Up-Side-Down
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Posts posted by Up-Side-Down
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Can anyone tell me anything about Robin Summers, narrowboat builder (and decorative metalworker)?
Is it purely a coincidence that there is a similarity between his boats and those built by GT Boat Builder, in which the 'T' stands for Tony (Summers)?
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I believe https://www.premierlubricants.co.uk/manufacturers/morris-lubricants are effectively Morris's under another name ... with a cheaper pricing regime. Just don't ask me how or why!
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One of the main proponents of the concept also markets what he calls a Bank Manager: https://www.emilyandclarksadventure.com/bbms/buy. There are several YouTube videos put out under his banner introducing and developing the concept and people can draw their own conclusions as to whether it's a road they might want to go down. Having explored it I decided very definitely it was not for me, although certain aspects are quite seductive on a first meeting!
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11 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:
Or just put a lead acid battery in parallel with the lithium(s) and if necessary a bit longer cable from said alternator and all is hunky dory. 😊
A strategy that, one day, will lead to a very interesting conversation with a BSS examiner!
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I find this rather curious having stumbled across it a day or so ago. Can anyone throw any further light on the situation?
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As a corporate member of the IWA you would be eligible for cover for just about everything boat-related through them. I can pretty much guarantee that savings to be made with them will cover your corporate membership fee several times over. As a boat on the Scottish canals you will find that many of the business/charity craft around you are IWA insured.
https://waterways.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/08-Insurance.pdf
Quickest way to get the full picture is to contact Neil on 01494 783453; neil (at) waterways {dot} org [dot] uk.
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On 06/12/2023 at 21:59, GUMPY said:
By not burning fossil fuel you will struggle to keep a stove alight 24/7.
The result will be a damp boat as it constantly heats and cools.
Ecoal works and contains 40% olive stones.
Wickes will deliver order in multiples of 3 for best discount.
Wood might be better for CO2 but produces a lot of PM2.5 which is not good for local pollution
'Doing the right thing' gets harder day by day and sustainable living will always be something of a compromise as the observations above bear testament!
In my view the best boat heating compromise comes down to Ecoal or HVO in some form of 'diesel' stove. At 90% carbon neutral. with low NoX and PMs (including the insidious PM 2.5s) HVO takes a lot of beating. It gets rid of all the dust associated with burning any form of solid fuel and is totally 'self-stoking'. It burns much, much cleaner than mineral diesel and, once the hydrogen used in the manufacturing process is green, it will become pretty much a 100% carbon neutral fuel.
Now that the joint IWA/RYA/CA HVO working group has succeeded in persuading DfT that all HVO consumed on inland waterways boats (regardless of whether used for propulsion or domestic purposes) attracts the same subsidy, it's going to become much more attractive (and less complex) for marinas to stock.
The Group is now working on making it more affordable and available across the entire recreational boating sector to embrace lumpy water boats, and commercial vessels operating in Class C tidal waters, as well as inland waterways craft. The current RTFC 'subsidy' arrangements are no longer working to make pricing competitive against mineral diesel, so a new mechanism is clearly required. This may well be built on the back of the George Eustice amendment to the recent Environment Act (October 2023) which allows for a 12 month consultation period to find ways of making HVO affordable to rural house dwellers looking to fire their oil boilers with the fuel rather than having to invest in what (very often) is unviable heat pump technology.
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2 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:
I think the OP is being delusional especially with a 45ft boat and it’s all a paper exercise for him. I doubt he’s even contacted any shell builders/fitters to get timescale/doable/prices.
I doubt many would bother getting back as they’ll not want to get involved with all the Eco heat saving ideas(and that’s all they are) The hassle is just not worth it to them. They build to what works and what they know.
But taking the bigger picture, just look at all the valuable discussion and knowledge that has been culled from around the subject. CWDF at its very best.
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I can't help feeling that solar-powered cruising and the prevailing stoppage regime will prove to be highly compatible ...
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4 minutes ago, IanD said:
I'd say the opposite -- being off-grid, fossil-free and not burning stuff is *way* easier in a suitably-built house than on a boat, especially a narrowboat. Far easier to insulate and keep warm (e.g. Passivhaus), far easier to get lots of solar on the roof, far easier to use a heat pump (air or ground source).
Nothing wrong with trying to do it on a boat, but the numbers are heavily stacked against you without *some* energy source like HVO -- unless you're plugged in and in a marina all the time, which isn't really boating... 😉
From the boat perspective, when you boil it down to basics, HVO is pivotal ...
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1 minute ago, magnetman said:
Yes I think people probably need to stop driving cars, traveling abroad and using diesel powered Boats for unnecessary movements.
