Those of you who follow us and our boats may know that the very first narrowboat we built with any form of electric propulsion was “Stray Not Far” which was our first Hybrid Marine parallel hybrid and was launched in November 2017. When the opportunity arose for us to buy the boat back from its owners, we jumped at the chance to restore the boat to her former glory and in the process bring her up to date with some of the advancements we have seen to our Ortomate control & monitoring system since 2017.
Externally our focus was to carry out some much-needed repairs to the original paintwork, and to upgrade the solar panel array – another first for us is that we have fitted 4 x rigid panels to the roof. We have already seen some excellent winter solar figures when the panels are tilted correctly, on sunny winter days.
Internally we have carried out some modifications to the original open-plan design, based on feedback from customers. These modifications include the installation of a fixed pullman dinette, modifications to the TV & media unit, upgrading the 4’ fixed double bed to a standard 4’6” double with side-lift facility. We have also installed a new Qettle boiling water tap at the request of the new owners.
We relaunched Stray Not Far on Monday 10th February at Droitwich Spa Marina. We’d like to warmly welcome the new owners, Tamsin and Paul, to the Ortomarine family and wish them many happy adventures on the cut.
