Comfy Seats :-)

About a month ago I made some templates for the seat cushions to finish the seats on the stern deck.

After a lot of hunting around and reading reviews I decided to place the order with Caravan & Boat Seat Cover Centre.  I liked the name to start with as it said exactly what they did and following a few chats and emails with John I was convinced it they were the right people to make them.  Its true what they say in sales, "people buy people" and so it was with John.

So here they are in all their glory!

They have been beautifully made and so neat.  I'm not sure of the density of the foam but they are surprisingly heavy, very comfortable and supportive.

Thanks 

Its War On Mozzies

Why should we swelter with 26c -30C heat in the evenings when we have windows that are fully removable?

S-Line Window

Well until now its because the mozzies win. We shut all the windows and suffocate. You see, we are unfortunately, the type of people that come out in massive lumps when bitten.  So its WAR!

First off I made some fly screen replacement windows with the help of my friends with a CNC router.  They cut the frame parts for me, all exactly the same of course, scanned from a pane of glass then modified to suit.

The mesh is the same material Tutu's are made from I think its called dress net.  This was doubled up .

If you look closely you can see the Moire Pattern 

So now we are sitting with a nice cool through breeze with one of these each side of the saloon and just in case any pesky mozzies do feel lucky we have a death chamber waiting.

Should we still manage to get a bite we now have one of these each as well which we tried at a friends boat and they really work!

Amazon link

Cool It

As I went up the stairs the other day I was hit by a waft of heat coming from the back of the fridge which is a built in one.

When I felt the element on the rear of the fridge I was shocked by just how hot it was.  Out came my trusty digital thermometer and showed 65c!

Knowing the bilge air is much cooler I decided to add some 12v fans to draw air up from below and push out over the back of the fridge.

After a bit is probing with a multimeter I found the compressor feed and wired in a 240v relay to switch the 12v fans only when the compressor is running.

The result is now a much cooler 37c.  So hopefully this will save some battery power.  The total load of all 4 fans is about .5 a/h.

Underwater Prop Change

I've always had a suspicion my prop was undersized for the boat and the type of waterways we do and intend to use it on. The engine never seemed to be "working" which is not ideal for a diesel and is only really used at the lower rev range.

I did some research into the very black art of prop calculation, at first online with various web based calculators then with about half a dozen UK based prop manufacturers.  In all cases the maximum diameter I can swing is a 21" so this was a definite as too was the max RPM, HP, and gear ratios and the hull size and weight.

All online and all manufacturers calculations came up with the same pitch within an inch or 2,  with most pitching at the mid range of 21.  So it was decided a 21 x 21 and still a 4 blade. Up from 21 x 16.

Old and new props side by side

The initial plan was get a lift out and the back the same day at a local crane day, but the more I looked at it and them more advice I sought I decided it would be worth at least trying to do it under water. If this didn't work or something serious happened the crane was still an option.

I'm fortunate that the weed hatch on the boat is quite large and access good and Garth at the boat yard had the necessary prop puller on hand.

Weed hatch

The prop nut on a Vetus shaft is a flange nut so there would be no problem with either lining up a nut and split pin hole or having to drill a new one.  The only down side was two 2mm thick SS flanges had to be hack sawn off and hack saw movement was limited.  This part of the job took a quite painful hour or so, but once done the nut was easily removed.

Prop nut showing the flats where the flanges lock

Old prop, nut removed

Then getting the prop puller on was a bit of a fiddle but about half an hour of adjustment had it ready to start winding on the pressure.

Lots of lines attached so as not to lose anything

After a bit more tightening that sweet moment the taper broke.  The prop was off. :-)

This lot was removed and the new prop offered on the the shaft and measurements taken to establish the key wouldn't be too proud for the new prop.  I was undecided that the prop would sit entirely on the taper and not the key.  In the end I decided it was probably fine but removing .5mm would do no harm so I did this gently and ended up, once it was flat and square again, at .7mm removed.

Then it was time to fit the new prop.

All complete with shaft anode refitted

In all it took around 6 hours, and of course the only part dropped was the non ferrous prop nut which required the donning of  the wet suit and snorkel and a short dive to the river bed about 4' down to retrieve it.

All in all a good days work and a worthwhile experience. 

The purpose was to load the engine a bit more at as the 16 was not making the engine work and would easily reach max RPM of 2500 which is never needed or used. Also I wanted the fast cruise RPM to be at the top of the torque curve at 1500rpm.

RPM             Speed MPH

                   Previously 16".          Now 21".
  800            2.6                          4
1000            3.5                          4.8
1200            4.5                          5.5
1500            4.8                          6.5    Turbo now heard working
1800            6.0                          7.8    And speed building

I suspect given all the right conditions 8.5mph would be achievable.

The conditions were wind on against 2 mph (ish) flow.

Observations so far are noticeably less rudder judder throughout the range, more rudder authority, less rudder input to keep on line, turbo heard working, acceleration much better (not really required) stopping massively improved prop walk slightly more pronounced, engine ran 5°c hotter on prolonged 1800+ test but this returned to normal 85°c very quickly at 1500 and maximum rpm now 2200 so slightly over propped as expected. No black smoke at any point on the test.

