Bargebuilder

Back in 2016 a narrowboat visited Ilfracombe and Bude, and not entirely without incident! Perhaps they made a return visit. We've done Sharpness to Portishead without a pilot, but I wouldn't venture as far a Bude.

Indeed, but the Mon & Brec is almost unique amongst UK canals. Their boats only do 18 miles on a charge, which although suitable there, may be rather frustrating for hirers who want to navigate a ring. Their website says: "Our electric boats can cover up to eighteen miles on a single charge, so you don’t need to recharge the narrowboat every day. Even when you do want to top up the batteries it’s very simple – just pull up to one of our six charging points"

Perhaps technology will improve the situation, but if electric boats are to populate the hire boat industry, they are going to have to be idiot proof. Will folks who hire boats need to make extensive plans for their week aboard, taking into consideration the distance they want to cover, the speed at which they want or need travel, battery size, capacity and range, location of charge points etc. Will they need to look after the batteries, charging systems etc or are they indestructible? What if they are stranded with flat batteries. Maybe there are simple solutions to the above.

I know we do 4mph because we have both an app on our phone and a marine handheld GPS that we keep in front of us and 'on' at all times whilst we cruise. We do this to log distance travelled and to ensure that we travel at, but don't exceed the speed limit. Do you have the power figures for electric travel for traveling at the speed limit? Of course, we do slow down when passing moored boats. Thanks in advance.

3Kw is often quoted, but generally qualified as for a speed of 3mph, above that being much more greedy of power. If you have the figures, could I trouble you to re-jig your calculations for 4mph, as that is the speed limit and it is what we cruise at unless passing moored boats, which isn't a huge percentage of the time? I wouldn't want to change the way we cruise to suit my boat, I'd rather have an engine that does what I require of it. I wouldn't drive at 55 on a motorway, even though I might enjoy driving and be in no hurry to get anywhere!

What you have works for your pattern of use, but not everyone uses their NB in the way you do. I do no cruising for 10 months, then live aboard for two months, cruising long days almost every day and covering long distances. On a short NB, PV on the roof would nowhere near supply sufficient to satisfy an electric motor, as I like to cruise at 4mph where it is possible, which in rural places is most of the time. For people like me who like long days and to travel relatively long distances during their holiday, we would be running a generator most of the time. To exchange a reliable, respectably quiet diesel engine for an expensive electric set-up that suits cruising slower than suits me and for fewer hours each day would make no sense at all.

My, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work problem, was cured by taking the trigger wire to a relay and using the relay to take power from the battery to the starter motor. The feed from the switch, although not sufficient to activate the starter motor, was easily enough to activate the relay. No hint of reluctance to start for the last 5 years after the modification. Much cheaper than a new switch!

When that happens I'll go back to coastal sailing which is much 'greener' than even the greenest NB, unless it has no IC engine at all.

I shall look down from above and be eternally grateful that I lived in the age of cheap foreign holidays, cheap and plentiful fuel for motoring and boating and inexpensive energy for heating.

I had a Vetus switch that kicked the starter motor into action on about every 6th try, the other 5 I just got a click, but it wasn't a switch problem at all. Are you sure it's the switch?

I'm afraid that boat yards are littered with unfinished projects started with the best of intentions and initially lots of enthusiasm. It's costs little to advertise on the internet, so apart from time, he has little to lose by starting with a highish asking price and dropping if necessary. I really hope he gets a good price and claws back most of the money he's spent.

One of the great joys of boating, is to moor overnight in places which will never be equipped with charging points. Places where charging points will be concentrated are likely to be the very places which I and many others avoid at all costs.

I did a high quality fit-out on a wide beam, with oak cabinetry and granite worktops etc and didn't spend that much on tools, but I only bought budget range products which were perfectly adequate for short term use. Like you though, I couldn't believe how much things like fixings, catches, hinges, handles, glues, electric cable, fuses, terminals, pipe, pipe fittings, taps, paints etc, etc etc. would cost. It's tempting, before you start, to price up water and room heaters, toilets, battery banks, all the big stuff, but the bits and pieces dwarf the cost of these. I spent 30k on equipment and fixings, but that was 15 years ago, so perhaps MtBs estimate of £25k to fit out a smallish NB at today's prices isn't that far off the mark if it's done to a high standard.

