Stirling Engine Boats

Why a Stirling Engine
You have a small boat on an inland canal, lake or river?
Could Stirling engine power be the best choice?

Electric boats just deliver less and less as time goes by.
It’s not the electric motor, it’s the batteries. Batteries just decline with time.
You have to choose between shorter trips to keep the speed up, or slower trips to keep the same cruising distance.

Petrol outboards are usually so loud that it is hard to hear anyone.
Petrol engines really dislike damp conditions and rely on well charged batteries to get them started.
Diesel engines are better vs damp - but really do need good batteries to get them started.

Stirling engines are powered by a gas burner. The noise level of a Stirling is about the same as a gas hob.
There are no explosions and silencers are not needed.
With “blue flame” burning, there are no carbon monoxide or nitrous oxide fumes. And LPG in the UK is extremely cheap.
So starting is a matter of lighting a gas hob. Yes, the LPG tank has to be refilled. But it stays full – unlike a battery.

The Stirling engine is very simple. With as low as two moving parts, there are far, far fewer things to go wrong.
Come Spring, all that is needed to get the boat going, is to open the gas tap and light the burner.

Stirling engines are not widely available. But a 1kW engine (1.3 HP) is sold by Microgen of the Netherlands.
1.3 HP is quite enough to power my 16 ft open boat "Stirling Electric" on the river Thames in the UK.

The contact at Microgen is Gerwin Lubbers - gerwin.lubbers@microgen-engine.com

"Stirling Electric" has cruised for 5 days on an 8 litre refillable LPG gas bottle.
This boat works well.

Whilst Philips and General Motors were talking mega car deals,
the Philips engineers were pushing something else.
This photo dates from the 1970s?