Battery Towing Tractors. A Cunning Plan to Replace Diesel Boat Engines

[Jen-in-Wellies]

What it says in the title. I was reading and making smartalec replies on the recent thread by @peterboat on electric boating. Most people on here now agree that the days of the diesel engine for inland pleasure boating are numbered. The main problem is that the current alternative, battery electric, recharged by solar, or shore line, will seriously restrict the type of cruising many people like to do. Long days at the tiller at all times of the year and being able to moor out in the sticks, away from recognised mooring spots could be a thing of the past. An idea struck me that could fix that.

 

Most canals were originally built for boats to be towed by horses, donkeys, mules etc. All the infrastructure was set up that way, towpaths, strapping posts, snake bridges, iron wear strips on vulnerable masonry and so on. When steam and internal combustion engines became available, horses were replaced in many areas by putting an engine and propeller in some of the boats. On the Regent's Canal in London, petrol tractors were used to directly replace the horses on the towpath. See this link for some piccies.

 

For the future of UK inland boating we could replace our diesel engines with battery tractors on the towpath. One way this could be done is if CaRT had a fleet of tractors available at docking stations at regular intervals along the cut. The docking stations would be at places with high power supplies available. Each tractor would have enough charge for say eight hours of towing at 3mph and enough to comfortably get to the next docking station, where it can be speedily swapped for a freshly charged one. You would be invoiced for your tractor hire, covering recharging and wear and tear, similar to the situation now, where the more you cruise, the more diesel you need to buy. You can moor anywhere you like as the boat will have enough on board battery and solar to keep the lights and pumps working. Cooking and heating run in to the usual green off grid problem, so perhaps cooking by alcohol stove and heating with biomass (wood to you and me) will still be needed for that. Alternatively, for the winter, you'd be restricted to mooring by shore line fitted visitor moorings.

 

The tractors would need to be heavy enough to be able to get traction on towpath mud and gravel and haul a boat, but modern leisure boats are a lot less heavy than a fully loaded working boat. There are new skills to learn in towing and stopping a boat in locks with strapping posts, passing other boats by dropping tow lines and passing them over moored boats. Some intelligence could be built in to the tractor to help with this, perhaps even full on self driving. Easier to do than with cars I reckon as it is all happening at slow speed. The tractor, powered by LiPo batteries would be smaller than the Regent's Canal example and compatible with the towpath environment.

 

The existing boat stock would need to be converted, as it would be with internal electric drive. The sterns would need rebuilding with bigger rudders, the engines and fuel tanks removed and the boat reballasted.

 

Going this way with the canal system would return it to something more like it's horse drawn origin. Horses are great, but need a lot of skill to work with and are expensive to keep and feed. The towpaths would need to be cleared of all the things like gates, signs and other modern additions that annoy the horse boating society. Strapping posts at locks would need to be reinstalled. People would have to get used to not having so much stuff on their boat roofs when moored, or risk it getting swept off in to the cut. Rivers would present the same problems as they would for the original boats. Tow paths would need reinstating on many, or boats could be towed in strings by electric tugs, similar to what used to happen on the Severn. Tunnels would need legging, or you could have an electric tug, working on overhead wires as there was at Harecastle and other tunnels.

 

Imagine a canal network in a couple of decades with near silent electric tractors hauling silent boats through the countryside and towns. All the technology to do it already exists and is pretty mature. It gives you most of the things you can do with current diesel engines and some things you can't. The tractors and docking stations would need to be designed. The docking/recharge stations and their booking method built and the canal infrastructure returned to the state required for towing. A pilot project to test it and iron out the problems wouldn't be too hard, or expensive.

 

What do people think?

 

Jen

 

[Mike Tee]

You mention a bio-mass system for heating - it may be possible to extend that system to somehow propel the boat, thereby doing without the electric tractor. I bet Bizzard could come up with an engine that ran on heat from a biomass stove. Any idea's Watt we could call it?

