At Staines yesterday morning - this huge craft passed us just as we were about to pull our from our mooring, glad we didn't set off a few minutes earlier, but as luck would have it we did meet it again in Old Windsor Lock Cut! Sod's Law!
Taking our coal delivery
We had a good run back, two of the locks were on self service and two, including Grumpy's lock were attended. Grumpy didn't make eye contact or speak at all but at least he didn't disappear on us, although he did open all the sluices in one go, side and gate sluices!
So now we're back where we started at Dorney
... behind Sue and Vic on NPXL
... with a lovely sunset behind the trees
... and the moon this morning at 7 o'clock
Incredible shots of the moon... almost looks like a spooky odd eclipse. Very Halloween!
ReplyDeleteTroubled to read of your alternator problems, especially as it sounds like you have already had it exchanged under warranty.
Our previous share boat (new in 2012 with a Beta43) had both alternators fail within the first year. When we were spec'ing our own boat I pinged Beta to ask about this and they obligingly gave me the stats. Here is their reply from 2014 pasted in for your background info / enjoyment:
1. The alternators we use are Iskra 175 amp units, standard Automotive alternators with 14.5 volt regulation.
2. To get the best alternator and battery life the battery bank should be 5 times the alternator output, and run the engine for charging at 1100-1200 rev/min. This is fine for deep cycle batteries. 6 hours per day seems excessive, we would expect the batteries to be fully charged in 45 minutes to an hour, dependent upon the battery state.
3. Yes, external regulators would invalidate the warranty.
4. We have records of reported alternator failures and in 2013, we had 4 X 100 amp alternator failures on Beta 38’s and 2 x 175 amp alternator failures on Beta 43’s. This is 1.2% of the volume of alternators supplied on canal boat engines in 2013.
Thanks for your comments Paul.
DeleteBeta will be investigating our alternator failure, it will be interesting to see why it failed, as soon as I know I will post it on Carol's blog. I want to replace the faulty one so I have a spare, I hope to use the diagnosis to lever a good price for a new one from Beta!