Low impact navigation working group
Inland Waterways International’s Low Impact Navigation Working Group is promoting methods to accelerate the transition of personal and commercial watercraft used on inland waterways towards clean and sustainable propulsion systems.
Its audience is the boating public as well as commercial interests, corporations, and legislative agencies. Its goal is to provide information on the latest technologies and best practices to these audiences so that they can make the best-informed decisions about reducing carbon emissions on inland waterways vessels, be it for propulsion, heating, cooling or cooking.
Its geographical boundary is limited to inland waters, particularly large to medium-sized navigable rivers, lakes and canals, but no further out than coastal estuaries around the world. Its primary focus is on smaller vessels under 40m in length.
During a transitional period, the hybrid use of fossil and partly fossil energy carriers is inevitable; our ultimate goal is the contribution of boating on inland waterways to a clean and sustainable future.
We are realistic enough to understand that our goals will affect the interests of stakeholders invested in conventional technologies. However, we offer our assistance to anyone seeking help in making the transition in a way that allows stakeholders to stay in sync with the inevitable conversion to zero-emission propulsion technologies.
The group’s objectives were given a significant boost by the massive demonstration of progress in sustainable boat design and electric propulsion during the Paris Olympic Games Opening Ceremony on July 23, 2024.
Members of the group
Simon Boyde (Chair)
Simon is a naval architect and works in the UK marine industry designing low-impact inland waterway boats. He has a long family history of boats and boat building and a wide experience of the UK inland waterways dating back to the 1970s. He has a strong interest is in the promotion of the use of “retired” industrial canals for leisure purposes and adapting currently commercially available technologies to create low impact boats (and boaters). Simon is the immediate past Chair of the Hong Kong Boating Industry Association . He sits on the British Marine Inland Boatbuilding committee and the UK Government Environment Agency National Waterways Advisory Group. Simon took over as Chair of the Low Impact Navigation Group in late 2021.
Location: Leicestershire, UK
www.cadalcraft.co.uk
Paul Ayres (Vice-President, IWI)
Paul’s involvement with waterways started as a scout in 1965 when he assisted in moving a narrowboat from Birmingham to Uxbridge for the local authority to use as a community boat. He later chaired a youth and community boat scheme using two boats in Berkshire. In 1986 he and his wife acquired a full length working boat and developed a deep interest in commercial carrying. In 1995 they bought the butty boat that reunited the pair that had been built together in 1936. His career included a period as sales director of Marine Engine Services. He was a founder member of the Commercial Boat Operators Association, Paul is a fully qualified boatman for the Community Boat Association, is vice-president of IWI, representing its Council on this committee, and managed the IWI pavilion at the BOOT boat show in Düsseldorf from 2016 to 2020.
Location: Windsor, UK
Francesco Calzolaio
Architect Francesco Calzolaio works for an accessible, participatory and sustainable Venice lagoon, together with the main stakeholders, including Magistrato alle Acque, the Province and the City of Venice, the Management Office of the UNESCO site “Venice and its Lagoon”, Council of Europe, Navy and with the association of which he is president, Venti di Cultura. Since its guide to lagoon museums for the Province of Venice in 2003, he promotes a network of sustainable water carriers, as an alternative to excessively polluting and concentrated tourism. Since 2012 he has been coordinator of the committee for the eco-museum of the entire lagoon, as a network of 20 local associations, and of the 9 all municipalities that overlook it. In 2015, he designed a widespread system of “slow tourism” landings for the UNESCO office. Furthermore, as an entrepreneur, guide and skipper, he offers services for cultural and sustainable tourism. He is the ‘man in Venice’ of IWI and VA2028, for whom he coordinates the activity of the e-regatta Committee locally.
Location: Venice, Italy
Malcolm Bridge
Malcolm Bridge is from the UK. He trained as a chemist but gained engineering experience during a career in textiles Research & Development. Boating began with family hire-cruiser holidays in the 50s, ownership in 1975 when he started fitting a 30′ narrowboat shell. A second, self-fitted boat followed in 2003, with the fully-fitted, all-electric Ampère in 2015. Membership of the UK IWA’s Sustainable Boating Group was natural in the light of having helped design Ampère. He has also been involved in voluntary canal restoration as a member of the Waterway Recovery Group, including being a board member for about 20 years.
Peter Jacops
Born in Ghent, Belgium and currently living in Phuket, Thailand
Peter Jacops main work consists of certifying boats and to provide boat builders a CE approval for their boats to be sold in Europe. He graduated as an officer chief engineer at the nautical academy in Antwerp
Peter Jacops is also passionate about alternative propulsion and was already involved in electric propulsion in 2005 as Torqeedo’s first African dealer in Cape Town, he was awarded an industry achievement prize for the first hybrid boat build by deaf learners of his Whisper Boat Building Academy and designed award-winning electrical propulsion floating soccerball boats for the 2010 soccer world cup.
His company, WAWA Creations Ltd Pty, designs and builds boats in HDPE, a 100% recyclable material. The WAWA Coastal Cleaner, also available with electric propulsion, is a unique design for cleaning up the coast and inland waterways.
Andreas Apostolopoulos
Electrical engineer from ATEI Chalcis, was born and studied in Aigio and graduated in 1998 from the Military Faculty of Telecommunications (S.E.T.TIL.). He began his career with Alstom- AEG, where he manufactured specialised instruments for mobile telephone companies and substations. Continuing his specialisation in evolved electronic systems in Intrakom Group, he planned and manufactured the Defensive Directed Missile System Patriot for the Greek Armed Forces. In 2004, he joined the German company Carl Zeiss Optronics Gmbh for further qualification on their Leopard 2 Hel project, and in 2006, he joined the Lamia Polytechnic Colleges, Aerospace Engineering department. In 2007, he created his own technical company, Iliofos Co, to manufacture, study and supervise electric–hybrid cars and public transportation. Assignments included electromechanical public works, Industrial buildings and privately owned photovoltaic applications. His project for transforming public transport vehicles from internal combustion to electric or hybrid drive was selected in 2009 by the Smilies programme of the European Union, and in 2011, he began a collaboration with leading companies in the field, such as NetGain Motors, Logena Automotive and UQM Technologies. His love of the sea and Greece places him at the forefront of initiatives to help his homeland. In 2016, he created the Organisation of Electric Boats of Greece, ‘EBA Greece’, of which he was elected chairman.
Location: Athens, Greece
Hans Thornell
Hans Thornell is a Naval Architect from Sweden and a Lieutenant Commander in the Swedish Navy. He has worked as an international management consultant for most of his over 40 years of business career. He is now back in shipping as the founder and CEO of Green City Ferries, which started its operations by buying the old ship Movitz and rebuilding it into the world’s first supercharged electric ferry in 2014. It still operates as a 100-passenger commuter ferry in Stockholm and charges in 10 minutes. The next breakthrough was the launching of the BB Green prototype in 2016. The vessel is still the world’s fastest electric ferry, making 28 knots with 80 passengers. Since then, a commercial 147-passenger version, BB Green 24, has been developed and is now ready for the market.
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Website: www.greencityferries.com
E-mail: hans@greencityferries.com
The solar-powered catamaran Ekovolna during her 6000km voyage through the Russian river and canal system in 2018.