 

eta- to do the job properly, we'd need to vote in a board and would obviously need a President

Edited August 13, 2019 by Mike Tee

[Jerra]

A good big tractor every few miles would slow the cyclists down :-))

 

Jokes aside it would be one way forward (pun not intended).

[Jen-in-Wellies]

4 minutes ago, Jerra said:

A good big tractor every few miles would slow the cyclists down :-))

 

Jokes aside it would be one way forward (pun not intended).

Not to mention the risk of getting garrotted by the tow rope!

Tractors would really annoy the fishermen though. I could see them looking very grumpy, so no change there.

 

Anyone willing to "borrow" an elderly relatives mobility scooter to try out the idea?

Jen

Edited August 13, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Jerra]

1 minute ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Not to mention the risk of getting garrotted by the tow rope!

Tractors would really annoy the fishermen though. I could see them looking very grumpy, so no change there.

Jen

Breakfast TV had an article about wires etc being stretched across bridleways and cyclist being injured.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Just now, Jerra said:

Breakfast TV had an article about wires etc being stretched across bridleways and cyclist being injured.

There are some sick people around.

[Jerra]

1 minute ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

There are some sick people around.

Agreed.

[nb Innisfree]

2 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

There are some sick people around.

Yes, that's cyclists for you. 

[Boater Sam]

That would be the end to mooring on the towpath side then. Farmers would not like us mooring on the off methinks.

How would 2 tractors pass in either direction?

[Athy]

2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

 Most people on here now agree that the days of the diesel engine for inland pleasure boating are numbered.

I thought "Do they indeed?", until I read further and noticed the tongue-in-cheek nature of your post!

[max's son]

The same way the two four legged creatures used to pass

 

The rope they used was quite a long one, and it was made of cotton, which happens to be denser than water. When two boats met, the one crew allowed their rope to go slack, causing it to sink to the bottom of the canal. The second horse stepped over the slack rope, the second boat floated over it, and then both boats continued on their way. Simples!

[Boater Sam]

5 minutes ago, max's son said:

The same way the two four legged creatures used to pass

 

The rope they used was quite a long one, and it was made of cotton, which happens to be denser than water. When two boats met, the one crew allowed their rope to go slack, causing it to sink to the bottom of the canal. The second horse stepped over the slack rope, the second boat floated over it, and then both boats continued on their way. Simples!

Ah, but tractors are wider than a pony. Are we looking at "Smart" towpaths then? Are any canals now deep enough for a rope to fit under a boat?

Edited August 13, 2019 by Boater Sam
added more

[frangar]

How would this work on rivers and the odd bit of canal with no towpath??? You would need to bring back tunnel tugs as well....

[magpie patrick]

31 minutes ago, Boater Sam said:

 

How would 2 tractors pass in either direction?

In some parts of France they had a system where, when two tractors met they exchanged towropes (and thus also vessels) - okay on a quiet canal but tiresome on the Llangollen in summer perhaps

 

2 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Anyone willing to "borrow" an elderly relatives mobility scooter to try out the idea?

Jen

No need, Dad takes his scooter along the towpath without any encouragement! 

[KevMc]

Can any one tell me how big the batteries need to be to power a boat ?  Maybe we can set up a system where they are simply pulled out at recharge points and replaced with newly charged ones (at a small cost obviously)

[Athy]

2 hours ago, Jerra said:

A good big tractor every few miles would slow the cyclists down :-))

 

 

The only tractors likely to work for CART are subcon.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

33 minutes ago, frangar said:

How would this work on rivers and the odd bit of canal with no towpath??? You would need to bring back tunnel tugs as well....

Already covered in the first post. Basically going back to the old way of doing it, but with a mechanical horse. Fancy legging Standedge tunnel?

 

44 minutes ago, Boater Sam said:

Ah, but tractors are wider than a pony. Are we looking at "Smart" towpaths then? Are any canals now deep enough for a rope to fit under a boat?