In conclusion I think this has been worthwhile. I can now cruise very nicely at 1000 and fast cruise at 1500 and gallop at 1800.

These are only preliminary tests on deep water so like all things boat there are infinite variables.

The predicted all round performance/economy improvement was 20% which I think is probably about right.  Someone else can do the calculations for me if they like.

Next stop 100,000 page views?

Sneak Preview Of Current Project.

This is what I'm up to at the moment.  Seats and storage boxes for the rear deck.

More next time.

New Central Heating

Last Tuesday I set about installing a new central heating and hot water boiler.  Although the Mikuni MX60 originally fitted has done sterling service for 2 winters, it did run hard and long which is actually good for this type of heater.

I decided the replacement would be a Hurricane SCH25 as it has more function and control.

I gave my self a couple of days to do this.  First job of course was to remove the Mikuni which took about 2 hours.  

With that safely removed and packed away the next job was to drain the engine calorifier coil as I would also be installing a flat plate exchanger to recover engine heat into the radiators which the SCH25 control system is able to do.

 20 plate 44kw heat exchanger

This is placed in series with the calorifier coil. The left hand (blue) pipes are from the engine the right hand (white) go the the central heating system and the SCH25 calorifier coil.  

Once the engine water has reached 70c this aquastat switches on the circulation pump and feeds the harvested heat into the CH system but without firing the SCH25.

This of course can be used in reverse to preheat the engine from the Hurricane but this would need another pump.  There is a small amount of thermo siphon already so I might consider putting in a 1 way valve to stop this as heating the engine without the option is wasteful.

Once the system was up and running I was getting (from the engine alone) 56c of water through the CH system.  Basically free heat when cruising or charging.

Reading taken from the towel rail

After 3, yes 3 days! I had all the plumbing done, and the heater installed and the wiring put through.

I had to cut a larger hole for the exhaust.  The old one was 1 1/2" and the new one is 2".  I didn't want to put yet another hole in the boat so how to do it?  My plan was to clamp wood either side of the hole and run a new pilot. But no there's a much better way shown to me by Garth at Ely Boat Yard.  This has to be tip of the year so far. So obvious really!

Use the previous hole saw as the pilot
 by mounting both on the arbor   

How neat is that?

New exhaust fitted

As always putting in wiring neatly all takes time.  The previous room stat had only 1 pair of wires the new one needs 3 pairs + I heft a spare for an extra frost stat but probably won't be needed.  This involved taking down one of the kitchen cupboards, the one with the most stuff in it of course!

Followed by the wiring back to the control box.

There are 3 extra wires here too, one for the GSM remote for the controlling the heater by TXT, one for the extra but probably not needed frost stat, and another for a room stat in the bedroom if it proves necessary.

Then finally all connected.

And with permission from the manufacturer in Canada the GSM remote wires soldered on to supplement the  switch on the system remote panel.  Special permission to not void the warranty

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And here with the panel switch off but the GSM switch on, system working.

So that was that.  It was a bigger job than I expected and if was presented with a bill for the time it took me I would be questioning very seriously.  I would think it probably took me 30+ hours.

All I need to do now is learn how to program the room stat/timer controller.  It's too cleaver for it's own good so they provide tutorial videos on the Heatmiser website.

To come:-  The new prop has arrived.

And some new seating and storage for the stern deck.

This is the template to build to

Advanced Alternator Regulator

To finish the alternator modification I have added to the house battery system an advanced alternator regulator made by Sterling Power Products  I chose the ProD model.

Unit on the right.  The left is the MPPT

The first thing to do was to connect 2 wires to the inside of the alternator.  Only one of these wires is used but it need to be determined which.

These wires go to the brushes in the alternator.

Cap back on and wires out of a convenient hole.

With the alternator running normally its necessary to identify which type of alternator sensing you have.  Mine is a Negative sensing.

Once the right wire is found simply snip the unused one off.

This explains what they do but in a nutshell it changes the charge profile of the original regulator in the alternator without modifying it. It will fail safe to the alternators own regulator if it encounters any number of possible problems protecting the alternator and batteries from themselves as it makes the alternator & batteries and connecting cables work much harder for longer.  The full manual is here. http://www.shop.sterling-power.com/acatalog/pdar.pdf

The additional load on the alternator started to cause the belt to slip on engine start up as the ProD loaded the alternator.  I could have added more tension to the belt but this just adds extra loading the the engine front bearing and the alternator bearing. To overcome this I applied some Belt Dressing which has done the trick.

While out this week the engine clocked up 200 hours.

It's very noticeable how much quieter the engine is becoming as time goes on, and since the alternator modification how much smoother it feels.  I can offer no explanation for this tough.

I have decided to change the central heating boiler and have ordered a Hurricane CH25

The Mikuni MX60 has been and continues to be great, its done sterling service for 2 winters but I want the greater flexibility the Hurricane offers with its zoning, hot water only and the added feature of being able, with the use of an additional heat exchanger, use the the engines waste heat to heat the radiators.

More on this soon.

Another modification on the horizon:-   I have ordered a new propeller.  The current one is 21 x 16 and I shall be replacing it with a 21 x 21.  I should get this in a few weeks and have a slot booked on a local crane day but I might try to do it in the water.  I looking into the feasibility of this.

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