In the sixth in his series on living aboard Peter Underwood looks at how ‘green’ boaters can be and compares what is possible with what is practical. First published in Towpath Talk.
Compare and contrast
SOME liveaboards simply want to transfer their land lifestyle to the water – complete with dishwashers, tumble dryers and all the power-hungry impedimenta of modern life.
If that is your approach I would only say that you are going to need a big generator and lots of batteries or frequent visits to marinas with electric hook-ups.
For many liveaboards moving onto a boat is a bit of an ecological revelation. Perhaps for the first time in your life you are seeing what resources it takes to keep you in the style to which you have become accustomed and exactly how much waste of all kinds you produce.
Every resource – diesel, coal, wood, gas, food, water – has to be brought onto the boat by you. Every piece of waste has to be disposed of by you. Suddenly you have a personal relationship with the means of creating heat and power and you are not even shielded by the monthly direct debits which kept you warm and powered your land-based home.
So what are you going to do about the best chance you will ever have to put your principles into action and go green?
Soon every liveaboard recognises that the biggest impact they are making comes from the diesel engine which powers the boat – and if not the ever-rising price of diesel will remind them.
Is there an alternative? I even quizzed Sue Day of the Horseboating Society on the practicality of horse power. As she rightly pointed out, British Waterways have to be asked for special permission to put a horse on the towpath these days and the number of moored boats, complete with TV aerials makes progress very slow. Even then the costs of buying, keeping and caring for a horse are probably more than the cost of diesel.
How about electric boats? The Electric Boat Association has been going for more than a century and at the end of Victorian era there were nearly 200 electric boats on the Thames.
Most were small and the largest on the river was the 65ft. eighty-passenger 'Viscountess Bury', which plied the Thames until 1910 when she was converted to oil.
It all died away until the 1970s when Rear Admiral Percy Gick took an electric Trentcraft cruiser 600 miles up the Thames and around the canals and Lord St Davids moored a small narrow boat powered by prototype Lynch outboard motors at the bottom of his garden on the Regents Canal.
During the 1980s, Rupert Latham at Wroxham developed the Frolic electric GRP launch but the electric boat market has been slow to develop.
The problem for larger narrowboats is one of charging because the normal diesel engine is key to providing the charge needed for domestic electrics and an electric engine can’t do that.
One answer is charging stations around the canal network but can you imagine the queues if electric boats caught on and every needed to top up with a charge every time they moored overnight?
Another answer used by a handful of boat builders on the canal is a hybrid system which uses a engine cum generator to charge the batteries which, in turn power the engine. A hybrid can extract from the engine a higher power than required by propulsion. The extra can then be stored in the battery bank and provide the low propulsion power demand with pure electric drive. When the batteries drop you turn the engine back on again.
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| Wind and solar power can help keep those batteries topped up |
There are also those who see the answer in solar power and the Solar Boat Company (http://www.solarboat.co.uk) claims narrowboats are well suited to electric propulsion due to the efficient hull shape and low canal speed limits.
It says solar panels can provide power for over 1,000 miles cruising per year for many decades but that is not based on a liveaboards requirements as the figures are calculated around summer cruising.
Even they admit: “ … not many miles can be expected in the English mid-winter, especially on boat with accommodation where electric lights and appliances can use most or all of December's solar charge”.
Even they admit: “ … not many miles can be expected in the English mid-winter, especially on boat with accommodation where electric lights and appliances can use most or all of December's solar charge”.
One small part of the UK system is using electric narrowboats as hire boats.
Castle Narrowboats on the Monmouth and Brecon say their electric boats cover 18 miles on a single charge but they rely on hooking up to shore power on a regular basis.
One firm selling solar panels reckons that a 17 ton 60 foot narrowboat with 512 watts of solar panels on an average June or July can travel up to 100 miles at 2mph – but it would, of course take two whole days to do so.
That is based on having at least half the roof is covered with solar panels. Considering you are paying around £4 plus per watt for panels that is a big bill.
Low impact
So if reality means most liveaboards are going to have to come to terms with burning diesel what else can be done?
The answer is lots and I would recommend a look at a fascinating – if rarely updated – website which has a wealth of ideas on how to limit your environmental impact – called Low Impact Life on Board (http://www.liloontheweb.org.uk/)
It looks at a variety of topics and whilst some of the solutions are probably a bit much for modern boaters, there are some fascinating insights.
REFRIGERATION
The Low Impact site suggests, for instance, that one answer to the fridge using lots of power is to keep things cool inside sacks hung in the canal.
Most of us are a bit doubtful about the cleanliness of such a practise but there are also some sensible suggestions about keeping things that need to be cool in the bottom of the boat.
