Electrika -- the electric boat show

Hello and welcome to the Water Rd podcast. And this week we're at Brinkley Marina, which is near Rugby in Warwickshire, and we are at the Electrical Boat Show, which is a boat show that's especially aimed at electric boats.

The electrical show is now in its second year and was quite a bit bigger this time. It was started by some owners of a hybrid electric boat and the company that built it, Auto Marine. So in this episode, we'll find out how the show came about. Five years ago, when Old Nick was launched, there was very little information about. We're very keen that we would put out there information that other owners could, you know, at least look at. Even if they didn't take the advice we gave, they could have something to compare against.

We'll hear how green electric boating can be. They have induction hobs, freezers, washing machines, kettles, everything you could possibly want on their boat. Plus their propulsion is all being provided by their solar array on the roof of their boat. And we'll discover what it's like living on an electric boat. Being able to just pull away from the mooring, not disturb anybody, just hear the birds in the ripple of the water on the boat and it's just so peaceful. It's the only way to really appreciate the beauty of the canal system.

Done with Paul and it's your show, really. It was your idea, wasn't it? Yeah, it came out of a a conversation one evening with Auto Marine. They were keen to do a another event that would promote electric boating. And so K and I went away, had a think and thought, well, let's do a put on a show. So your experience is as an electric boat owner? Very much so, yes. I mean, we five years ago when Old Nick was launched, there was very little information about, and we sort of took a lot of advice from Auto Marine, but there was nothing to compare against.

And so we were very keen that we would sort of document our journey as people like to say and, and actually try and put out their information that other owners could, you know, at least look at, even if they didn't take the advice we gave, they could have something to compare against. And Electrica is really also an extension of that. It's to try and get an environment where existing owners, potential owners or new owners can come together, they can learn from each other, get to know each other, make friends and meet the exhibitors and and ask questions about equipment, see new boats.

So that's that's really the crux of it. So as someone who lives on an electric boat, what are the big advantages for you? It's just like being at home. We've got electric hub, we've got microwaves, we've got washing machine. So by having an electric narrow boat, it's designed to have a lot of power on board. And so, you know, you don't have to at night dim all the lights and, and be very careful of your, your power consumption. And then of course, when you actually do use that power for, for propulsion, it's very quiet.

You can hear the birds song. You just get that gentle clap, clap of the, the water bubbling away from the propeller and you don't get the diesel fumes and things. So from an experience of when you're actually cruising, it is, it is really very different. It may not be to everyone's cup of tea. And there's people that love of the the diesel engines smell and the feel and then sound. But we absolutely love it now, having experienced silent boating. With them robbed for a water marine and you were one of the first boat building companies to say, look, we're we're just going to build hybrid electric boats.

Yes, that's correct. What brought that on? Well, we felt that basically as the, the change in people's sort of views on the eco side of things and the emissions, we did feel that that was the way the the industry should be going. The the green maritime directive as well coupled with that try we, we both bought recently an electric pad van and an electric pad car and we wanted to transfer that that concept to the narrow boats. So we did take the decision, I think four years ago now, not to build diesel only boats.

Yeah. There are different types of electric boats there. I mean there are some that are purely electric and then there are the hybrid. So just describe all the different types of of electric drive you can have, OK? So in principle there are three main types of of electrically powered boats. So you have an all electric boat that has a form of battery, an electric motor and that's it. Application would be something like a day trip boat where it could be charged overnight somewhere so it doesn't need any kind of secondary energy to charge batteries.

There is then a parallel hybrid which gives the the owner almost the best of both worlds. You've got a a straight diesel boat that performs anywhere on the network as a normal diesel boat would. But then you can basically change over to an electric motor and get the benefits of silent cruising, early morning cruising and etcetera are there. You've then got a series hybrid which is an electrically driven boat for propulsion, but then has a backup generator which is a diesel powered generator for charging the batteries when solar isn't sufficient.

And is it a matter that 1 is better than the other, or is it just depending on how you're going to? Use it it exactly that we we sit down with any potential customers and we go through some sort of expectation that they are looking for from their boat, the types of cruising they're going to do. Are they live aboard, are they continuous? Are they leisure cruisers? And what sort of waters would they be looking to sort of head on to?

So with Ricky from Finesse Boat Builders and you've been doing electric boats for quite a long time actually haven't. You. Yeah, we've been building since about 2020, seriously building electric boats. In fact, we've only done 1 diesel boat since then. Prior to that, we did a couple of electric boats in their infancy, 2018 and 2019. And you've sort of developed your own whole system, haven't you? Yes, over the years we've come more towards our own system or collection of products which we we use each and every time.

