Hunter, a new to us old timer, a Broom Ocean 37

[Alicatt]

Stripped the cooling system this morning and got all the rubber out, greased up the impeller and the housing and put it in shut the seacock and filled the strainer with water until it came out the feed pipe to the water pump then turned over the engine filling the strainer until it took no more, then started the engine and opened the seacock, water came gushing out the exhaust. Now under way again heading to Weert.
Reported the guy that almost threw us out the canal yesterday evening with his wash, checking the boat today we have damage along the hull, not happy about that.

 

[billskip]

checking the boat today we have damage along the hull, not happy about that.

You have my sympathy, I hate that with a vengeance..happened to me twice in Greece, once ferry hit my boat and damaged the pushpit guard rail and just laughed...the other was a mountain of wash caused by fast ferry cat, threw my boat up two meters and slammed it against the harbour wall....we all complained but a waste of time.

 

[ChromeDome]

It ran dry, only caught it when the temp went up and the water pressure went down, I had been informed that tat gauge was for the gearbox but it is for the coolant water pressure it seems, sits between 3 and 4 bar when running normal.

I have Aqualarm flow sensors between the strainers and the impeller pumps. A very early warning if the flow goes down, way before the engines will notice anything.

 

[JOHNPEET]

I also have a Silicon Marine dual sensor exhaust gas temperature alarm unit installed. I have the display unit mounted at the internal helm and an extension audible unit mounted at the fly bridge. These units work really well and are very competitively priced (no personal connection). One of the most important instruments on the boat I believe!

Shop

Glad to hear you’re on the move again. Such a sickener regarding the damage! Always worse when it’s someone else’s fault, especially when it’s completely avoidable!

 

[Alicatt]

10 km from home port
Now have to lay everything flat to get under the bridges

 

[Greg2]

I also have a Silicon Marine dual sensor exhaust gas temperature alarm unit installed. I have the display unit mounted at the internal helm and an extension audible unit mounted at the fly bridge. These units work really well and are very competitively priced (no personal connection). One of the most important instruments on the boat I believe!

Shop

Glad to hear you’re on the move again. Such a sickener regarding the damage! Always worse when it’s someone else’s fault, especially when it’s completely avoidable!

+1 for the Silicon Marine kit.
We had a display unit fail outside the warranty period and when I contacted them about a replacement they said that they rarely have any problems and had no hesitation in providing a replacement free of charge.

 

[Alicatt]

Heusden a fortified town on the banks of the River Maas (Meuse)


From where we started out at Volkerak Sluis to our home haven at Kerkhoven we had a rise of 30m over 12 sets of locks, the worst one was leaving the town of Weert the inflow of water was so fast that the two of us could hardly hold onto the boat and the flow of water got between the bow and the side of the lock, it took all our strength together to stop the boat turning about, it was not even the biggest rise, less that 2m but it seemed like an eternity trying to stop the boat turning and I could not let go the rope to affix another one.

This was just before Weert letting down the tent and radar arch to get under a couple of low bridges that were coming up, we had lunch here on Sunday and got back to the home haven at 8pm on Sunday evening.


Part of our trip, from Heusden to the Maxima Kanaal via the Maas

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Getting there! In the lock, could you have used your engines to control the unwanted movement of the boat?

 

[Alicatt]

Getting there! In the lock, could you have used your engines to control the unwanted movement of the boat?

You are not supposed to have the propellor turning in the lock, there are big signs telling you to stop the propellor on some of the locks too, but in a previous lock though the boat that was in ahead of us got out of control and the guy had to use the engine to bring the boat back to the side after him and his wife lost control on the ropes, I was hanging on to our boat along with the wife but where we were positioned in the lock it was not too bad, the other boat had jumped the queue and gone in ahead of us and another boat and was sitting at the front of the lock where the water was going to flow in.

In the Weert lock, if I had let go we would have been into the boat behind us as my wife was not strong enough to hold the boat on her own, I must admit I was at my limit too, it was only determination to not let go that kept me holding on as I was just about done in with the strain.

My wife was quite distressed by the experience, it was almost her breaking point, we moored up after the lock and talked it out, she was quite emotional but calmed down after the talk and is still keen to continue, we are now going to use two ropes if we can, one on the bow and one amidships.

