twenty years after the first VETUS electric powered motors came on the scene, the Dutch company has delivered their E-LINE and E-POD variety with one of the first E-LINE inboards being set up in ‘old Nick’, a new uk narrowboat.outboard motor covers
based by way of Willem den Ouden in 1964, ‘Vetus den Ouden‘ grew from a marine supplies catalogue commercial enterprise run from his kitchen desk to a a hundred-usa agency with a product list of virtually 4,000 objects. alongside the manner the business enterprise began developing and building its personal diesel engines and other merchandise – which include the arena’s first electric bow thruster for pride craft in 1982 and the EP2200 electric powered inboard in 2000.
inside the new E-LINE range there are four motors – with energy ratings from 3.2 kW / 5HP to eleven.three kW / 22HP – and one E-POD version of nine.1kW / 20HP. VETUS sales DIrector Thijs Boegheim stated “we're excited to go back to the growing electric propulsion region with our new E-LINE and E-POD solutions. each of those superior systems make it feasible for extra boat proprietors to enjoy and enjoy their surroundings in overall silence as they gently cruise thru nature.”
whilst VETUS introduced the creation of the E-POD and E-LINE last yr, it suit perfectly into the the plans of Paul and Kay Sumpner, who had been in the midst of satisfying their dream of building a narrowboat and cruising the waterways of england and Wales.
Attracted by Vetus electric vehicles ‘overall boat gadget’
certainly one of their dreams changed into to lessen fossil gas use as plenty as feasible, and what definitely attracted them to the VETUS electric powered motors was the company’s ‘creators of boat structures‘ philosophy. They were designing antique Nick (named in honour of Kay’s overdue father, a boating enthusiast) with boat builder Ortomarine, who have 6 diesel-electric powered hybrids and 2 all-electric canalboats under their belt. collectively all of them determined on a Vetus package deal because the excellent alternative for the brand new venture.
As Kay wrote on their blog The Sumpners Afloat – Adventures on old Nick’:
“that is a very exciting post, we will ultimately announce that “vintage Nick” might be the first electric powered, serial hybrid narrowboat with the entire hybrid propulsion gadget coming from one agency, a one-forestall solution.
some of businesses sell electric engines, but the engine is just one part of an electric powered serial hybrid gadget and we felt strongly that selecting a widely known and reliable enterprise, who ought to supply the whole bundle, had to be an excellent manner to reduce a number of the risk in embracing a brand new era.“
blog has plenty of useful electric powered propulsion info
much of the content that follows comes from the Sumpners’ blog, which, via the way, is a extremely good supply of targeted data for all and sundry thinking about electric powered propulsion for a canalboat or similar vessel. It covers no longer simplest electric powered / hybrid propulsion, however all sorts of details such as indoors and galley design, heating, solar panels, GPS structures and extra. Even a few adorning hints!
So, to the details. even as the Sumpners had was hoping the antique Nick will be completely electric powered, the realities of dwelling aboard and cruising for great durations intended a serial hybrid gadget turned into the high-quality option to “significantly reduce our diesel intake and the environmental effect of this boat.”
A serial hybrid machine is one wherein an electric powered motor propels the boat, but if the battery charge gets low, a diesel generator can rate it whilst underway. In a parallel hybrid gadget, there's each an electric powered motor and diesel motor and either can turn the drive shaft, or each can be used while extra electricity is wanted. An instance is the system in the new hybrid pilot boats of the Thames.
For old Nick, they stated “With a good solar setup (1200W or greater), the need to run the generator in summer time months is rare and in the autumn/wintry weather, a night time or on a tourist mooring in a marina, on shore power, will soon pinnacle up the batteries.”
The antique Nick propulsion machine consists of a Vetus E-LINE 100, BowPro65 bow thruster, 6kVA generator and different Vetus gadget just like the driveshaft, stern equipment and propellers. Vetus also supplied items like pumps as well as items for onboard residing, like water heaters. one of the blessings for the couple become being able to source everything – and get hold of service and interest – from one company and make contact with. some other gain of the E-LINE as a part of a Vetus system is that they all carry the organisation’s V-CAN (Controller region network) technology. As Paul Sumpner has a protracted career in marine electronics, I’ll permit him give an explanation for from the blog:
CAN stands for “Controller place community” and is a pretty easy and occasional price community, developed with the aid of Bosch for the car enterprise within the mid-Eighties. The “CAN Bus” has become ubiquitous in present day vehicles, wherein you may commonly find a couple of networks and over 70 ECUs (digital manage gadgets) linking the whole lot from the airbags to the wind display wipers.
Victron additives manage and reveal energy
the opposite essential factors that allow the Sumpners to gain their low emission canal cruising dream are sun panels, batteries, and something that hyperlinks up and controls all of the energy drift, charging and recharging.
The flexible sun panels comply with the roof, the lead carbon 48V / 800A battery financial institution comes from Leoch Battery and can be charged via the panels, generator or shore hookup, and Victron strength components include a MTTP for the sun panels, Quattro inverter and charger, and Cerbo GX that controls the entirety and keeps it running. And it is able to all be monitored via telephone with their VictronConnect App.
by the point you add electronic gasoline gauges, the heating system, bilge pumps, lighting fixtures, alarms, the family electrics like television, satellite, lights and shops for television, computers and a printer…you’ve were given quite the schematic! This become all discovered and certain via Rob Howdle at Ortomarine. (you could examine the overall info of the entire system in this post on the vintage Nick weblog)
All of this isn’t necessary for the common electric powered boat, of direction. however antique Nick become designed from the beginning to have almost all of the comforts of domestic proper at hand. The Vetus electric powered vehicles and complete boat structures made it that tons simpler to construct this dreamboat, and with their new E-LINE 100 the Sumpners are thinking they may be capable of cruise along at the canal maximum pace of 4 knots for 12 hours or longer while not having to recharge the battery. They expect to be powered by means of sun only for as a minimum 6 months of the yr.outboard motor covers