Anyone agree there should be a top level category on here for canal boat electrical conversion?

[IanD]

1 minute ago, cuthound said:

 

The least reliable car I ever owned was a Vauxhall.Chevette. in the 3 years I owned it it went through two recon gearboxes and a recon engine.

Mine was reliable enough after we rebuilt the engine (and I fixed the rusted-through hole in the passenger footwell with plywood and underseal, and replaced the broken coil springs, and...), went on for quite a few years in the hands of an impecunious friend...

[cuthound]

Just now, IanD said:

Mine was reliable enough after we rebuilt the engine (and I fixed the rusted-through hole in the passenger footwell with plywood and underseal, and replaced the broken coil springs, and...), went on for quite a few years in the hands of an impecunious friend...

 

I traded mine in and got a phone call from the sales manager a week later, who.had bought it for his wife to use. He started the conversation with " about your Chevette".

 

I replied with "whose Chevette?" 🤣😂

[David Mack]

Vauxhall Chevette - It's Whatever You Want it to Be! 

 

 

[peterboat]

We had chuvit estate cars as general duty cars when in the Army, they were okay especially when compared with the moggy travelers that they replaced. 

[ditchcrawler]

On 21/03/2022 at 13:10, alias said:

Do many people view the forum by "category" rather than by new content (with whatever categories that they don't want filtered out), or using a search for a specific query?   

We had one and it bust the timing chain sprocket on Christmas Eve on the A12 near the Dartford crossing. Good job there was valve head clearance

[IanD]

42 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

We had one and it bust the timing chain sprocket on Christmas Eve on the A12 near the Dartford crossing. Good job there was valve head clearance

Exactly how did searching the forum cause your timing chain sprocket to break? 😉

[George and Dragon]

17 hours ago, IanD said:

Exactly how did searching the forum cause your timing chain sprocket to break? 😉

You've heard of the butterfly effect?

 

Though surely any search could cause any fault to occur.

Edited March 25, 2022 by George and Dragon

[MtB]

On 20/03/2022 at 17:52, Rivelin said:

There are lots of folks considering / calculating / installing electrical propulsion for their boats. It would be great to have an area devoted to this so we can all share ideas.

 

 

I'm inclined to agree, but given most boats with your carefully crafted term "electric propulsion" are powered by diesel anyway so it really isn't clear why anyone wants to do it. 

 

Sharing ideas is always good. Could we start off with you sharing your ideas please, perhaps? 

Maybe start off with the reasons you are considering it? Thanks.

 

 

[peterboat]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

I'm inclined to agree, but given most boats with your carefully crafted term "electric propulsion" are powered by diesel anyway so it really isn't clear why anyone wants to do it. 

 

Sharing ideas is always good. Could we start off with you sharing your ideas please, perhaps? 

Maybe start off with the reasons you are considering it? Thanks.

 

 

A 72 foot narrowboat would get enough solar on it to work, for winter a genny would be nice, the reality  is how little a genny is needed with a good conversion

[MtB]

36 minutes ago, peterboat said:

A 72 foot narrowboat would get enough solar on it to work, for winter a genny would be nice, the reality  is how little a genny is needed with a good conversion

 

Not many of those about. Who in this thread has a 72ft boat? None I would suggest. 

 

My boats are 45ft, 57ft and 68ft, and I need to walk of the roof of all of them when single-handing them through locks, so mebbe only 2/3 of the roof area is available for solar at most. Once the pigeon boxes, centre line eye, mushrooms, boat pole rack and all the other roof furniture and fittings are accounted for, I'd say only 25% of my roof area is available for solar panels.

 

And the same applies to most boats I'd suggest, which is why diesel is still the fuel powering most electric boats.

 

[peterboat]

7 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Not many of those about. Who in this thread has a 72ft boat? None I would suggest. 

