There is nothing new about Eboating. These silent sleek wooden boats first appeared in significant numbers from 1880 as a welcome change from the smoky, polluting, energy hungry steam boat. Their popularity declined as the internal combustion engine appeared to offer limitless range once an infrastructure for refuelling was in place.

In 1881 Gustav Trouve launched his elegant design on a small lake within the International Electricity Exhibition in Paris. Transport to the show from the Place de la Concorde was via electric tram. One might say that the science of electrical engineering started there and then. It was an Austrian, Antony Reckenzaun who was chief engineer of the Electric Power Storage Company in London who brought this technology to London. The EPS company started manufacturing batteries on a commercial scale and in 1882 a boat aptly named ‘Electricity’ cruised from Millwall in East London to London Bridge and back running at 8 knots.

For the next thirty years or so electric propulsion was the obvious choice for pleasure boating on the Thames and on other major inland waterways in Europe and the USA.