At the end of May 2021, I attended a narrowboat trials day arranged by boat builder Ortomarine. Starting on the River Severn and going up the Droitwich canals, eight boats using a variety of power plants would have their fuel, efficiency and any solar input measured and compared. This video summarises what happened and the results.
I visit a narrowboat hire firm in Gilwern, South Wales, on the Mon & Brec canal. Amongst their fleet of conventional narrowboats they also have two fully-electric ones that don’t even have solar or a generator on board. So how have they managed this feat when it would be impractical elsewhere? Watch and find out!
In this vlog I visit the “Pamela May”, a trip boat run by the charitable Droitwich Canals Trust. We see their current boat and hear about the excellent work of the Trust but visit Ortomarine, the company building the Trust’s brand new, all-electric powered boat.
Following a few recent questions and comments from viewers, here is a beginners guide to how electrics work on a narrowboat. It may also have general relevance to people in campervans, motorhomes, caravans and RVs although there are slight differences but the gist is similar.
Can a decently-sized solar array provide enough power for day to day living on a narrowboat during the winter? There’ll be sunny days, there’ll be cloudy days, there’ll be rainy days and maybe even snow – but can the panels pull in the power? In this video, I do some sums.
I’ve been sent an 80 Watt semi-flexible solar panel to review by a company called Lensun so here are my thoughts on the panel (until the point where I broke it, for more on which, watch the video).
Once the Spring arrives and I go out continuous cruising on the canals, I will need a way to generate electricity. Ideally this would be done without running the engine. Hence the installation of solar panels. This is the video of that installation.
It’s rainy, cold and blowing a gale outside so I made a quick video about five simple things – three of them lightbulbs – that make my life nicer on board my canal boat!