Lots of the, there are lots of good products out there, but not all of them speak exactly the same protocol or language. So you have to be careful select the right, right products. So most of it we ended up doing our own, our own system. And you tend to do a series hybrid. Yes, actually we've never as finesse done a a parallel hybrid. It's always been a serial hybrid. That's that's the way we prefer and and we're most of our what suits most of our customers the best. So why do you think that is what they want?

You've got the automatic independency of the two systems, so some days you might run this electric boat. We're out here in the sun now and we'd we'd be cruising just off the solar. There'll be no reason to use the, the, the diesel motor or diesel engine at that point. But the single biggest point or single biggest reason is you've got quiet running when you have got the generator on. So if you've got a diesel in a parallel hybrid sense, usually that's quite noisy when the diesel engine is on or if you just need to make power on a, a dual day.

Whereas the generator's quite well acoustically silenced. So that that ends up being our preference and seems to work best for us.

So with Nigel and Sue, isn't it for narrowboat tests and people might have seen you on narrow escapes on Channel 4 and you're. We were really there just, you know, handling sheepums. Sheepums is your mascot, yes. He is, he's, he's a wonderful little mascot who has such a big ego now. Yeah, he insisted on staying in the boat this afternoon, though, so it's too hot to be out. Much too hot for a sheep, yes. Especially with a woolly coat. So your boat is electric. So how do you get on living with an electric boat?

The thing we like most about living on Electric Boat is wake up in the morning, getting up early because we're early risers, being able to just pull away from your mooring, not disturb anybody, just hear the birds in the ripple of the water on the boat and it's just so peaceful. It's the only way to really appreciate the beauty of the canal system. I recently got into a conversation. Online with someone who was. Loving the sound. Of a diesel motor and it was to do with the electric show and how they they don't want an electric.

Boat. Because they love the diesel motor. And I said yes, but you can't hear the birds the way you. Can when it's. Just completely silent and you're cruising. Down the canal. Yeah. I love hearing, you know, the classic diesel engines go by. I just don't want to live with one every day. So I can appreciate them going past, but we can just cruise silently along. It's just and you can also hear what people are saying on the toe power. Well, yes, people forget that sometimes we forget People can hear us just as easily.

And what about generating the power and everything that you need? Is that? Do you find that a problem or is it just one of those things? It is, it is entirely dependent on the boat you have and who makes it and how well they configure the system. And that's one of the things we've learned over the last two years is that there are so many different electric boats out there. And some builders really know what they're doing. And they've done all the research and, and I mean Ordinaroons a classic 1.

And you can tell they know they've they've looked at it and they've got boats out there and they've looked at the data and there are other builders are kind of winging it and learning as they go. And so it really the efficiency on any given boat is really depends on who built it. And so the message from that would be do your research before jumping in. Absolutely. Absolutely, Absolutely. Do do you do due diligence and make sure you talk to owners of an electric boat right now of builders you're considering so that you can understand a bit more about the boat and how it works.

And we've recently done some changes to our boat that made it markedly different from when it first launched because we changed the prop size on the boat. And just by going up in prop size, it's changed how quiet the boat is, how fast it accelerates and decelerates. And so it's really changed the dynamics of the boat significantly. Bill Earle off narrowboat Electric Dragon. So you've had an electric boat for quite a while now, haven't you? Just two years, yeah. And how are you finding? It nice and quiet.

That's the thing. I mean, we have a generator on board. We don't live on the boat so we don't go by the sun like some liver boards would only go as far as they can get on solar. We we do run our generator, but what we find is we can run the generator for two or three hours a day and get a whole day's cruising plus your overnight domestic power off off two or three hours of the generator. Do you find you have to boat in a different way when you've got an electric boat rather than diesel? It encourages you to go more slowly because you can see the power you're using.

So if you're going along that one point, 1 1/2 kilowatts is about 500 Revs, you're probably doing 2 1/2 miles an hour. To get that to go up to 3 miles an hour, you've probably got to use three kilowatts of of energy. So it encourages you to go more slowly, which is what the canals are all about anyway. So you were saying that you you run the generator a bit everyday, Is that green enough do you think? Well, it's a lot greener than running a diesel engine. So we've, I think in two years we've topped our tank up three times and it's been roughly half empty each time.

