Set up your very own Electric boat hire fleet !
In the wake of the best summer in my memory running a small fleet of electric boats from a popular riverside pub has been a total pleasure. What has been even more gratifying is seeing hundreds of families enjoying our royal highway i.e. the River Thames. This is essentially a fabulous green resource running through the most highly populated part of Southern England within an hour of the capital city.
I would urge any local authority with a lake or any pub with river, canal or lake access to consider buying a few boats to bring in the customers. Even those who don’t want to take out a boat tend to linger longer watching the antics of customers boarding the boats. If you just ensure that the boats are well protected, as most people are novices, then even seeing the boats dock can be quite exciting !
We used a selection of boats this summer, one model from Canada (the Fantail 217), three from Ruban Bleu in France (Ace, Scoop and Most) and two old UK favourites, called Frolic 21s, built 25 years ago and still going strong. Canopies or biminis were essential to keep the sun’s rays off delicate passengers. It may of course be a different story next summer when canopies will be de rigueur for sheltering from the drizzle such are the vagaries of the summer climate in Britain.
As vendors of electric boats and probably the longest serving users of green propulsion in the UK I think we are in a great position to inform and educate the professionals as well as the general public. For two days in November (7th and 8th) Eboatique will be exhibiting at the Public Space Innovation show in Birmingham where we hope to inspire others to explore the possibility of starting up an electric boat hire fleet. We inspired a couple of guys to start a hire business in Paddington Basin two years ago and know that they have never looked back.
It is relatively simple to set up your own operation and we are here to help you to do this. With thirty years of experience you can be sure to find the right boats, a great on line booking system, bags of marketing savvy and a knowledgeable team ready and willing to help on the end of a phone.
