Cooling barges/narrowboats engines

[benjj]

I'm just sat having a coffee next to the canal on my way home and one of the barges has been running its diesel for a good half hour now without moving an inch.

Obviously its not using a car type radiator/fan method of cooling.

What's happening down there? Is it drawing cool water in from the canal, using it to cool the engine and then spraying it out again?

Obviously I'm a narrowboat novice.

[TTwiggy]

Yep, 'fresh' water cooled. Boat engines suck up their coolant via an impeller/pump.

[Fishtigua]

A lot of canal boats are keel cooled. It's like a big rad that runs under the boat's hull exchanging engine heat into the surrounding water.

[eldar]

Either of the above, plus possibly air cooled. The engines use very little fuel and produce minimal waste heat. Typically 15hp to 50hp.

[benjj]

Excellent, thanks gents, learn something new every day.

[williredale]

I hired a canal boat earlier this year and the water was heated by the engine. If you wanted a shower you needed to have the engine running or have just run it and have a quick shower.

[Simpo Two]

I wish cruisers had hull/keel cooling. Relying on river water is a terrible weak link, exposing you to weed clogging/overheating/breakdowns in summer and freezing/cracking in winter such that people just abandon their boats for 3-5 months of the year. It's a bit like a 2014 car with 1920s technology inside.

[spitfire-ian]

Ours is cooled by a skin tank.

You can just see it to the top left with the bleed vent in this picture.



However lots are air cooled and these tend to have cooling vents around where the engine is. Others are raw water cooled and these are obvious by the used water spurting out the side.

I have seen setups which use radiators and fans but these are normally bodges added to combat other cooling issues.

[Tom_C76]

Not sure about the suggestion that they're not making much heat. Mine runs a 12 square ft skin tank and still runs at 90 celcius on a warm day. I burn 1.5L / hr of diesel in a 3l engine.