Boating Tips & Tricks
I thought I’d give some thoughts on some
boaty things I have discovered and thought of recently that may inspire or help
others be them an owner currently, or perhaps those who aspire to in the
future.
You don’t need a wooden boat to need to Varnish;
even Fibreglass boats have woodwork that can benefit from being kept in tip top
condition. However, if you want to help preserve the wood, and produce a glass
like surface together with reducing the number of coats of Varnish needed (and
mind numbing work between coats) then use a clear Epoxy to begin as your build
up coats.
You will need to start with the bare wood surface for this, so there is no skimping on preparation alas and all previous coats of Varnish would need to be sanded back completely. However, once done you will only need 3 or 4 coats of actual Varnish to achieve a surface much the same as if you’d used 10.
I think we all are familiar with West System as a brand name, so sticking with this so you know what to use you would need to use their 105 Resin and 207 Hardener. Using this will mean when they cure it will be ‘water clear’. The 207 Hardener also has some UV blockers built in which will help under a traditional Varnish and prevent UV light effecting both the underlying wood and the Epoxy itself.
Once the first coat of Epoxy is cured, sand it back with 220 grit sand paper then clean the surface of all dust with a Hoover and soft brush then wipe down with Acetone and apply the second Epoxy coat. Once the second coat is cured sand again with 220 grit sandpaper. You might like to wet sand as it will control the surface and Epoxy dust better.
You want to ensure there are no shiny surfaces showing and all the wood is matt in appearance. Once sanded clean the surface with Acetone again.
Now it’s time to Varnish. You will want to use a Varnish with a high amount of UV stabilises/inhibitors in it – notice no thinning of the Varnish is done because you are not Varnishing over untreated wood, so the Varnish does not need to ‘soak in’ to the wood in the first couple of coats. Just use light strokes with the brush - if you can use a Badger bristle brush all the better. [Lots more tips click 'read more' to see] >
Allow to dry – then sand back with 320 grit sandpaper. You can use a ‘tack rag’ if you wish, but don’t use any Acetone now you’ve begun the Varnish layers, but you want to ensure all dust from the sanding is clear before you apply the next coat.
Then apply a second coat and allow to dry then once more sand back but this time with 400 grit sandpaper. Now time for the third coat, repeat above – you might like to go one step further and apply a fourth coat.
This will mean that the wood surface you are protecting has had the Epoxy ‘soak in’ to begin and effectively be encased in the grain with the protecting Epoxy. The Varnish then adds extra UV protection on top, and of course is the main finish you see which will not only result in a very protective surface to the wood, but give a glass like finished and wow factor much the same as if you had applied far more coats of Varnish had you not begun building up with Epoxy first.
Headlining with a difference:
If you have new headlining fitted and use hard wood finishing strips to add flare (and cover up seams between the panels) then consider using LED strip lighting (the sort you buy on a roll and can be cut every third LED) to stick to the ‘inside’ of the wooden finishing strip. Then, get some clear Acrylic sheet that is about 3mm thick and cut so that it is 5mm wider on each side of the wood finishing strip. Use 400 grit sand paper to ‘etch’ the Acrylic so all the shine is removed and it appears matt on all sides.
Stick this over the top of the wood finishing strip (and LED light strip) and then fix to the cabin roof over the headlining seam, first having run wires to power the LED strips. The result during the day is it would be virtually unnoticeable that the small Acrylic strip either side of the wood finishing strip is there but at night it not only would provide a very nice look as the sides of the wood strip when the LEDs were on, because you have etched the Acrylic, this will defuse the LED light. This will form a practical soft down light – idea for night navigation when set to red colour, or perhaps for mood lighting a deep orange or violet.
Acrylic can be used artistically in many other ways too with LED lighting in various applications on boat.
Inverter and Battery
It is nice to have 240v on any boat, large or small but working out how much power you use is the first step before figuring out your battery requirements, charging capability and inverter choice.
Conducting a power audit is not complicated your need a sheet of A4 paper and 6 columns labelled left to right as:
Appliance
Volts
Watts (Amps x Volts)
Amps (Watts / Volts)
Usage (Hours per day)
Total Amp Hour per Day (Amps x Usage)
For example, you might had a light that uses 12v – when on it uses 18 Watts (1.5 Amps) and you may say that in the course of an evening it will be on for 5 hours. Thus this will mean a total ‘daily’ usage of 7.5 Amps.
When you are on a boat, always deal in Amps, not Wattage because it is Amps you live off from your battery bank. You can then estimate higher drain appliances like the fridge, and of course this depends on the thermostat setting and time of year as to how often the compressor will kick in. Once you have covered the boat and all lights, pumps, and so on you will have a good idea of how many Amps you might use in a 24 hour period – and thus how large your battery bank needs to be to supply this.
It might be worth considering halving your Amp draw by using a 24v battery set up – but this will effectively double the space needed for your batteries as, you will need two 12v batteries together to provide 24v and a further two etc to build up your capacity (or storage of power) depending on your needs. While this is good in theory it may well need a lot of items swapping over to be 24v, so if you are considering a refit of items going 24v might be a good option.