I stopped doing all these some time ago.
That's certainly a damned good starting point. In fact I wouldn't mind pretty much finishing there!
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Just now, magnetman said:
I really like burning wood in a fire to keep warm in winter.
I think most of us do. It's probably deeply embedded in our DNA! There just happens to be a big 'HOWEVER' that sooner or later we'll have to come to terms with. And that will be a struggle ... a big one ....
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55 minutes ago, IanD said:
Which is where I'd like to go, if only HVO was easily available on the canals -- which it might be in future, but isn't right now... 😞
Still means "burning stuff" though, with a generator and CH boiler fuelled by HVO, which was what the OP was trying to avoid -- but realistically can't... 😉
Off-grid, fossil-free and not burning stuff is a real challenge for us all but I think, potentially, marginally easier for those living on boats. But it does involve compromises, giving up stuff and accepting an element of inconvenience. As we're all different (and so are our circumstances) we each play with balancing a slightly different equation. The fact that, in our different ways, we're having a crack at it is the key thing in my mind.
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6 minutes ago, IanD said:
Narrowboat double-glazing will be nowhere near as good as household, the space between the panes is much smaller and the frames are less well insulated even with a thernal break.
You'd need at least two of those heatpumps for a narrowboat, and possibly three -- note that they'll be less efficient when it's cold outside (measured at +7C) which is when you really need them for heating. And I don't think those noise levels count as "silent", similar ones I've heard make a fair bit of noise esecially on full power -- which again, is what you need when it's cold.
And the problem remains that -- like the Frigomar marine one I mentioned -- they consume about 1kW when they're running, which would be a lot of the time when it's cold, so at least 10kWh/day and could be double that when it's really cold. You're not going to get this power from solar panels even in summer (maybe 5kWh/day average on a 45' boat) and almost nothing in winter (<<1kWh/day) so where is the power going to come from?
Not to mention what you'll need to run the other appliances on board, including electric cooking if you go gas-free. Idle power consumption of everything on an all-electric boat like mine (including inverter, MPPTs, DC-DC, Cerbo, router...) is typically around 100W (2.4kWh/day) when moored/plugged-in *and doing nothing* like it is now, and you have to add whatever energy you use when on board (cooking, lights, TV, laptop, washer, kettle, toaster, microwave...) on top of this. Even if you're not moving at all, this could easily double the energy use, obviously this depends on what you do but another 100W average isn't that much.
So solar in summer will just about keep up with domestic power use and a bit of cruising, depending on size of boat -- your problem is that a 45' narrowboat has limited roof space, about half what a full-length boat has. In winter, no chance.
Unless you spend most of your time plugged in with battery bank power used for short cruises (up to 2 days?) or only use the boat in summer and don't move much, you're going to need an onboard generator, which means burning fuel. That's not just me saying that, it's the finding of pretty much everyone with an electric/hybrid boat.
Let's say that all your heating, cooking and hot water came from 90% carbon neutral HVO, as a starting point in winter ........ (oh and we could envisage a brave new world where surplus renewable leccy was used to {inefficiently} produce hydrogen to manufacture the HVO, thereby making it almost 100% carbon neutral) ......
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6 minutes ago, IanD said:
Unless you're going to spend most of your time in a marina with a shoreline connection (grid power) and only leave for short trips (battery power), or travel only slowly and for relatively short periods in the summer (solar power), you're simply not going to be able to avoid burning *something* on an electric/hybrid narrowboat to provide power/energy for heating or onboard power or propulsion, and no amount of better insulation (which you can't fit in on a narrowboat anyway) is going to change this... 😞
You need to do a proper power/energy audit for all energy consumers and generators on the boat along with realistic yields for solar power. The numbers are unlikely to add up without burning something -- HVO is the best option, if you can get it... 😉
You can, no problem – see my post above!
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1 hour ago, IanD said:
There's just a limit to what can be done to improve insulation and reduce heat losses on a narrowboat given space and construction constraints. My boat has sprayfoam insulation a couple of inches thick, double-glazed portholes/side doors instead of big windows, and pretty much the minimum free-air ventilation (i.e. not much!) allowed by BSS for a gas-free boat e.g. no mushrooms or flying saucers on the roof, no louvre vents in doors/bulkheads. Heating is a diesel boiler (which I'd like to run on HVO, if I could get it...) because a water-source heatpump won't work in winter and an air-source one is too big and noisy. Excess solar power in summer (if I ever have any!) can be diverted into providing hot water via the calorifier.
