Ollie Owl featured in July’s Towpath Talk

There’s a great article by Phil Pickin in the latest Towpath Talk (page 46) about our serial electric hire boat “Ollie Owl” which Cafwin Cruises are operating out of Droitwich Spa Marina – grab your copy from your local marina, or read the article here.

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Crick Boat Show – 2nd to 5th June 2022

Just to let everyone know, we are not actually exhibiting at Crick this year. We are in the very fortunate position that our order book is full until mid-2025 and whilst we thoroughly enjoy being part of the whole Crick experience, it is a large commitment in terms of time…

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From steam power, straight to all-electric propulsion…

“Eau de Folles” is the latest addition to the Ortomarine family. The owners (Neil and Linda Cocksedge) previously owned one of the few working steam narrowboats operating on the UK canals, called Tixall. They skipped several iterations of engine design when they decided to go for all-electric propulsion for their…

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20 Mega Watt Hours of solar energy generated by our fleet!

By the end of this week, our fleet of boats will have cumulatively generated a staggering 20 Mega Watt hours of electricity.  With our boat owners’ permission, we have now decided to show a table on our website which refreshes every day with the amount of solar generated by each…

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British Marine / Boating Business Awards Ceremony 2022

We are very pleased to report that Ortomarine were trophy winners at the annual British Marine Conference held on 15th & 16th March at the National Conference Centre, Birmingham. We were nominated for the “Business Boating Sustainability Award” which was to be presented to a company that has demonstrated outstanding…

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Ollie Owl takes to the water

After some seriously challenging engineering, difficulties sourcing key components, lots of hard work and considerable financial outlay – the conversion of one of our existing diesel narrowboats to fully functioning serial electric hybrid culminated in the successful launch of “Ollie Owl”, on Monday 14th March.  For Ortomarine, the work completed…

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Another boat launch – Hanna-Barbera themed

Our first new boat launch of 2022 took place on 9th February – Helen and Russel Green are the proud new owners of “Professor Pat Pending”, a 58ft Serial Electric Hybrid narrowboat. Those of you who are old enough to remember The Wacky Races cartoon, will understand where the name…

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A fine Winter’s Day for the launch of a beautiful lady!

Our final boat launch for 2021 took place on 25th November.  We were lucky enough to launch “Zaniah” on a crisp, sunny, winter’s morning, before Storm Arwen hit. The owners, Trevor and Lesley have had their own boats for the past 30 years, so knew exactly what they wanted.  Zaniah…

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Greener canal holidays with first serial hybrid hire boat

Canal holidays are a fantastic family break and a chance to be closer to nature and have fun on the water. Until now, with the exception of some day boats and all electric hire boats on the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal, the only option has been to hire traditional diesel…

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Ortomarine “Going Green” on land as well!

Earlier this year we made the decision to really try to cut our carbon footprint as a business.  Using a Carbon Footprint calculator tool provided at https://www.carbontrust.com/resources/sme-carbon-footprint-calculator  we were able to see that by far the biggest impact we were having on the environment was as a result of our…

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