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  • Dragons Den – would you trust your mega yatch with their invention?
  • RustyNissanPrairie
    Full Member

    Changing your ballvalve and trust your boat to a red floppy bit of plastic? My Mrs thinks it a good idea-I’m shouting at her how shit it is!

    Would anyone else invest their fantasy Dragons Den cash on it?

    tomhoward
    Full Member

    I would. The way bannatyne demonstrated it not working could never happen, my limited knowledge of how pressure works tells me.

    harrytoo
    Free Member

    I can’t see how it works……

    How can you disconnect the inner pipe from the valve, open the valve to force the plastic widgit through without water pouring in?

    …or is it just me??

    DezB
    Free Member

    The way bannatyne demonstrated it not working could never happen, my limited knowledge of how pressure works tells me.

    Yeah! Can’t believe no-one picked him up on that. Water pressure from the outside would behave nothing like him pulling on the inside end of the stick. Amazing how someone so stupid can be so rich 😆

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    I hope they do well with it. Nice simple solution – as Piers said, it’s either a crackpot idea, or the next “Cat’s Eye”. Bannatyne, as he was on QT the other day, is beyond ignorance sometimes. (Granted, he’s managed to amass a fortune despite being an ignorant arse, can’t deny that.)

    dvatcmark
    Free Member

    [

    I can’t see how it works……

    How can you disconnect the inner pipe from the valve, open the valve to force the plastic widgit through without water pouring in?

    …or is it just me??

    ^^ exactly what I was thinking whilst watching the show.

    Youd have to remove the pipe and push it through whilst water is coming in. Which isn’t too bad as the pressure will be low, but if it fails to seal it coud be a whole load of fun

    I could see it as an emergency device as it could stop you sinking but not as a maintenance device as why risk sinking your boat ?

    RustyNissanPrairie
    Full Member

    It would work – just about, but my argument is why would you risk your boat/yatch with something so flimsy which had a potential to fail with catastrophic results

    tomhoward
    Full Member

    As a guess…

    Have device ready
    Put bucket under valve
    Open valve
    Push device in, collecting excess water in bucket.
    Change valve
    Pull device out, quickly closing valve.
    Collect excess water in

    Isn’t its rubbery flimsyness what makes it work so well? The dragons were all flexing and pulling it in ways it wasn’t designed for, but it didn’t break.

    maxtorque
    Full Member

    I don’t really see what it’s mean’t to achieve as a “safety” device.

    For changing the ball valve, without lifting the boat out of the water then yes, i can see a use, but if a pipe fails mid ocean and water starts flooding in, then you just shut the valve. Unless of course the valve has seized shut, in which case, you need to get over the side sharpish with a cork! 😉

    (or you use a pipe clamp to squeeze the pipe shut before the leak!)

    cbike
    Free Member

    Take it none of them of are sailors? YES the water will be coming in. But not for long.

    You get larger similar devices for emergency hole patching. Bits of sail secured in place and scraps of ply wood and a battery gun are other techniques.

    I’ve done it for a blocked toilet supply pipe using a bung for temporary stoppage. Bit disconcerting but probably good to practice it in case you need to it in a hurry. A seacock assembly could vibrate loose and come off. They are kept simple so you can get a bung in it. A threaded “Tap” would be a disaster.

    RustyNissanPrairie
    Full Member

    I’m thinking that when I change the ballvalve in my Sunseeker I’m jumping overboard with a softwood bung and letting it swell in situ or freezing any paperwork with water in situ.

    maxtorque
    Full Member

    RustyNissanPrairie
    I’m thinking that when I change the ballvalve in my Sunseeker

    Worst “by the way, did i mention i have a speedboat” post ever!! 😉

    RustyNissanPrairie
    Full Member

    😀

    tillydog
    Free Member

    For changing the ball valve, without lifting the boat out of the water then yes, i can see a use

    Except that (arguably) the biggest hassle is separating the seacock (valve) from the through-hull fitting (the mushroom headed bit that the rubber gizmo seals against) without disturbing the latter’s seal with the hull. The only way of gripping the through-hull is usually a couple of lugs inside the bore. Usual practice[* ] seems to be a mate stood outside the hull (on dry land) with something wedged against these lugs, bracing against the torque that you’re applying to unscrew the seacock inside the hull so that the through-hull doesn’t move.

    “Standard” safety equipment for the emergency scenarios they mention has (for donkey’s years) been a selection of softwood bungs and a mallet.

    [*] If doing the job yourself – otherwise, just cut the through-hull out with a grinder without bothering to remove the seacock and fit a new stuff.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    mega yatch

    Is it pronounced “Throat warbler mangrove”?

    RustyNissanPrairie
    Full Member

    So are the STW Dragons out then? (and my Mrs wrong to invest)

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    Is it pronounced “Throat warbler mangrove”?

    I am so glad someone picked them up on this.

    🙂

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Glad to be of service. 😉

    peteimpreza
    Full Member

    Just found out this guy is a colleague, small world eh?

    tonyd
    Full Member

    I’m thinking that when I change the ballvalve in my Sunseeker I’m jumping overboard with a softwood bung and letting it swell in situ or freezing any paperwork with water in situ.

    If you had a Sunseeker wouldn’t you have a man to do all of that for you?

    johndoh
    Free Member

    Amazing how someone so stupid can be so rich

    A couple of weeks ago he didn’t realise that rechargeable toothbrushes had batteries in them…

    budgierider67
    Full Member

    The one thing that I wondered about was the likelihood of it getting adopted as required safety equipment. Can an item that only one company could supply be required equipment for all the world’s vessels? I could understand if they allowed it to be manufactured by anybody and took a small percentage of all those sold but I don’t think that is what they were doing as they wouldn’t need investment for that.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    Looks simple enough

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-P49Y-o6Y8[/video]

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    The one thing that I wondered about was the likelihood of it getting adopted as required safety equipment. Can an item that only one company could supply be required equipment for all the world’s vessels? I could understand if they allowed it to be manufactured by anybody and took a small percentage of all those sold but I don’t think that is what they were doing as they wouldn’t need investment for that.

    I imagine they could if they wanted, stuff like sea water scrubbers for removing SO2 from the exhaust are licensed or sometimes patented technologies or equipment, although there’s more than one company with a different way of doing it providing them.

    tillydog
    Free Member

    Looks simple enough

    Except that the bit at 0:50 doesn’t go like that in real life…

    …And a common mode of failure for those cheap’n’nasty ball valves is for the ball to sieze and for the spindle to round-off (so they can neither be opened or closed).

    I’m oot.

    (Also, he should have two clips on that hose.)

Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 25 total)

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