On this trip it was all up hill which is easier with the ropes, going from a low bollard to a higher one, going down the locks is a bit more fraught and you could get hung up if you get it wrong. In Belgium there are lock keepers that catch your rope and loop it over a bollard up top and then you haul in the rope as you go up, and do the reverse as you go down, not all locks have bollards going down the sides and the Waterweg require you to have 2 ropes of 20m for the locks, we mainly used one rope and only the last lock, which had a rise of about 1.5m did the lock keeper ask for the second rope, which I did have to hand.... (Job's Worth )

 

[Ferris]

Looks like you are having a great trip and the boat looks great.

Without question we would always use 2 warps in a lock - forward and aft - obviously with the returned end passed under the cleat to help with loads. Perhaps you used 1 warp on your old smaller boat but you're now dealing with 50% more length and ~2/3 times the displacement.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

You are not supposed to have the propellor turning in the lock, there are big signs telling you to stop the propellor on some of the locks too, but in a previous lock though the boat that was in ahead of us got out of control and the guy had to use the engine to bring the boat back to the side after him and his wife lost control on the ropes, I was hanging on to our boat along with the wife but where we were positioned in the lock it was not too bad, the other boat had jumped the queue and gone in ahead of us and another boat and was sitting at the front of the lock where the water was going to flow in.

In the Weert lock, if I had let go we would have been into the boat behind us as my wife was not strong enough to hold the boat on her own, I must admit I was at my limit too, it was only determination to not let go that kept me holding on as I was just about done in with the strain.

My wife was quite distressed by the experience, it was almost her breaking point, we moored up after the lock and talked it out, she was quite emotional but calmed down after the talk and is still keen to continue, we are now going to use two ropes if we can, one on the bow and one amidships.

On this trip it was all up hill which is easier with the ropes, going from a low bollard to a higher one, going down the locks is a bit more fraught and you could get hung up if you get it wrong. In Belgium there are lock keepers that catch your rope and loop it over a bollard up top and then you haul in the rope as you go up, and do the reverse as you go down, not all locks have bollards going down the sides and the Waterweg require you to have 2 ropes of 20m for the locks, we mainly used one rope and only the last lock, which had a rise of about 1.5m did the lock keeper ask for the second rope, which I did have to hand.... (Job's Worth )

Wow. Well, this was an experience that you might not have expected to have had but nonetheless you got through it and are now wiser as a result. Does not sound good though.

 

[Alicatt]

Looks like you are having a great trip and the boat looks great.

Without question we would always use 2 warps in a lock - forward and aft - obviously with the returned end passed under the cleat to help with loads. Perhaps you used 1 warp on your old smaller boat but you're now dealing with 50% more length and ~2/3 times the displacement.

Almost 5 times the displacement, at around 8 tons dry with two full 100 gallon diesel tanks, one 15gallon diesel tank for the Webasto, and a 100 gallon water tank. I was suspicious of the diesel gauges hardly moving over the whole trip, so had to check them at one point and dip the tank, gauges work fine, she hardly used much diesel for the whole trip, all done at displacement speed of around 12 to 15km/h with one blast up to 16knots on Hollands Deep just to see if the old girl had some life in her.

We have bollards on the boat not cleats so no passing the rope under them, that would have helped indeed, I had the rope wrapped round the bollard on the lock a full 360+ degrees to use as much friction as I could to hold her.

Will see what we can do with these: this is the main bollard we used in the locks, the one on the bow is quite far from the sides and so I will have to get some practice in with a boat hook to get the rope over the bollards on the lock

Wow. Well, this was an experience that you might not have expected to have had but nonetheless you got through it and are now wiser as a result. Does not sound good though.

We both knew it was going to happen at some point, but thought it would have happened on the one at Helmond as it had the biggest rise and was where the other boat lost control, we did try and pick our spots and stay as far back in the sluis as we could, but Weert is a wide lock with a narrow entrance and exit and we had another larger boat behind us so we were further forward than we would have liked.

 

[Alicatt]

Oh the other thing was that the autopilot works, it just holds the boat on a certain heading, I was going to remove it after the previous owner said he could not get it to work, but after reading the manual for it and how it works it did work.
You have a compass in the bow with a light and a photocell, as the compass card rotates as you change heading then it generates a voltage from the photocell to the drive unit to power the motor that alters the steering to bring you back to the correct heading, but first you must set up the clutch slip on the motorised drive unit so it has just enough grip to alter the heading but not too much that it gets driven if the rudder gives an uncommanded angle change. you have to disengage the clutch to change heading and then reengage it.

