Winterisation

I'm new to Weblogs, so this post appears rather obscure if not taken in context.

This is a technical record of Narrowboat Nuggler, a 60 foot narrowboat on the British Canal System. The boat is nearly 2 years old, built by Tim Tyler to Jonathan Wilson design and fitted out by Braidbar Boats. So far there is about 1000 hours on the engine and two summers worth of cruising.

November 2003

I'm not getting the boat out this year, her bottom was scraped last January. Although I will be interested to see how the Comastic (3 coats) has survived when we go through this process again next year.

I have continued to touch up the paintwork as necessary, but particularly
odd perforations from millscale
occasional minor damage
the well deck which got a lot of scratches
the counter likewise
rubbing strakes
The technique that has worked well is to scrape back to clear metal edges in the case of millscale and apply a dot of Screwfix antirust paint. This dries black. Likewise this works well on the rubbing strakes and leaves a black finish. After a while a dot or brush application of finish paint does the job. The silky finish black paint is applied to the lower hull (above the lowest rubbing strake) about twice a year and seems to keep the worst of the rust deterioration at bay.

As for this winter:
- An oil change has been done.
- Battery water level checked - nothing needed (I have only had to top up once this year)
- Solar panel works well to keep the batteries in good condition
- Antifreeze checked. Engine coolant is borderline for strength, so might need a top up if the weather gets really cold
- Water tank and calorifier drained and monoprolylene glycol added to water system.
- Solid fuel stove cleaned

Comments

[Mike]

Julian,

 

 

This is out of my experience I am afraid.  You will need to get a quote from a boatyard that specialises in this sort of thing.  Sounds expensive.    Depends how bad the corrosion is in the engine bay.   The best you can do there is to have it back to steel as best you can and then treat it with anti-rust epoxy perhaps.   Look at www.rust.cu.uk

 

Mike

[Julian dickinson]

Help. I have just bought a narrowboat which needs a new bottom and some of the pitting is down 3ml from original plate, I had boat surveyed and surveyor told me that with new bottom and plateing on the sides she would be fine, Is this so? also engine bay corroding how would i tackle that. thanks.

[Mike]

I bought a job lot ages ago. About 20 litres. Cost a lot of money. Not sure if I will repeat when it runs out. Will try and find the original invoice & let you know.

[Peter Smith]

Hi

Could you let me know where you get your monoprolylene glycol from

Many thanks

Peter