Paladine

^^^ What he said. I had the same problem. Turned out the charging cable had developed a fault - probably an internal break in the wire. New cable and several years later, still going strong.

Quite right. There have been fully electric day boats for hire on the Broads for years. But when it comes to the weekly hire boats, there are only a very small handful (fewer than half a dozen) available. The best of these will give an estimated cruising time of up to 5 hours, but that will be very dependent on cruising speed and tidal conditions. When the battery runs down, the generator kicks in! They do have solar panels fitted, but, on a day like today, overcast and raining, probably worse than useless. So, in practical terms, it's necessary to find an overnight mooring with a vacant charging post available - which rules out many, many popular rural 24hr moorings, and, of course, the 'wild' moorings and mudweighting.

As one who sails on the Broads all year round, I know from experience that they aren't installing any new charging posts. a) they can't afford to and b) all the easy locations have been installed. At the height of the season, you'd be very lucky to find a vacant connection. For electric vessels to be anywhere near viable on the Broads there would have to be a charging point for every 24hr mooring space. It ain't ever gonna happen.

Your opening post was Broads-specific. As I only do my boating on the Broads and you wish the discussion to be about commercial shipping, I'll leave you to it. As I said at the outset - click bait.

If anyone wants to read the document behind all this, you'll find it here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/815664/clean-maritime-plan.pdf As I said earlier, it's directed towards commercial shipping. Nothing to see here, Please move along. 😉

Not on the Broads it ain't.

You posted that 2 years ago. Reading up on it, it seems to be aimed at commercial vessels rather than leisure boats. In any case, it's an expectation rather than a commitment. Some (very few) Broads hire boats are being built with electric motors for propulsion (and diesel generators to boil the kettle). The public charging infrastructure provided by the Broads No-Authority at some of their 24hr public moorings is totally insufficient to support such a change. Many of the more popular moorings are so remote that the cost of providing charging facilities would be prohibitive. It is often said the the CEO would like to see all powered vessels removed from the Broads. If that happened the Broads tourism industry would simply die. Boat tolls provides him with over half his income. Turkeys voting for Christmas spring to mind. "The government has pledged to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030, but similar plans have not yet been set out for boats that use fossil fuels." That's from the EDP article.

Click bait. The Broads Authority has no plans to phase out such craft - because it doesn't have the powers, and HMG hasn't any such plans, either. It's just more stupid sensationalism by the EDP, a publication not even worthy of wrapping your fish and chips in.