Many liveaboards will also use outside space as a fridge alternative during sub-zero temperatures.
TRAVEL
Living aboard without a car reintroduced me to the bike and they are useful, energy saving tools, especially when speeding hot fish and chips back to the boat.
Storing them is always an issue and I have found folding bikes too small for my 6ft 2ins frame. Some hang them from adapted car bike carriers on the stern but I have ended up using the roof.
If you are over the ever-retreating pension age you can get a bus pass and that means no car is really necessary unless you need it for work. Even without free bus travel the public transport system is often a useable alternative.
COOKING
Most boaters use gas, for cooking but Calor and others have been steadily pushing prices ever upwards so it makes sense to use alternatives and during the winter the multi-fuel stove can save a lot of gas.
We use ours to bake potatoes (in tinfoil in the fire compartment or ash tray) as well as one-pot stews, casseroles and even for steaming a steak and kidney pudding.
HEAT
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| Since we succumbed and had a multifuel stove installed three years ago we would not go back. |
There is no doubt that the various form of diesel heating systems are the cleanest way of keeping your boat clean and warm and we used them for several years on the basis that a multi-fuel stove was dusty and dirty.
Since we succumbed and had a multi-fuel stove installed three years ago we would not go back.
Yes it is dusty, but you are never cold even when it is minus ten degrees outside, the eco-fan carries the warm air the length of the boat and kettles on the top provide most of our hot water as well as a place to cook.
We tend to use coal but many use little but wood picked up along the towpath – and that means free heat and a much better carbon footprint.
In the summer months the stove goes out and we rely on gas and barbecues for cooking.
Using a pressure cooker speeds up cooking and saves gas.
POWER
Solar power may not be the best way of powering a boat year round but it does make a reasonable investment if you want to minimise the length of time you are running your engine. Our four 80watt panels cost around £800 with a regulator, were relatively simple to install and will, I reckon, have paid for themselves within two years at current diesel prices.
They are clearly most useful in summer when we can sit for two weeks without needing a charge from the engine, but even in winter they add to the batteries.
Others use wind power, at about the same investment, but it does not suit most people who move around the country.
FOOD
Growing your own food is not impossible on a boat but it will usually be salad stuff in boxes or pots.
Tomatoes, lettuces and spring onions can be sown in succession and I always have a small herb garden in pots.
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| The top of the boat is home to salad crops, flowers and a bike as well a solar panels |
CLEANING
There are alternatives to commercially available chemical cleaners and the Low Impact site suggest that vinyl floors can be mopped with warm soapy water using washing soda if greasy.
Carpets and rugs should be ideally taken outside and beaten, otherwise a stiff brush is good. Car vacuum cleaners are generally unimpressive.
For washing carpets, use water with washing up liquid, or sprinkle with bicarbonate of soda and leave for two hours or longer, then vacuum off.
On wood use linseed oil or Osmo Polyx oil on floors and for furniture and for stains elsewhere use washing up liquid or white distilled vinegar in boiling water. For mud, blood, or coffee, mix one part of borax with eight parts of water, or use washing soda dissolved in water.
On windows use equal parts of white vinegar and water in a spray bottle; spray on and polish off with a soft cloth and if your sink drain hose goes straight outside just pour some boiling water down it.
For washing dishes there are plenty of eco-products now available and bicarbonate of soda, or washing up liquid will clean ovens.
When it comes to stoves, you can clean your chimney from above with a chain and clean glass on a burner with wood ash and a damp towel.
LIGHTING
There are alternatives to electric lighting, although most are not really adequate to read comfortably. Oil and candles are used by many boaters, but beware to obvious fire hazards.
If you are going to use electricity LEDs provide the lowest power use but they are expensive to buy. Fluorescents are next best and ordinary or halogen bulbs will drain the batteries fastest.
TOILETS
Finally we come to the final and unavoidable topic of toilets. I don’t want to get in to the cassette versus pump-out debate – I merely point out that cassettes are free to empty.
There are some people who use composting toilets but my experience of them is limited to one which used to frequent a canal we were using and which became known as ‘the smelly boat’.
Both pump-outs and cassettes normally use chemical ‘blue’ to break down the solids and improve the smell. It is somewhat unpleasant and expensive.
I can vouch for one alternative which came from the Low Impact site – and that is using brewer’s yeast.
I know of people who have had problems using this when switching from ‘blue’ but if you start with a new tank or cassette it works well all through the year. It is best to leave a cassette for a day or two to break down the solids but the smell is no worse than with ‘blue’ and it costs a fraction of the price with 1,000 tablets selling for around £5 and four going into each cassette.
