Recipient organisationTake a Turn Yachting Limited
Funding£68K
PeriodMar 2025 — Mar 2026
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Traditional West Country hire boats are being replaced by imported rigid inflatables that burn fossil fuels and offer no shelter from increasingly wet and windy summers. This feasibility project addresses a specific gap: no existing vessel combines the traditional local design with zero-emission electric propulsion, weather protection for passengers, and a hull that can be fully recycled at end of life. Current glass-fibre boats often end up abandoned on shore or sent to landfill at council expense. The project targets the 5–6 metre class of public hire boats used on tidal estuaries and inland waters across the UK. If successful, the design could give dozens of local hire operators—who together run more than 75 vessels in this class—a commercially viable alternative to imported petrol or diesel boats. The vessel would be built locally using existing West Country boatbuilding skills, reducing transport emissions and supporting regional manufacturing. For the public, it means a quieter, cleaner trip on the water with protection from the weather, without losing the character of traditional estuary boats. For councils, it could reduce the problem of abandoned glass-fibre hulls. The feasibility phase will produce an initial design, specification, and cost projections to test with potential customers.
View original technical description
The West Country has many tidal estuaries with a long history of public boat hire, often using vessels designed and made locally. The modern regulations for small public hire boats, less than 6m in length, recognises vessels with an appropriate CE Design category as being safe for public use when tested to ISO 12217-3\. The use of vessels manufactured prior to the introduction of CE marking (around 2000), requires vessels to be approved by a surveyor. This together with the higher maintenance costs associated with older boats, makes them increasingly uneconomic to use, as seasonal revenues cannot support these additional costs. The replacement vessels are often based around rigid inflatable designs, which bear no resemblance to the West Country designs they replace, still use petrol or diesel engines and are most often imported. In addition, they provide no weather protection for the customers, which is an increasingly significant issue as the climate becomes wetter and windier, even in the summer months. The aim of this feasibility project is to design a boat optimised for the hire industry in tidal estuaries. Complete with traditional West Country design features, customer weather protection, and zero emission electric propulsion. It should also be suitable for recycling at the end of life unlike glass fibre composite boats, which end up abandoned on the shore or going to land fill at the council's expense. From our initial discussions with boat hire operators (who have in total more than 75 vessels in this class), and an online review of other hire company vessels, we believe this type of vessel would be ideal for the many local hire companies operating in tidal estuaries as well as those operating on in land waters in the UK. The West Country has an abundance of boatbuilding skills to locally manufacture this type of vessel. This feasibility phase will be to produce an initial design concept for a 5-6m vessel that meets these requirements. Then the design, specification and projected costs can be market tested with potential customers.
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