What you will also need to do is figure out how to recharge your batteries in the best time. If you have, for example consumed in 24hrs some 200Ah of power, it will take some engine running to put that all back ready for the next 24 hour period of drain. Perhaps upgrade your Alternator to a higher amperage type, or have two.
Increasingly the flagship cars from Audi, Mercedes, BMW etc are using water cooled Alternators because under load and in a hot engine bay an Alternator will lose a lot of output the hotter it gets – by having them water cooled it helps prevent this thus maintaining a more constant high amp output – naturally check such might be able to be retro fitted to your engine.
Consider an external alternator regulator – this will do a great deal for your charging system, and companies such as Sterling and Mastervolt produce all in one units that take care of your charging needs in a ‘smart’ manner and monitor your batteries providing them with high amperage initially and then drip feeding the amps until the batteries are full – this also helps the overall life span of the batteries ion your bank.
What an external alternator controller does is override the internal regulator, and force the alternator to charge at a higher voltage. Usually in the region of 14.4 volts. Many people think that an increase in charge voltage from 13.8 volts to 14.4 volts isn't much of a difference. It's an increase of about 5%, so it will increase the charge by 5%.
This is not so true though, firstly a wet cell battery at about 50% charge will not begin to accept any form of charge until the terminal voltage is raised to about 12.5 volts. After this point, the current starts to flow. So the starting point is actually 12.5 volts as opposed to zero volts. Now the difference between 12.5 volts and 14.4 volts, as opposed to the difference between 12.5 volts and 13.8 volts is an increase of 50% ahh you see not just 5%.
When you take into other factors like the energy going back to the battery is roughly in proportion to the square of this voltage difference not just proportional to the voltage difference the increase in performance is more like 200% what it began at.
But it is not just what happens when the engine is running, you can get a solar panel to provide free power on a sunny day – this may help actually more than you think especially when you imagine being mud weighted on Salhouse Broad in August, the sun beating down the finding cutting in more often and for longer – that solar panel is going to help power the fridge thus the extra amps it draws in the hot summer are not as big of a deal on your battery bank than if you did not have the solar panel.
When plugged into shore power you also want to be able to charge your batteries at a good rate – no good having 5 batteries and a Halfords 6Amp battery charger – but an ideal way of dealing with the battery charging and Inverter is have an all in one unit. You can pick up a 75Amp battery charger with a 3000w pure sign wave inverter for under £500.00 if you buy from companies supplying those who have a home with an inverter/charger system for use with their Solar panel bank on the roof.
That brings me nicely around to inverters – if you just charge a laptop and a phone and run a TV then you can get away without having a pure sine wave Inverter – indeed you could get a 300w small unit and likely be fine. But if you want to use a hair drier, power tools, microwave etc then the higher wattage output you can afford with pure sign wave (which will prove the same frequency power as your home supply) will be not only better for your appliances plugged in, but prevent certain items causing problems for the inverter.
Damp Busting:
Every boaters worse nightmare the dreaded dampness, along with its bother Mildew and sister Mould. While those small damp absorbers are find for a small area, they won’t make much difference within a larger space like a cabin. Some choose to buy compressor driven dehumidifiers and these of course are far more effective.
The problem with a compressor driven system is they are heavy, they use a lot of power but they are actually pretty rubbish when the temperature falls. In fact they really get very poor under about 20 degrees but will still have the compressor running using all the electric but extracting a lot less moisture from the air – and as the temperature gets lower and lower so their efficiency falls like a stone.
What a boater need is a Desiccant dehumidifier.
Now if you’re not sure what this is it is a light weight, very quite unit that uses a little less power than a compressor system, but is so much more efficient so watt for watt is better value for what you get out.
They use a desiccant material, typically Zeolite, which absorbs water vapor from the air in a similar way to silica gel. A fan draws air into the dehumidifier and passes it through a section of a slowly rotating wheels which holds desiccant which dries the air.
The moisture is extracted from the desiccant by heating a portion of the wheel not being used to dry the air. They will extract the same amount of moisture irrespective of the temperature in which they are working (so great for chilly damp winter days on a boat) also there are no consumables on a desiccant unit: the desiccant material does not expire and will not need to be replaced or topped up.
The lifespan of a desiccant unit will tend to be longer than a compressor unit as it is a much more simple process with far less moving parts, no compressor and no refrigerant gas being held under high pressure to potentially fail so I presume, a little safer eclectically for those who may worry about a compressor running for hours on end.
For example, you might had a light that uses 12v – when on it uses 18 Watts (1.5 Amps) and you may say that in the course of an evening it will be on for 5 hours. Thus this will mean a total ‘daily’ usage of 7.5 Amps.