 

My boats are 45ft, 57ft and 68ft, and I need to walk of the roof of all of them when single-handing them through locks, so mebbe only 2/3 of the roof area is available for solar at most. Once the pigeon boxes, centre line eye, mushrooms, boat pole rack and all the other roof furniture and fittings are accounted for, I'd say only 25% of my roof area is available for solar panels.

 

And the same applies to most boats I'd suggest, which is why diesel is still the fuel powering most electric boats.

 

It isnt, the mushrooms can be changed for flying saucers so the panel could go over them and the pigeon box could go as well , pole rack to one side. I have said before if i went to a narrowboat it would be a 72 footer with separate engine room for the batteries, motor, genny and all the other stuff needed, it would be neater that way, easy fit as well.

[MtB]

No way I'm getting rid of any of my many pigeon boxes. My boats are 'all porthole' and the pigeon boxes are how the interior is illuminated. 

[peterboat]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

No way I'm getting rid of any of my many pigeon boxes. My boats are 'all porthole' and the pigeon boxes are how the interior is illuminated. 

Windows 🥰🤣

[MtB]

Privacy! 

 

I once heard the shrieking voice of a six-year-old girl on the towpath just outside my boat... "Oh MUMMY, this one's got a kitchen sink, WITH TAPS!!"

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, MtB said:

Privacy! 

 

I once heard the shrieking voice of a six-year-old girl on the towpath just outside my boat... "Oh MUMMY, this one's got a kitchen sink, WITH TAPS!!"

 

 

 

 

And so you have port holes so no one can see that you don't have one....................

[tree monkey]

On 23/03/2022 at 22:56, peterboat said:

We had chuvit estate cars as general duty cars when in the Army, they were okay especially when compared with the moggy travelers that they replaced. 

My first car was a chuvit van, oh I loved that thing and it was very reliable, bar a a busted UJ and a leaking petrol tank, all fixed with a few spanners  a hammer and some enthusiasm.

It took me miles, it earned me a small amount of cash and I could sleep in the back, what more could a youth want

[IanD]

As MtB says, on an existing boat it's difficult to find enough roof space to fit in a decent amount of solar, given what's typically on the roof.

 

On a new build boat it's not, so long as you think about the whole boat design not just bolting on solar afterwards. My boat will be all-porthole (plus glazed side doors) and I don't expect it to be too dark, there are no pigeon boxes or mushrooms on the roof, and even with the panels starting well clear of the back end of the cabin roof (to allow for long hatch and slide, boat pole/boathook/gangplank rack and so on) and allowing some gaps for crossing the roof/centreline/shower vent I can easily get 2kWp of panels on (using 8m of roof length, 60% of total) -- and this is on a 60' semi-trad, I could squeeze more on if necessary, a trad or 72' would give even more space.

 

Of course this still doesn't give much power in winter and only enough for propulsion in summer if you don't move much, so a generator is needed too -- but then many diesel boats also do this to reduce wear and tear on the main engine with long periods of battery charging.

 

2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

I'm inclined to agree, but given most boats with your carefully crafted term "electric propulsion" are powered by diesel anyway so it really isn't clear why anyone wants to do it. 

 

Sharing ideas is always good. Could we start off with you sharing your ideas please, perhaps? 

Maybe start off with the reasons you are considering it? Thanks.

 

 

On the contrary it's very clear why some people want to do it today; silent cruising.

 

It's certainly not to save money, which is a big priority for many people, and for them this makes no sense at all. Even "going green" isn't a convincing reason when you look at the embedded CO2 burden of the batteries compared to the amount of fuel a diesel boat burns over its lifetime.

 

This will probably change if/when there's ever a charging point network, just like it is doing for EV cars. But that could be a very long way in the future going by the lack of CART/government plans...

Edited March 25, 2022 by IanD

[MtB]

36 minutes ago, IanD said:

On the contrary it's very clear why some people want to do it today; silent cruising.

 

 

 

Good point. I'd completely overlooked that reason. So, our list could be as as follows:

 

Reasons to install electric propulsion:

Silent cruising

 

Reasons not to:

Considerable expense

Higher overall green footprint (debatable)

 

 

Any other reasons I've overlooked?

