When narrowboats were first used on the canals, they were pulled by horses. These days a diesel engine driven propellor is the most common method of propulsion.

Bartimaeus has a diesel engine, but also has a very large battery bank so that we can drive in near silence using the electric motor to turn the propellor. The battery bank is charged whenever the diesel engine is driving us, and also by the solar panels that cover most of the roof. We hope that during the summer we won’t need to run the diesel engine very much at all. When there is less sunshine available we can still hook up to shore power where it is available. We will also use diesel to run the central heating when we need it.