AN INCREASING trend these days is for local waterway societies to have their trip boats electric propelled.
With the Inland Waterways Association, it tells, being delighted that boats are using electric drives, believing it is essential that the waterways make a contribution to climate change.
Investigating
For this end, it has brought into being the IWA’s Sustainable Boating Group, that is investigating how leisure boating can go over to electric drives.
The picture shows the Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway Trust's electric boat Electra being re-launched after improvements to her battery and electrical management systems to keep her at the forefront of environmentally-friendly boat technology.
300 charging points required
However it has worked-out that 300 charging points will be required, but gives no intimation of how or who these will be supplied by, as of course the electric propelled trip boats only take short cruises so a charging point on site will suffice, but obviously as there are no charging points on the inland waterways, longer cruises will be out of the question as no charging points.