Vlog 212: Serenity
A little thing like a global pandemic and lockdown is not going to prevent further boat videos on this channel so I present the first in what may become a regular “virtual tour” series, as we meet Dimitrios and Carine Theologitis from Brussels and have a look around their amazing narrowboat Galene, which is filled with ingenious design touches.
Want to take part? You’ll need to have *lots* of photos of your boat (not necessarily a narrowboat) and be willing to do a Skype interview with me at some point. Note that I won’t necessarily interview everyone and anyone who expresses an interest, it’ll be up to me to pick those I think will work the best. Email the address shown in the video (not written here to help minimise spam)
The boat has some very clever design features indeed – a credit to the builder and the owners (whichever of them thought of the design), and the owners are a delightful couple to meet on the video.
They are lovely folk, aren’t they?! A pleasure to chat with.
Hi, for Demitrios and Karin. I am very interested in the diesel/electric power system. What was the extra cost of doing things this way? Extra batteries, additional prop shaft stuff plus more sophisticated monitoring gear must have added to the cost, did you ever figure out the differential? I noticed that you had a 50 hp engine which I think is a little more power than normal. Did you choose this because of the hybrid setup or just because you wanted a bit more power? You also seemed to want to keep the sound down. You had extra sound insulation, did it work? Did you also add a ‘hospital’ exhaust? Lovely boat,
Martin
Excellent David. I love the many innovative ideas that are their reality.
800 KWH at 40 V! My lord. They could run a 160 A welder with all that juice!
They could pretty much supply a small village!!
An excellent production and a fascinating boat. It is quite unique from the traditional fit outs I have seen on yours and other channels. It truly seems to reflect the owners style and personality. I agree with them regarding the Serenity offered by the canal lifestyle. Well done and I am looking forward to future tours and interviews like this one.
Cheers Jack, more coming soon (ish)
Very nice narrow boat. Great idea to explore other owners’ boats. It’s a cool and rainy day here in North Carolina and the interview video was a pleasant relief from the humdrum.
Cheers John
Really great idea during lockdown David. What a lovely couple and rightly very proud of their boat. All very interesting. Keep up the good work keeping our spirits up. Thanks.
Thank you!
Brilliant and entertaining as usual! Loved this.
Cheers David
That was so interesting I like the idea of an electic powered narrow boat and all the design features that had been built into it
Thanks Roger!
Brilliant idea for these lock down times. Very interesting and lots of thought gone into this boat’s build. Stay safe David.
Cheers David
I have visited Japan and say storage areas below the floors. Would it be possible to build a storage area below the floor in a narrow boat?
Some boats have small areas for wine to store to keep it cool but the bulk of the below-floor area is taken up with ballast to keep the boat stable.
Exactly as David says, there is not much room under the floor. You have the stringers every 70cm or so and then the ballast, so this leaves little room for storage. We do have a 12cm deep compartment under the salon accessible by a trap on the floor. You can actually see how deep it is in the video when David shows the photograph of the interior of the boat before the fitout. It is the coolest place on the boat with more or less constant temperature, the temperature of the canal, and we use it for wine but also a sort of larder for delicate foodstuffs. Hope this helps.