When you are on a boat, always deal in Amps, not Wattage because it is Amps you live off from your battery bank. You can then estimate higher drain appliances like the fridge, and of course this depends on the thermostat setting and time of year as to how often the compressor will kick in. Once you have covered the boat and all lights, pumps, and so on you will have a good idea of how many Amps you might use in a 24 hour period – and thus how large your battery bank needs to be to supply this.
It might be worth considering halving your Amp draw by using a 24v battery set up – but this will effectively double the space needed for your batteries as, you will need two 12v batteries together to provide 24v and a further two etc to build up your capacity (or storage of power) depending on your needs. While this is good in theory it may well need a lot of items swapping over to be 24v, so if you are considering a refit of items going 24v might be a good option.
What you will also need to do is figure out how to recharge your batteries in the best time. If you have, for example consumed in 24hrs some 200Ah of power, it will take some engine running to put that all back ready for the next 24 hour period of drain. Perhaps upgrade your Alternator to a higher amperage type, or have two.
Increasingly the flagship cars from Audi, Mercedes, BMW etc are using water cooled Alternators because under load and in a hot engine bay an Alternator will lose a lot of output the hotter it gets – by having them water cooled it helps prevent this thus maintaining a more constant high amp output – naturally check such might be able to be retro fitted to your engine.
Consider an external alternator regulator – this will do a great deal for your charging system, and companies such as Sterling and Mastervolt produce all in one units that take care of your charging needs in a ‘smart’ manner and monitor your batteries providing them with high amperage initially and then drip feeding the amps until the batteries are full – this also helps the overall life span of the batteries ion your bank.
What an external alternator controller does is override the internal regulator, and force the alternator to charge at a higher voltage. Usually in the region of 14.4 volts. Many people think that an increase in charge voltage from 13.8 volts to 14.4 volts isn't much of a difference. It's an increase of about 5%, so it will increase the charge by 5%.
This is not so true though, firstly a wet cell battery at about 50% charge will not begin to accept any form of charge until the terminal voltage is raised to about 12.5 volts. After this point, the current starts to flow. So the starting point is actually 12.5 volts as opposed to zero volts. Now the difference between 12.5 volts and 14.4 volts, as opposed to the difference between 12.5 volts and 13.8 volts is an increase of 50% ahh you see not just 5%.
When you take into other factors like the energy going back to the battery is roughly in proportion to the square of this voltage difference not just proportional to the voltage difference the increase in performance is more like 200% what it began at.
But it is not just what happens when the engine is running, you can get a solar panel to provide free power on a sunny day – this may help actually more than you think especially when you imagine being mud weighted on Salhouse Broad in August, the sun beating down the finding cutting in more often and for longer – that solar panel is going to help power the fridge thus the extra amps it draws in the hot summer are not as big of a deal on your battery bank than if you did not have the solar panel.
When plugged into shore power you also want to be able to charge your batteries at a good rate – no good having 5 batteries and a Halfords 6Amp battery charger – but an ideal way of dealing with the battery charging and Inverter is have an all in one unit. You can pick up a 75Amp battery charger with a 3000w pure sign wave inverter for under £500.00 if you buy from companies supplying those who have a home with an inverter/charger system for use with their Solar panel bank on the roof.
That brings me nicely around to inverters – if you just charge a laptop and a phone and run a TV then you can get away without having a pure sine wave Inverter – indeed you could get a 300w small unit and likely be fine. But if you want to use a hair drier, power tools, microwave etc then the higher wattage output you can afford with pure sign wave (which will prove the same frequency power as your home supply) will be not only better for your appliances plugged in, but prevent certain items causing problems for the inverter.
Damp Busting:
Every boaters worse nightmare the dreaded dampness, along with its bother Mildew and sister Mould. While those small damp absorbers are find for a small area, they won’t make much difference within a larger space like a cabin. Some choose to buy compressor driven dehumidifiers and these of course are far more effective.
The problem with a compressor driven system is they are heavy, they use a lot of power but they are actually pretty rubbish when the temperature falls. In fact they really get very poor under about 20 degrees but will still have the compressor running using all the electric but extracting a lot less moisture from the air – and as the temperature gets lower and lower so their efficiency falls like a stone.
What a boater need is a Desiccant dehumidifier.
Now if you’re not sure what this is it is a light weight, very quite unit that uses a little less power than a compressor system, but is so much more efficient so watt for watt is better value for what you get out.
They use a desiccant material, typically Zeolite, which absorbs water vapor from the air in a similar way to silica gel. A fan draws air into the dehumidifier and passes it through a section of a slowly rotating wheels which holds desiccant which dries the air.
The moisture is extracted from the desiccant by heating a portion of the wheel not being used to dry the air. They will extract the same amount of moisture irrespective of the temperature in which they are working (so great for chilly damp winter days on a boat) also there are no consumables on a desiccant unit: the desiccant material does not expire and will not need to be replaced or topped up.
The lifespan of a desiccant unit will tend to be longer than a compressor unit as it is a much more simple process with far less moving parts, no compressor and no refrigerant gas being held under high pressure to potentially fail so I presume, a little safer eclectically for those who may worry about a compressor running for hours on end.
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