 

[IanD]

24 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

Good point. I'd completely overlooked that reason. So, our list could be as as follows:

 

Reasons to install electric propulsion:

Silent cruising

 

Reasons not to:

Considerable expense

Higher overall green footprint (debatable)

 

 

Any other reasons I've overlooked?

 

 

On the positive side, you could also add "domestic-level 230V supply, gas-free boat feasible" -- which is "free" in the sense that you need high-power electrics and a big battery bank for propulsion.

 

I don't think the "green footprint" is a pro or a con really; if you only look at the short-term today its probably a con, if you look at the longer-term/lifetime of boat it's probably a pro -- the situation is very different to EV cars with charging networks, which have a large positive "green" impact.

 

So I think you end up with:

 

Reasons to install electric propulsion:

Silent cruising

High-power onboard 230V, "gas-free" makes sense

 

Reasons not to:

Very considerable expense

 

You've got to really value the first two and have deep pockets for electric (series hybrid) to make sense today.

 

For most people this isn't the case, they either don't think it's worth it or can't afford it. For a few well-off noise-hating comforts-of-home addicts like me it's a good solution... 😉

Edited March 25, 2022 by IanD

[cuthound]

5 hours ago, MtB said:

Privacy! 

 

I once heard the shrieking voice of a six-year-old girl on the towpath just outside my boat... "Oh MUMMY, this one's got a kitchen sink, WITH TAPS!!"

 

 

 

Could have been worse. "Oh MUMMY, this one has a bath, WITH TAPS and a MAN in it!!" 😂🤣

[IanD]

21 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Could have been worse. "Oh MUMMY, this one has a bath, WITH TAPS *and* a MAN *and* a WOMAN in it!!" 😂🤣

🙂

[Alan de Enfield]

24 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Could have been worse. "Oh MUMMY, this one has a bath, WITH TAPS and a MAN and two WOMAN in it!!" 😂🤣

 

😜

Edited March 25, 2022 by Alan de Enfield

[cuthound]

4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Could have been worse. "Oh MUMMY, this one has a bath, WITH TAPS and a MAN and two WOMAN in it!!" 😂🤣

😜

 

Must be a widebeam to have a bath that big on it. 😂🤣

[ditchcrawler]

8 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Must be a widebeam to have a bath that big on it. 😂🤣

Not necessarily 

[Rivelin]

On 25/03/2022 at 08:42, MtB said:

 

I'm inclined to agree, but given most boats with your carefully crafted term "electric propulsion" are powered by diesel anyway so it really isn't clear why anyone wants to do it. 

 

Sharing ideas is always good. Could we start off with you sharing your ideas please, perhaps? 

Maybe start off with the reasons you are considering it? Thanks.

 

 

Most people I have spoken to about it do want to move to electric propulsion - I guess it's just down to who you talk to.

 

For me the benefits seem obvious:-

• Travelling along your favourite waterway with only the sound of the water lapping against the boat and the birds singing
• No fumes to breathe in when in locks or when the wind is in the wrong direction
• Big savings on fuel costs when batteries are charged from solar panels and / or wind turbines
• At some point, we're going to have to stop using combustion engines

On a recent demo, the 55' narrowboat I was on was propelled purely by a 10kw electric motor at ~3mph and the power coming from the solar panels exceeded the current being drawn by the motor. Obviously this was a lovely sunny day so this wouldn't always be the case, so the boat had a little diesel generator for our dull weather ( yes I know that's most days 😉 ).

 

My current thinking is to attach (bolt or weld) a splined pulley onto the prop shaft close to the coupler, then bolt on an electric motor with a suitably sized splined pulley on it's shaft, with a nylon belt driving the shaft. The resistance from the gearbox is very low when in neutral so I don't think this would add much load to the motor when in electric mode, and the motors turn freely when turned off, so equally wouldn't add much load to the engine when under diesel mode.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Rivelin