I'm not sure that the price of diesel alone would encourage many to invest large sums in electric propulsion, even if it were £10 a litre. Even at this level, fuel costs for many people would still be a very small proportion of the total cost of ownership of a NB. Even with diesel costing £10 a litre, versus a full solar electric installation providing free cruising, for people cruising for a few weeks in the summer, the pay back time would be a long one for the electric setup, lengthened further by the opportunity cost of the money invested. I accept that many convert for other reasons such as for silent cruising. If diesel were unavailable, that would be an incentive to convert, but then all those silent generators would go truly silent and electric boats would be traveling very short distances during cloudy times.

I take your point, but the difference is, that cars for most people are seen as essential and so people will struggle to afford EVs if that's the only option. With NBs, it's a luxury and will only remain popular if the hobby can be afforded from disposable income or savings. Many diesel engines can be nursed to go on almost forever so long as spares are available, so converting to electric is for many just an alternative option to keeping an existing engine running, and an expensive one at that. For the cost of charging infrastructure to be divided between the users, you would want the number of licence payers to increase, not decrease as would happen if the hobby became much more expensive.

It's a guess, but I suspect that only a small proportion of current or prospective NB owners could afford either a new electric boat or even to convert an existing one. For this reason, there will never be enough electric boats to either pay for charging points, or to justify the investment of others.

Indeed, why should they? So HVO for both main engines and generators is the only future for boating, assuming it is available and permitted?

If fossil fuel is phased out or just unaffordable, then all those continuous moorers that need to move occasionally to get water or to empty the loo will be in trouble. Fitting batteries, control gear and electric motors will likely be beyond their pocket. For the genuine CCers, needing to move every 14 days will be impossible for the same reason. Even if someone funds the infrastructure for a wide and abundant network of charging stations, the hobby of boating is going to become very exclusive indeed. On the plus side, those who can afford it will have the network to themselves. Can I hear those who cruise through Bath cheering?

You would be astonished how floppy speedfit tube gets when hot water passes through it. You might try warming some water in a kettle, filling the pipe and easing it around the bends you describe to see if it will yield sufficiently without distorting. Another thing to consider when fitting out a boat is to make all panels behind which there are pipe joints or electrical connections removable. Unlike (most) houses, boats flex and vibrate and failures can result at any time. The last thing you need is to have to rip out glued or fixed panels or to need to destroy fitted furniture. That was one reason why I did the fit-out myself, and on several occasions I thanked my lucky stars that I did.

I do 400 miles plus each year and I pass hundreds of boats that do few hours each day and 'wild' moor, far more than there are official rings or bollards. I, and I suspect many others, avoid at all costs town moorings where charging points are most likely to be. How long does it take to charge a narrowboat with a battery bank capable of powering say, two long day's cruising? Will cruising points be like water taps restricting mooring to the time taken to charge, or is it more likely that people will moor up early afternoon and hog the charging point until the next morning? I foresee that there will be many cruisers desperately looking for power as they pass by occupied charging stations.

The issue of charging points doesn't only affect people who predominantly moor in rural spots. Many people who own their own NBs take one, two or three week holidays and like to cover lots of miles, perhaps doing a ring, but will almost inevitably pass along miles of canals and or rivers where frequent and plentiful charging points just wouldn't be economical to install and maintain. Hire boaters likewise often want to make the fullest use of their quite expensive holiday experience by going as far as possible, where charging points may be scarce or non-existent. If they, having nearly exhausted their battery, find that there are no charging points available, what do they do? Could there ever be enough charging points, unless people also have diesel generators? Of course wide beams can carry solar panels enough for several hours cruising each day in the height of summer, but is the same true of narrowboats, particularly the shorter ones?

I got the feeling that the chaps on the ground simply executed the instructions issued from the off-site booking office. They were happy to let the lift operate with an unoccupied space because it wasn't officially booked, even though I was standing there asking to go down.

It's difficult to be accurate, but I would think that many times more boats moor in unofficial spots along the tow path than are able to find rings or bollards, not in town perhaps, but everywhere else. Even if a narrowboat could cruise for two long days on a charge, that's far, far more official moorings needed than currently exist, let alone ones where mains electricity could be laid on for charging.

There are many miles of canal where there are hardly any official mooring spots and most of our rivers even fewer, some offering almost no places to moor safely at all, such as the Nene. Often one can cruise for hours or sometimes days, looking for even a water tap or a rubbish bin! Presumably, the provision of rank after rank of fast charging points would require a good power supply and great lengths of new mooring bollards/rings sufficient for tens of 60 - 70ft boats. Sure there are areas where getting power and infrastructure to existing mooring spots would be relatively inexpensive and easy, but there are many more areas where the siting of sufficient charging points would be an extremely difficult and expensive problem to overcome.