DOME. This is a pretty nifty bit of kit
(albeit expensive) that will seek the chosen satellite and will, subject to
any obstructions of the line-of-sight to the satellite by nearby buildings or
tall trees, etc., remain locked onto that satellite, even if you are on the
move. There was a write up about
BELLE’s SAT-DOME installation in the RoadPro 2009 catalogue – you will find a scanned copy of
that write up here.
You can see the dome
discreetly located on our cabin roof in the picture below. Our only
problem (self-inflicted I might add) is that we are dead set against shelling
out a wad each month to Rupert Murdoch for a Sky subscription. Actually, we are only really
interested in securing British Eurosport. Unfortunately, the only provider of
British Eurosport via satellite at present is Sky. An alternative might be to
‘stream’ British Eurosport from our computer to the TV, it having
been received using Eurosport Player on t’Internet via either our
T-Mobile or Orange 3G connections.
The 3G data allowances might hinder this approach, but this is
something that we are looking into very seriously. We are prepared to pay about £4.00
/ month for a Eurosport Player subscription, but we are not prepared to pay
about ten times more for a Sky subscription that, whilst it would include
British Eurosport, also includes a whole lot of guff that we don’t
actually want or need.
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Francis Searchlight
Please
understand that there was nothing wrong with the smaller 7” Francis
searchlight that we blogged about in November 2008. This has been mounted onto the stern
hatch and it assists us when we are reversing in the dark, which we often do
when we make a trip to our nearby water point. We also use this hatch mounted
searchlight for illuminating the port or starboard side, whilst cruising,
leaving its bigger brother on the bow to spotlight the far distance. This bigger
searchlight, whilst manufactured in 1973, was effectively unused when we
purchased it. Like its kid
brother, we purchased it from Moorfield
Specialist Vehicles. The only
adaptation necessary was the interposition of a stainless steel
‘extension’ between the main searchlight swivel and the standard
Francis base. The Moorfield
website is ‘off limits’ for me for a while! Solar Panels Our only
problem regarding the Kyocera solar panels we purchased / installed in 2008
is the trees on our mooring – these deny a lot of light to the panels
and seriously reduce their output.
Whilst out and about cruising we have had sustained outputs of up to
15 amps in bright sunshine; very usable indeed. Here on our mooring we are lucky to
sustain much more than about 5 amps, with occasional bursts up to about 9
amps in summer; still usable, but nevertheless disappointing. We do not regret purchasing these
solar panels, but we are wondering whether making them pay for themselves
might entail us carrying out some serious vegetation management on our
mooring on behalf of BW!
Pump-Outs It always
happens doesn’t it – we always gravitate to discussing our
‘waste management’. This
is probably because failure to take good care of this essential on-board
system could result in some serious inconveniences. Now and again, particularly during the
winter we hit the ‘full’ marker on the waste tank gauge, with the
inevitable consequences. This is
usually because we cannot travel to the nearby marina for a pump-out because
of ice on the canal. Sometimes
the crosswinds prevent us from moving very far. The aforementioned, in conjunction
with the increasing pump out charges, have encouraged us to think about
viable alternatives. We are not
interested in cassette toilets – let me get that one out of the way for
a kick-off. More practically, we want
to pursue self pump-outs. We
already have a Henderson (Whale) MKV manual pump and we use this now and
again to transfer the stuff into a couple of 25 litre plastic containers for
disposal at the nearby BW elsan point.
That avoids us having to hot foot it to the nearby BW toilet block for
much sought after relief at any time of the day or night. We need a
proper engineering solution!
We have just
purchased one of these pumps and we are currently building it, along with a
suitable DOL motor starter, into a metal frame so that it can be more readily
lifted and moved around as a complete package. This is what
I call a pump; crafted and solidly constructed in a Brunel like manner from
bronze and steel and with a gaping 1.5” BSP inlet and outlet. It’s definitely built to last,
unlike the flimsy plastic bodied pumps that they try to sell you at many of
the chandlers. It did not cost a
great deal more than some of the flimsy plastic bodied pumps that they try to
sell you at the chandlers either! By now you
will probably be asking – armed to the teeth with this new industrially
proportioned Jabsco Utility 80 Pump based ‘waste management
system’, where the hell are they going to position the outlet pipe? Well, the master plan currently
entails us siding BELLE up to the nearby BW elsan and shoving the outlet pipe
into that. I know, I know, I
know.......BW does not like you doing that sort of thing I can hear you
saying. My argument is that there
are no signs telling me that I cannot do it. Furthermore, practically speaking,
what’s the difference between ejecting typically three weeks of waste
in one go into their elsan versus doing it every couple of days via cassette
over a period of three weeks, or barrowing three weeks worth up to the elsan
in plastic containers over the course of a day? Hopefully, our time and BW
permitting, etc. we will be reporting a success in January 2010. Fingers crossed that we do not switch
on and pebble-dash ourselves from head to toe as well as our nearby
surroundings, followed swiftly by a fizz-bang-bzzzzzz-kerpow
as we blow up our on-board 230v ac power supply. On that note, we would like to
take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year!
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