page_title: Electric boat
section_title: Wired electric boats
hierarchical_section_title: Electric boat / Types / Wired electric boats
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Fähre der Strausberger Eisenbahn auf dem Straussee
context_page_description: While a significant majority of water vessels are powered by diesel engines, with sail power and gasoline engines also popular, boats powered by electricity have been used for over 120 years. Electric boats were very popular from the 1880s until the 1920s, when the internal combustion engine became dominant. Since the energy crises of the 1970s, interest in this quiet and potentially renewable marine energy source has been increasing steadily, especially as more efficient solar cells have become available, for the first time making possible motorboats with an infinite range like sailboats. The first practical solar boat was probably constructed in 1975 in England. The first electric sailboat to complete a round-the-world tour, including a transit of the Panama Canal, using only green technologies is EcoSailingProject.
context_section_description: Trolley boats are a special category of electric boats are the vessels receiving their electrical power by wire. This may involve overhead wires, where one or two wires are fixed over the water and the boat can make contact with them to draw electric current, or a waterproof tether cable may be used to connect the boat to shore. In case of a single overhead wire the electrical circuit has to be closed by the water itself, giving rise to a larger resistance and corrosion of the electrodes. In case of two wires no electric current has to be sent through the water, but the twin wires, which cause a short-circuit whenever they come into contact with each other, complicate the construction.
  Naturally the boat has to stay close to the wire, or its tether point, and therefore it is limited in its maneuverability. For ferries and on narrow canals this is no problem. The Straussee Ferry in Strausberg, Germany is an example. It crosses a lake along a 370 m trajectory and is powered by 170 V from a single overhead wire. The Kastellet ferry crosses a 200 metres (660 ft) wide shipping channel in Sweden, using a submergable tethered supply cable which is lowered to the sea-bed when the ferry is docked at the opposite terminal to its tethering point.
  In the Mauvages tunnel on the Marne-Rhine Canal a bipolar overhead line provides 600 V DC to an electrical tug, pulling itself and several ships through the 4877 m tunnel along a submerged chain. This prevents the buildup of diesel exhaust fumes in the tunnel. Another example was the experimental electrical tug Teltow on the Kleinmachnower See, 17 km south-west of Berlin. It was used from 1903 till 1910 and had current collection poles based on those used on trolley buses.
caption: The electric ferry Steffi on the Straussee, 30 km east of Berlin.
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