21 March 2007

Canberra's electric boat

| johnboy
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Fearless techno utopian, Tom Worthington, has been back in Canberra and is enthused about the E.L. Cygnet which cruises our very own Lake Burley Griffin.

The small boat is an early 20th century design and originally had a one cylinder steam engine. But that took a lot of maintenance and was changed to batteries and an electric motor.

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Cool, never knew the term!

Shallow draft even.

Vic Bitterman10:03 pm 21 Mar 07

It also doesn’t ride very low

The term you are after here Xan is ‘draft’.

This vessel sounds like it has a low draft.

There ya go, you’ve been learned.

I’ve been on the Cygnet a couple of times, going for a cruise up the molonglo and around black mountain peninsula looking at nesting cormorants and darters. A terrific way to see the lake. A cosy, comfortable boat that is essentially silent (compared to some cruddy old diesel anyway). It also doesn’t ride very low so you can get to shallower parts of the lake and river.

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