So we've used maybe 300 litres of of diesel in two years I had. Three good talks this morning, two more this afternoon. And. Caroline Badger from Montreal Marine will be kicking us off. And how? Green is electric boating. Thank you. Well, really. I want some with Caroline from Auto Marine. You've just done your talk to the to the show about how green electric boating is. So that's the question. How green is it? Well, as my headline slide said, it really depends how you use your boat, how fast you travel, how efficient your motor is, your propeller, how you run your generator.

If you work it hard, it's going to be more efficient. And I, I really wanted to compare emissions from diesel boats to electric boats. And with the calculations that I did in preparation for the, the talk worked out that on an average 6 hour cruising day, if you're cruising at about 2 1/2 miles an hour, you'll use, you'll, you'll generate approximately just over 19 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide compared to an all electric boat. If, if it's powered totally by solar energy, then there's zero emissions.

So fully sustainable. If you are plugging into shore power and you're UK, using the UK grid average for, for carbon emissions from electric provided by the grid, that's, that equates to 2.4 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide over the same 6 hour day. So you're making a massive, massive change if you are able to go go electric. I mean, that is a big percentage reduction, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And and if you can get away without running your diesel generator and then obviously it's 100% sustainable, sustainably sourced to power your boat.

And we do have boats that have run since April without starting their generator. One boat, it actually started the generator because we actually said you really should run your generator just so that you're, you're, it's being turned over and it's better for the, the engines maintenance. But effectively they wouldn't have started it. And they're, they're cooking as normal. They're, they're heating their water. So they have induction hobs, freezers, washing machines, kettles, everything you could possibly want on their boat and it's all being and plus their propulsion is all being provided by their solar array on the roof of their boat.

So with Matthew Simmons, the head of boating at CRT and obviously electric boats is a is a big thing at the moment. This we're here at the Electrica show, charging is a big thing for electric boats. Is there a strategy for CRT to expand electric charging? So we have been supporting the installation of electric charging points in certain places, but the pure cost of doing a whole network of electric charging is well beyond our means. So where we've been able to put charging points in, that's normally been in partnership with local councils, with developers, with government funding.

So we have some sites in London, we have some in in Oxford and a few other places. So it's very much been a piece meal approach when funding's been available at the moment. So what's the future of this going forward then? I mean, is there? Is there a way you can see that this could be expanded? Well, clearly we're seeing there is a lot of interest in electric boats as there is in alternative clean boating solutions. But what we don't have at the moment is a clear sense of how big that's going to go and how quickly that's going to go.

And I think what we're all looking for is some more support for the inland maritime sector from government to help transition to cleaner boating. Because if it's reliant on organisations like the Canal and River Trust and other boaters and marinas, and it's going to be a very slow process to get a green power networking across the whole of our canals. I'm Ewan Harris. I'm the head of environment and Climate action at the Canal River Trust. So we hear the Electric Boat show. Obviously, electric boats must be an important part of of making the canals net 0.

Yes, they're a very important part of, of, of the whole country really achieving net 0 by 2050, which is the current aspirations for the country. But what else is the CRT doing to to try and reach that goal? So one of the things that we're doing at the moment is we're looking at the our, our own operations, which is the operations, you know, the carbon emissions associated with the running the canals itself, how we maintain them, how we pump water around, how we attend to different, different things.

So it's about, you know, how we use our vehicle fleet and everything else like that. So that's one of the key things that we're looking at at the moment. And why are you here today? Is it a sort of learning process for you? Yes, very much so for me today, you know, there are lots and lots of different technologies here today. So there's solar, there's some some hydrogen fuel cells, there's all sorts of different, different technologies that are there and that could be form part of the future. And it's for me personally, it's trying to understand how those fit in the a bigger picture, both for us as the trust, but also for the people who use the canals and motorways.

And with that glimpse into the possible future of boating, that's all for this episode of The Water Rd Podcast. Thank you to everyone at The Electric Show. The Water Rd is produced and presented by me, Adam Porter. Please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. And don't forget that all previous episodes are available to listen to. Also. If you've enjoyed the series so far, please give us a nice review because it really does help people to find us. Next time we'll be in Beeston in Nottinghamshire hearing about the heritage centre that's been created in a row of lovely canal side cottages.

It was quite a uphill struggle at times and thinking what are we doing? But with our brilliant volunteers we've got it looking Absolutely Fabulous. Thank you for listening to the Water Rd.

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