Compass heading control unit under the deck in the bow cabin


Autopilot controls the "engage" "release" is repeated on the upper bridge


I'll have to get a pic of the drive box, it is mounted under the lower helm in front of the starboard engine, it has a bicycle chain drive to the drive shaft from the wheel that runs to the twin tillers and rudders

Steering arrangement,

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Oh the other thing was that the autopilot works, it just holds the boat on a certain heading, I was going to remove it after the previous owner said he could not get it to work, but after reading the manual for it and how it works it did work.
You have a compass in the bow with a light and a photocell, as the compass card rotates as you change heading then it generates a voltage from the photocell to the drive unit to power the motor that alters the steering to bring you back to the correct heading, but first you must set up the clutch slip on the motorised drive unit so it has just enough grip to alter the heading but not too much that it gets driven if the rudder gives an uncommanded angle change. you have to disengage the clutch to change heading and then reengage it.

Compass heading control unit under the deck in the bow cabin
View attachment 183174View attachment 183175

Autopilot controls the "engage" "release" is repeated on the upper bridge
View attachment 183176View attachment 183177

I'll have to get a pic of the drive box, it is mounted under the lower helm in front of the starboard engine, it has a bicycle chain drive to the drive shaft from the wheel that runs to the twin tillers and rudders

Steering arrangement,
View attachment 183179

That’s amazing worth a thread on its own.

 

[Whopper]

Having spent time on one I always thought the ocean 37 tracks remarkably straight.

 

[Alicatt]

Having spent time on one I always thought the ocean 37 tracks remarkably straight.

She does, 99% of the time it is hands off, and just a touch here and there to counteract the crosswinds. It's almost easier to use the throttles to steer her by no matter what speed she is doing, on the whole trip back I think I used the offset from the engines more often than I did the wheel
She has a quite long keel and the propellors are in two tunnels which I think helps in the differential thrust when manoeuvring at slow speed in tight confines, this is my first twin engined boat, though I have driven others a long time ago.

 

[Greg2]

The combination of a long keel and twin engines on a mobo makes for excellent tracking and close quarters manoeuvring. Our Hardy is very similar to the Ocean in that regard.

The autopilot system is interesting - never seen anything like that. I guess it is original and has been on the boat since it was built. Worth keeping if it steers a good course as it frees you up to do other things such as navigation, radar checks etc.

Think I might have mentioned it previously, but I loved the Whitlock steering on our Ocean. Very smooth and always had a sense that any failure was highly unlikely.

 

[Alicatt]

The Whitlock system is quite smooth and you don't feel any play in the system, even with all those shafts and universal joints in it.

The drive box for the auto pilot is just below the lower helm and right beside the steering shaft after the bevel gear, there there is a small cogged wheel on the shaft which is driven by the control box via a bicycle chain, I'm back onboard later this afternoon I'll try and get some pics of the bits.
The function of the autopilot differs slightly than that what I have in Pinta manuals, this looks to be a remote control system rather than the manual leaver you have to use to engage the drive, plus there is a "sensitivity" dial that you can turn up or down the amount of off course correction the system gives.

 

[Neil1300r]

Re the lock filling fast. We recently had it on a smaller scale in a lock on The Thames. We are the last boat in the lock so are close to the rear gates, but going downhill so no worries. Lock starts operating all relaxed , a slow decent, both of us hardly holding the ropes. The boat in front, one of their lines gets jamed and as the lock is emptying they can't free it off, with the rear of the boat tilting and hanging. The lock keeper sees it and opens the front sluices fully to fill the lock quickly. We get pushed back onto the rear gates. Both hanging on for dear life, whilst trying to take in the slack. We weren't running via our cleats as the ropes are around the lock bollard and gentle hand hold is all that's normally needed. Whilst hanging on I managed to grab a boat hook to try to fend off from the gates, which have ledges in them, as the swim platform was in danger of getting jammed under. The other half was not amused and a bit shaken up. Explained she did everything right and brilliantly, it wasn't her fault.

Glad you got back OK, and I'm loving your autopilot and the boat stories

 

[billskip]

The other half was not amused and a bit shaken up. Explained she did everything right and brilliantly, it wasn't her fault.

There have been some nasty accidents, mostly caused by being daft in the Thames locks, including one when stepdaughter fell off back of my boat as I was leaving the full lock, stopping my boat was a problem because she was to close to the prop, and stopping the boat behind and all behind him was a nightmare. Luckily she was just wet and upset, but after that I never had to tell her not to hang out of the cockpit.