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June 2nd 2005 Well, here we are in June and coming close to the start of the build. Unfortunately Queue-E-Too has not sold yet. Sod's law I suppose, when we were looking to buy, boats were being sold before we had a chance to look at them. We visited the Kendall's last week and looked at a nearly completed 50' boat with a similar bedroom and galley to ours. We were very impressed with the quality and it did confirm that our room sizes were OK. The bathroom on the one we looked at was a standard size with a corridor. This is smaller than ours will be but even with the corridor the size was reasonable. Our "cross" design will add about 2' to the width. With having the bed extension to make a full size double Mark thought getting a proper interior sprung mattress with a 6" hinged piece would not be possible. However, I've found a company, Edwardian Bedding of Mexborough, who can make one. The minimum size of the folding piece has to be 7" to accommodate the interior springs but this will be fine. It is quite expensive but I think in the long run money well spent to have a proper nights sleep. I was working out possible power requirements and with having the 1500watt inverter/charger and an electric fridge. I was a little concerned about replacing the energy in the batteries if we hammer mains appliances. I guess if we have the option to use a microwave, DVD players, iron, etc. then we will! I'm fairly confident 4 x 110amp/hr batteries will store enough but I was concerned that If we get a couple of days of bad weather and we don't cruise as long as we would normally, would a 70amp alternator put back what we use in time? Bearing in mind the actual output from an alternator begins to drop significantly after only a few minutes. Isuzu offer an upgrade to a 110amp alternator or a Mastervolt 130amp for the domestic batteries. The Mastervolt comes as standard with a digital controller so seemed a good alternative until I asked the price.
The upgrade to a 110amp alternator is £155 + VAT Shades of Travelpower 240v alternator here these things are well over £2,000 yet you can buy a 3.5kw petrol generator for a quarter of that. So scrap that idea! 8th June 2005 Received an email from Kendall's yesterday saying the build has been put back 3 weeks. I've looked at many web sites of people who have had boats built and delays are not unusual. I've done some hunting around for information and done some rough possible power requirement calculations for the boat and I think that: Possible energy requirement 200AmpHrs a day (generous). This should not discharge the batteries below 50% (it's recommended domestics should not be discharged much further) 110amps from the alternator is 25% of the capacity of the battery bank (it's recommended that wet lead acid batteries be charged at no more than 25% of their capacity) Provided the cable from the 110amp alternator to the battery bank has no significant losses (thick enough) and we don't increase our consumption above my estimate (which we have - see later). The fact that the batteries are in a warm engine bay ( I've based this on the alternator internal regulator being set at 14.2v which is about standard and the temperature in the engine room being above 20degC - the higher the temperature the less voltage needed to fully charge a battery (of course there comes a point where the batteries would be too hot) but I don't think this will be an issue) Then I think I'd get away with the 110amp alternator. Because of the fact that alternator output begins to drop fairly quickly during the charge, the charge time will be longer than with the 130amp with it's controller but I think manageable. In light of this and the price of the 130amp I've opted for the 110amp alternator upgrade. 25th July 2005 I paid the steel deposit 23 June and received an email from Kendall's telling me the build started on Friday 22 July. I will wait a week before visiting as I guess one pile on steel will look pretty much the same as another. QE2 has still not sold. I talked to the broker who said he had never known business to be so slow. Normally at this time of year he is scrambling around looking for boats to sell. Unfortunately both the licence and the BSS certificate have now expired. The intention was to renew the BSS certificate when a buyer was found so that they would benefit from a full 4 years. I received a call from British Waterways enquiring if I was still the owner. They said the boat needed a licence whether being used or not. Bit of a catch 22 here as I can't licence the boat without a BSS certificate. The upshot is that a "trade" plate has been put on QE2 by the broker but he says he can only leave it on for a limited amount of time. After that if the boat has not sold I will weigh up the pros and cons of ether renewing the BSS and getting a short licence or lifting her onto hard standing until sold. If it goes on hard standing I will probably need to black her, as after 11 months in the water since the last blacking she will look less than appealing stood on dry land. I hope I will be in a position in a week or two to put up some photos of the hull build.
8th August 2005 The base plate was laid Friday 22nd July. We went to visit Kendall's Friday 5th August. The hull was up to gunwale height with the forward rear bulkheads tacked into place.
It was a little too dark in the workshop to get decent pictures.
I will be visiting again next week and by that time the hull should not be far off completion. I also received a telephone call from Bluewater Marina today and there has been an offer made on QE2 which I have accepted and I'm at present awaiting another call to confirm the offer. In anticipation of this I have renewed the Boat Safety Certificate. She passed with flying colours NO work was required.
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