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Boating: Drydock Time – New Running Gear & Rudder Modifications

New Shaft & Prop
New Shaft & Prop

We’re now on the final leg of the jobs to be done on the boat! Above is the new prop & shaft, supplied to us by Crowther Marine over in Royton. To fit our current stern tube & gland, the shaft is the same diamter at 1-3/8″. Unfortunately no 4-blade props were available, so I had to go for a 17×11 left-hand, but with a much larger blade area than the old one.

Propellers
Propellers

Here’s the old prop on the right, with the new one on the left, amazing how different 1 inch of diameter actually looks. The opposite hand of the new prop makes no difference in our case, as I can simply switch the hoses to the hydraulic motor on the shaft to make everything reverse direction.

Stripper
Stripper

Above is the solution to my problem of no weed hatch – a Stripper Rope Cutter from Ambassador Marine. This device has some seriously viciously sharp cutting teeth to help clear any fouling from the prop in operation. Only time will tell if it’s effective at allowing me to stay out of the canal manually removing the crap!

Cutless Bearing
Cutless Bearing

We finally got the bearing mount finished, by S Brown Engineering in Stockport. This is made from Stainless steel to stop the bearing corroding in place & becoming a real arse to replace. Set screws are fitted to make sure the bearing doesn’t move in service.
Attached to the side of the bearing housing is the fixed blade mounting for the Stripper Rope Cutter.

Bearing Test Fit
Bearing Test Fit

Above is everything fitted to the shaft for a test before the gear went into it’s home in the stern tube. The Stripper mounts behind the prop, clamped to the shaft. The 3 moving blades move against the fixed blade like a mechanised pair of scissors.

Bearing Strut Welding
Bearing Strut Welding

10mm steel plate has been used to make the strut for the bearing tube, welded together. In the case of the joint between the stainless tube & the carbon steel strut, special welding rods were needed, at the price of £2 a rod! Using mild steel rods to weld stainless could result in cracking of the welds. Not a good thing on a prop shaft support bearing.

Sand Blasted Hull
Sand Blasted Hull

Most of the old tube has been cut away to make room for the new bearings, and the bottom of the hull has been sand-blasted ready for welding.

Running Gear Mounted
Running Gear Mounted

The bearing mount is welded to the hull, the Stripper & the prop are fitted to the end of the shaft. There’s 1.5″ of clearance from the blade tips to the hull plating. The rudder has about an inch of clearance to the end of the shaft.

Rudder Fence
Rudder Fence

To help keep the prop wash down, directing more of the force into moving the vessel rather than creating a nice rooster tail, a pair of plates has been welded onto the rudder. These also provide a handy step should someone fall in ;).

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Boating: Drydock Time – The Inspection

Drydock
Drydock

It’s that time again, so the boat is out of the water for it’s 3-yearly maintenance. Some things over the past few months have been bugging me, namely a pronounced vibration in the running gear while underway. (Issue was easy to spot here!).

10-Ton Jack
10-Ton Jack

nb Tanya Louise being a very odd vessel, she has quite a significant keel, so once the dock was drained, some manual jacking was required to get her level on the blocks. Without this extra work there is such a pronounced heel that it’s impossible to do anything on board.

Chocks
Chocks

On the opposite side, wooded blocks are placed for the bottom of the hull to rest against. Jacking up a 58-ft 25-ton boat by hand onto some timbers was nerve-wracking to say the very least!

The bottom of the hull has already been jet-washed to remove 3-year’s worth of slime, weed growth & the old blacking. First job is to get a fresh coat of paint on.

Running Gear
Running Gear

Looking under the hull shows the reason for the high level of vibration – the prop shaft has actually *worn through* the bearing & stern tube, to the extent that there’s not much left of the assembly! The only thing holding the shaft in place at this stage is the stuffing box inside the boat & the shaft coupling to the hydraulic motor.
, stern tube,
A replacement standard-issue Cutless bearing will be fitted, after the remains of the old tube are cut back to make room. To facilitate mounting the bearing, a custom stainless P bracket is being made at a local engineers, for me to weld onto the bottom of the hull.

(Surprised we didn’t lose the shaft, lucky that I kept pestering to get her out of the water!).

More to come as work progresses!

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nb Tanya Louise Hydraulic Generator

Hydraulic Generator Unit
Hydraulic Generator Unit

To accompany the previous two posts about hydraulic generators & their components, here is the actual generator unit itself.

Rated at 8.5kVa 230v AC, this will providea mains supply while the narrowboat is away from her home mooring.

This unit will be attached to the side of the hull in the engine room on rubber vibration isolation mounts, behind the main hydraulic oil tank & is driven from the small gear pump attached to the back of the main propulsion hydraulic pump unit.
Operating pressure is 175 bar, 21L/m flow rate to achieve the 3,000RPM rotor speed for 50Hz mains frequency.

Generator Specifications
Generator Specifications
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Hydraulic Generators, Missing Valves & Liars

While sourcing the main propulsion hydraulic system for nb Tanya Louise in the summer, we thought that it would be convenient to have an on board generator that didn’t require dragging off the boat & highly explosive petrol to operate.

As the hydraulics were already being fitted, we decided to add a hydraulically driven generator to solve this issue.