All this must reduce heating energy use somewhat, but it's difficult to see what more could be done without a suitable water-source heat pump -- which doesn't exist today and may not be possible, see earlier posts.
Energy for propulsion can be reduced by much more compared to a traditional diesel boat, even if all the power comes from a generator the saving is typically getting on for 50% due to higher efficiency especially when going slowly past moored boats or in locks -- while cruising continuously at full speed the saving is less than this, if you pootle along slowly the saving can be more. In summer where some energy for propulsion can come from solar the savings are bigger, a lightly used boat may well be able to use only solar power.
Like EVs the thing that would make a *big* difference would be if the boat could be run from grid power (rising towards 50% renewables) but this would need canalside charging stations, which realistically there is no plan for.
And even if you did all this to get personal satisfaction from being green, there are 1000x more cars and houses in the UK than boats on CART waterways so the contribution to UK emissions would be tiny -- about the same as reducing the number of cars on the roads by 0.1%, or driving each of them 10 miles less every year... 😞
1 hour ago, Up-Side-Down said:(which I'd like to run on HVO, if I could get it...)
If you can handle either 205 litre drums or 1000 litre IBCs then contact Ryan Abreu, Crown Oil, on 07585 792918; r.abreu[at]crownoil.co.uk. Crown will deliver by tanker in the Lancs/Yorks/Manchester area, while their subsiduariaries – Beesleys in the Midlands and Speedy Fuels in the Home Counties – will also deliver by tanker. I have been collecting IBCs from their Bury HQ for a couple of years now, alongside IBC pallet deliveries sent up here to Scotland. It's worth noting that two 205 litre drums sit on a pallet, so best bought as a pair to minimise transport costs.
Now that the HVO Fuels Group (made up of IWA, RYA and CA members) have successfully lobbied DfT to allow HVO to be used for both propulsion and 'domestic' purposes under the RTFO (thereby attracting RTFC 'subsidy' across the board) 'red' HVO has suddenly become straightforward to purchase for ALL inland waterways use.
The Group has now turned its attention to making the fuel readily available and affordable as, currently, it is 50% more expensive than gas oil. They are also lobbying DfT to extend HVO use under the RTFO mechanism to lumpy water boats so that all recreational craft are covered (and therefore treated alike).
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I certainly think so!
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On 19/12/2023 at 13:42, IanD said:
Finesse did my complete boat installation, they supplied the motor which I believe is a custom version of the Engiro 12013 to further optimise torque/rpm. The prop is a custom 4-blade from Michigan Marine, I wanted this for lower noise and vibration compared to a 3-blade and this seems to have worked -- but they didn't have any 4-blade blanks with the right diameter/pitch/boss/prop shaft size so it had to be specially machined down (including the boss) from a bigger one, yet more cost... 😞
https://mmp-i.com/leisure/canal/canal-line-propellers/
The motor and drive are pretty much inaudible at normal speeds, all you get is the gurgle from the prop wash. Flat out the wash is considerably noisier but the boat is still very quiet compared to a diesel, even with the generator running.
Yep, it's 'gurgle' I'm after, not a 'whine' and a 'whir'!
Are the Engiro motor and controller water- or air-cooled btw?
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20 minutes ago, IanD said:
So long as the motor you choose has high enough torque (warning: many don't!) you can always overprop so long as you don't mind giving up some power (and boat speed). Just be aware that most of the motors are rated at 1500rpm (or higher!) which *does* mean you end up with a small noisy egg-whisk.
Gearing/toothed belt drive removes this problem, the downside is there can be more noise (whine from higher-speed motor and/or belt) and some risk of belt breakage if you get a sudden prop jam. Direct drive avoids this but you're back to the torque/power/rpm/prop size issue.
If you're choosing the motor yourself, for direct drive I'd suggest a low-speed PMAC one with a suitable controller, for example the Engiro 205W-12013 (15kW/1080rpm) with a Sevcon Gen4 size 6 48V controller.
Great! Thank you. You've mentioned this motor/controller combo before as I believe it's what you've specified for your boat. When I looked it up there is a note on the Engiro site to the effect that they don't sell to Joe Public, just into the trade. I guess you've found a way round this?
You've also explained my disappointment when I recently rode aboard a Lynch-powered boat: I was surprised by the lack of 'silent progress' I'd expected and very aware of the noise emitting from motor and drive. Not the shush, hush electric boating I was expecting!
To the OP, if this is all starting to get rather arcane and generally too eclectic for your taste, there is one very important takeaway from this discussion and that is that the majority of boat builders schooled in the technology and performance of the infernal combustion engine are (just like me) some way off getting their collective heads around all the ins and outs of electric drive. This means that there are, already, some disappointed customers out there who will have spent a lot of money commissioning their new electric pride and joy. I have met one or two of them.
