Great electric boat race
Eight narrowboats took part in trials along the same stretch of inland waterway to compare their power systems. Rob Melotti reports
How far and how fast can hybrid and electric narrowboats cruise?
Saturday 29 May was the start of a long weekend in England and the sight of a group of narrowboat owners north of Worcester Bridge gathered in the drizzle for an 0800 breakfast briefing may have lodged in some dog walkers’ memories – but would have gone completely unnoticed by others no doubt.
For many of the owners, this was the first time they had met each other face to face, however they all knew each others’ names and quite a bit about each others’ boats.
All the vessels – three diesels and five hybrid-electrics – were designed and built by Ortomarine, based in Droitwich, and the owners had all agreed to come together to help Ortomarine carry out the first ever series of electric narrowboat performance trials.
“The main goal of the day,” according to
PBO contributor and serial-hybrid boat owner Paul Sumpner, “was to record how each of the boats would perform during a typical day of cruising on a river and canal. Each boat would follow the same route, in as close to identical conditions as possible, with owners encouraged to cruise at their normal pace and style.”
Ortomarine has, to date, built three all-electric canal boats, three serial-hybrids and seven parallel-hybrid boats, but although technology is improving all the time it’s not always easy to separate out the performance effects without comparative testing.
“Individual boat data is interesting,” says Rob Howdle, MD of the company and a