And this is where the problems began…

 

We were referred to Mike Webb of hydraulicgenerators.co.uk to supply the equipment required for this part of the project, this was to include the alternator itself, hydraulic motor to drive the alternator, the required adaptor plates to mate the motor to the generator head & a control valve block to regulate the oil flow & pressure to the motor.
After a phone call to Mike on 16-07-2013 to discuss our requirements, we settled on a system. I received the following E-Mail the next day from Mike:

Good morning, reference our conversation, Martin from BSP has given me details as to what he will be supplying, on that basis and in light of the special price I have offered, this is what I propose to supply,

 

1 off New 8kVa – 7kW Hydraulic driven generator 220v single phase 50hz c/w flow control valve, pressure relief valve and on/off solenoid valve,  Martin did say that the engine idle is between 1000 and 1200 rpm and  max speed is 3600 rpm, valves will be rated accordingly. I have the alternator and parts available now, in order for me to be able to offer this at a significantly discounted price of £ 1.200.00 nett, I will need to utilise the components I have in stock now, so I will need payment asap, delivery will be approx. 7 days, primarily due to the fact that the coupling is fabricated to suit, I can either deliver the unit to you when ready or BSP or hold onto it until everything else is in place.  The alternator is a Meccalte S20W that I bought for another customer a few weeks ago, but he cancelled and I don’t have, at this time, anyone else interested in it, so either I do a deal with you at the above price or wait until someone else comes along and wants the unit.

 

With regards to installation, let me know if you need any help, but it would be best to install when the engine is being installed and the rest of the system hosed up, I assume BSP will be sorting this, in which case I’ll liase with Martin.

 

I trust that this meets with your approval and look forward to hearing from you.

At this point an order was placed with Mike, & the money transferred so he could begin building the unit for us. As can be seen from the E-Mail, a lead time of 7 days was stated.

After a few phone calls over the following month, firstly being told that the custom parts to mate the generator to the motor had not come back from the engineers, I sent another E-Mail to Mike on 10-09-2013, and got no reply.
Following another phone call, I was told that the generator had been shipped, however Mike would not give me any tracking details for the shipment, and would not initially tell me who it was shipped with.

Again the generator didn’t turn up.

More phone calls ensued & I was told at this point that the shipping company had been confused by the address given, shipped back to Mike. At this point I was informed that the shipping company had actually LOST  it. Several more phone calls later I was promised that a replacement generator would now ship no later than 08-10-2013. A follow up E-Mail two days later also generated no reply.

At this point I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see the goods we had paid for, but finally a shipment arrived from Mike
~15-10-2013, over TWO MONTHS after our promised delivery date. However, even having been delivered, all was not well with the goods.

Generator Pallet
Generator Pallet

Above is the generator supplied. No mounting bracket, no integrated valve block, in short, nothing like what was described in Mike’s documentation & website. The original documentation is available here for reference: [download id=”5564″]

The valve block supplied was this:

Valve Block
Valve Block
Missing Solenoid Valve
Missing Solenoid Valve

Flow control: check.
Pressure relief: check.
Control solenoid valve: Gaping hole….

As can be seen, there is an open port on the side of the valve block. This is where the ON/OFF control solenoid valve is supposed to be located.
After several more unanswered E-Mails & phone calls, I had to get somewhat more forceful in my messages, as now Mike had begun outright lying about what was specified in the original order. In which that there was no solenoid valve required. So the following E-Mail was sent 21-10-2013:

Mike,

Having had a conversation with Martin, about him attempting to contact you regarding what you have supplied to us, I need this resolving ASAP now, as I am being held up by the fact that there is an open port on your valve block where the solenoid control valve is supposed to be located.

As it stands the valve block & therefore the generator you have supplied to us is useless for it’s intended purpose & I will be seeking legal advice on this matter if a resolution cannot be made this week, considering you have not replied to any E-Mail I have sent since the unit’s massively delayed arrived.

In your original correspondence it is certainly indicated that this valve was to be fitted, which was also Martin’s instruction to you.  

I await your expedient response.

This threat of legal action actually spurred a response from Mike, who finally replied with the following on 25-10-2013:

Ben,

 

Sorry about all this, I have been away and down with a bug for the last week, I will sort this today and will have the required parts shipped to you on Monday for Tuesday delivery.

 

Regards

Mike

Another promise of a delivery date, so I waited a little longer, until the Friday of that week. Still no delivery. No surprise there then.
(I didn’t believe the story about illness either).

At this point I again attempted contact, but got nowhere, even with legal threats. So I’ve given up completely on this & been forced to source the parts elsewhere at extra cost.

This company is not the one to go to if you require a hydraulic generator unit for any application, as you’d be lucky to get any part of what you order on time, if at all.
Operations are run by an all out liar who seems to be happy to accept money but not ship the goods that had been paid for.

Mike having explained to me that the shipping company had lost a generator, and he would have to build me another one to replace it also does not make sense, as in the initial phone call & mail he stated that the Meccalte generator that we eventually received was a single unit that was specially ordered for another client, and the factory build date on the unit certainly gave away the fact that the generator head had been sat around for some considerable time before I came along & made a purchase.

Hopefully this post will get a high Google ranking, to ensure that anyone else who happens to be looking for a similar piece of equipment does not have the misfortune to trust this man.
We were referred to him on good faith & unfortunately in this case it did not go well.