When I say tractor, I don't mean

I mean something closer to the towing tractors that have been used on towpaths in the past, but even smaller, as they wouldn't have the weight of a loaded working boat to pull.

Most towpaths are wide enough to pass. Where they aren't, then that would be an area requiring upgrade. You couldn't pass in a bridge hole, but you couldn't with horses either. Of course a mechanical horse is always possible. Here is a very early thing from ten years ago. Petrol powered. Youtube embedding doesn't seem to be working.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc

 

26 minutes ago, KevMc said:

Can any one tell me how big the batteries need to be to power a boat ?  Maybe we can set up a system where they are simply pulled out at recharge points and replaced with newly charged ones (at a small cost obviously)

@peterboat can. They are big. The thing is that a lot of energy is wasted turning a propeller to get forward motion through the water. In deep open water, you have no choice. On land, something on the towpath pulling a boat can do it with very little energy in comparison. A typical human can produce up to 200W of effort on say a bike. Less needed to keep a boat going at 3mph. 1 horse power is 743W, and that is the maximum needed to get things started. A towpath towing gadget would need a much smaller battery pack. It wouldn't require a crane to winch the batteries in and out of the boat as it could just wheel itself in to a charging point and you can attach a charged one to the tow rope and be on your way in minutes.

 

Jen

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Jen-in-Wellies]

1 hour ago, Boater Sam said:

That would be the end to mooring on the towpath side then. Farmers would not like us mooring on the off methinks.

How would 2 tractors pass in either direction?

Boats moored on the towpath side when they were horse drawn. The tow line would be lifted over the moored boat as the horse and moving boat passed. The canals and many navigable rivers were set up to tow from the bank. This idea only means relearning some skills from the past. Boats with propellers being common are less than half their overall history.

Jen

Edited August 13, 2019 by Jen-in-Wellies

[peterboat]

I think I will stick to my much simpler electric drive system Jen, although how about overhead cables like trams have that would work with the added benefit that if place right they could electrocute cyclists and then in their stunned state they would drown? ?

Edited August 13, 2019 by peterboat

[Jen-in-Wellies]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

I thought "Do they indeed?", until I read further and noticed the tongue-in-cheek nature of your post!

Totally serious.

 

6 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I think I will stick to my much simpler electric drive system Jen, although how about overhead cables like trams have that would work with the added benefit that if place right they could electrocute cyclists and then in their stunned state they would drown? ?

They were used in tunnels for tugs in several places in the UK. Elsewhere there would be a huge infrastructure investment and it would completely change the feel of the canals and be ugly. My idea gets the canals back to the way they were in the 18th and 19th century in terms of infrastructure, with well maintained tow paths. The only change would be electric towing machines, rather than horses and charging and exchange points for them. All this would be very good for horse boating too. This is a link to the Horse Boating Societies advice on canal infrastructure to suit horses. Their web site appears to have vanished, so this is an archive version.

[roland elsdon]

Its old technology. The french had a system both with rail lines on towpaths, and electric pullers, as well as electric powered continuous chain towing systems, to prevent suffocation  in tunnels.

 

They towed a line of boats. 

So you are in the middle decide to stop , detach yourself , re attach the following boat, and spend the rest of the day wingeing about the noisy buggers grinding past...

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, frangar said:

How would this work on rivers and the odd bit of canal with no towpath??? You would need to bring back tunnel tugs as well....

 

Or specify self driving tractors to IP68 ?

[Spanners]

Somewhere in history there were tractors on parts of the Manchester ship canal , there was some photos in the Anson engine museum at poynton 

[Pluto]

The French had it sorted in 1900; either use three women or an electric tractor.

[magpie patrick]

6 minutes ago, Pluto said:

 

 

That is surely the comic version of the Cheval Electrique? A kind of French Ivor the Engine?