From my own experience, back in the diesel-day, it was not uncommon to come across newly-built boats with the wrong size prop fitted. I certainly owned one before I got Crowther's involved. This will have happened both through ignorance and because it's much cheaper to fit a common, off-the-peg prop than something a bit 'rarer' and therefore more expensive and harder to source.
These two factors still very much prevail in the relatively virgin territory of electric boat building and while someone with the knowledge, experience and understanding of IanD makes it all look easy, he's currently very much in the minority as your reading on this forum will probably have already demonstrated to you. It's still very much a Caveat Emptor landscape out there where building electric boats is concerned. So you can't equip yourself with too much knowledge before embarking on a journey into this brave new, net zero world!!
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24 minutes ago, IanD said:
That's correct, electric motor torque is roughly flat with speed (power is proportional to rpm) and prop torque is proportional to speed^2 (power proportional to rpm^3). So you have to choose what rpm/speed/torque you want these curves to cross, which could be either maximum continuous motor power/rpm (for best boat performance upstream on a river) or peak motor speed/power -- or you can deliberately overprop to keep the rpm down but at the cost of not being able to use the full power of the motor.
The majority of the motors which people are using in narrowboats are rated at around 1500rpm, because motors rated at 1000rpm or so put out less power and/or are bigger/heavier/more costly. These either end up needing a small prop (noisier "egg-whisk") or are overpropped which reduces motor power.
If you want to see how this works, have a play with the Vicprop calculator to get a feel for what happens -- the exact prop sizes may be a bit off (though they're pretty close in a lot of places) but you'll see the trends.
https://vicprop.com/displacement_size_new.php
For example, if I put in the numbers for my boat (15kW/20hp at 1080rpm) it predicts 6.46kts with a 17.4" x 11.6" prop. With overpropping (constant motor torque) this happens:
rpm kW kts DxP
1080 15 6.46 17.4x11.6
900 12.5 6.08 18.8x13.3
720 10 5.64 20.5x15.6
540 7.5 5.12 23.0x19.3
Once again, Ian, I'm indebted to you for your input.
My problem largely revolves around (pun intended!) a lifetime's involvement with the performance characteristics of ICE and I find I really struggle to get my head around the leccy equivalent.
So, there isn't really a gearing need when dealing with this sort of rev range?? I guess it only becomes essential when looking at the sort of speeds that a Lynch DC motor revolves at, hence them selling units in a cradle with a choice, in most cases, of three different gearings.
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26 minutes ago, IanD said:
There's a lot of really good information in there, but a couple of gotchas too...
The section about water-source heat-pumps (great for efficiency!) doesn't mention the problem of them not working at low water temperatures, which is when they are most needed (heating in winter).
The section on props is self-contradictory; it correctly points out that a direct-drive motor should really run at no more than 1000rpm (because faster ones need small props) and about how to correctly size props, but also says that electric motors can use "bigger more efficient props" because of their torque characteristics (high torque at low speed) which is basically wrong -- a prop at low speed needs very little torque to turn it, and any motor (diesel or electric) can produce far more than is needed.
Both very good points.
In the first instance I guess Beacon Boats, who have a water-source heat pump in a hire boat, just are't hiring it out in the winter so the issue has not manifested itself.
Now that you've pointed it out, I can see the contradiction re prop sizing. I'm in the process of converting my narrowboat from diesel to electric drive, fortunately starting from the position of having the largest prop that can be swung between my skeg and uxter plate, with more pitch than you or I have had hot dinners! I'm looking at a nominally rated 15hp electric motor to turn it and have been debating between direct drive and gearing things down with a belt drive. In its previous incarnation that prop has never turned at more that 750 rpm and the boat usually cruises with it revolving at around 375 - 425 rpm.
I'd got as far as recognising that 'a prop at low speeds needs very little torque to turn it' (hence the motor could 'at this point' be tiny, in theory) but what is happening with the motor requirements as you increase the prop speed? If I've got it right, torque is power times speed, therefore it's as the prop speed increases that the demand for horsepower increases, so in choosing a motor one is effectively legislating for output at maximum performance and it's here that the 15hp (or whatever) is actually required.
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4 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Probably the pressure relief valve from the calorifier. Sensible approach.
Agree on both counts!
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There would appear to be waste water being piped into the bowl too .....
New boat to me
in Boat Building & Maintenance
Posted
The boat turns on a sixpence ... sorry 5p coin‼️
See what I did there⁉️(without even realising it)