As well as being a historically significant heritage vessel today the VIC 32, fondly known as the Puffer, is making waves in the world of traditional steam-powered vehicles and vessels. After rigorous trials over a couple years, the summer of 2023 saw the 66 ft boat make the hugely significant step of transitioning to using rapeseed oil biofuel briquettes instead of coal to generate steam.
From April to mid-September every year the Puffer carries ten passengers every week exploring the beautiful waters and islands off the West Coast of Scotland. This business, alongside donations and occasional grants, generates the funds needed to maintain and preserve the boat.
The Puffer’s course from coal to rapeseed oil briquettes story starts in 2019 when Michael Gove, then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, published the ‘Clean Air Strategy 2019’ to reduce air pollution particulates particularly in urban areas. It stipulated that in a domestic environment you couldn’t burn wet wood and conventional coal which, in turn, started to precipitate the collapse of the domestic coal market.
In the act coal supplies for heritage steam trains, traction engines and boats were exempt, however with the dramatic decline of the domestic market there was no volume demand for output from the last of the small British coal mines. As a result, in 2019 various elements of the heritage industry (road, rail, maritime and craft metalworking) who previously didn’t really collaborate but who realised this was going to be a problem for everyone came together to form the Heritage Fuels Alliance.
For the first time this group quantified how much coal the heritage community consumes in this country – 35,000 tonnes every year. Not surprisingly the vast majority of this is by heritage steam railways. At the time there were bulk deliveries of coal coming into the UK from overseas, but mainly for industrial purposes and not good enough for heritage use. Consequently, some end users started looking for alternatives.
In terms of volume the Puffer consumes 90 tonnes a year and is in a hinterland between small narrow-gauge railways that burn 20-30 tonnes a year and the big steam railways that buy many hundreds of tonnes a year and who have existing contracts with the last few UK providers and significant power if buying overseas.
“We started to monitor what was going on in the coal market and think about what we may do. The Green lobby gave us the carrot and the lack of coal gave us the stick to start looking for alternatives,” says Jim Hay, First Mate and director of the Puffer Preservation Trust. “We decided we would rather be masters of our own destiny, start early and find a new biofuel fuel produced in the UK. If we were successful we would ensure we could stay in business cruising around the West Coast of Scotland which in turn allows us to preserve this splendid boat.”
So in 2019 Jim and Phil Robinson (also a PPT director) started to talk to the Phoenix Group in Nottingham which produces rapeseed oil by environmentally friendly cold-pressing, leaving a residue which is used as animal feed or pressed into briquettes for domestic fires. “We wanted to see if the briquettes could serve our needs,” says Jim. “Cold pressing leaves c11% of oil in the waste and that’s why it works on the Puffer. We are not just burning organic waste, the oil content gives it a calorific value.”
The onset of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 precipitated an energy crisis and, while restricting the supply of coal from Russia, further increased prices and competition for supply from other countries. Before the war the price per tonne was £270 delivered to Scotland. It rose to an eye-watering £630/tonne in August. Prices dropped a little in early 2023 to £530 tone for Columbian coal. “It gave us even greater impetus to find another fuel which we could rely on in terms of price and supply,” says Jim.
Following a break due to Covid, the Puffer resumed cruising in 2022 and tested seven different biofuels over the season, including a heritage blend comprising 50% ground coal waste and 50% ground olive stones which seemed to have potential but didn’t work at all well in the VIC 32’s design of boiler.
“We then trialled rapeseed oil briquettes from Phoenix through the Crinan Canal in May 2022 at low speed and low stress and it worked well,” says Jim. “We then carried on trialling down Loch Fyne to Tarbert at full steam and six knots. As a fuel it worked very well and produced enough steam to get us from A-B. However, we found that it burned very quickly and we were burning roughly double the tonnage per hour for the same performance compared to coal.”
The design of the Puffer’s boiler is unusual in heritage. It’s made of very thick steel plates so while it’s very robust the heat transference rate through the plates from the fire into the water is very slow. Plus, the design of the internal structure exposes only a small square footage of boiler to the heat. Consequently, with a fast burning fuel there isn’t much opportunity to get the heat into the water before it disappears up the funnel.
“That was one of our concerns using the Phoenix briquettes,” says Jim. “It performed well but we didn’t know how much energy we were losing up the funnel.” Over the winter of 2022/23 Jim and Phil conducted their own in-depth tests after which they asked Phoenix to produce a larger, denser briquette (4x4in instead of 2x2in) which they hoped would slow the burn rate.
“We were the first to trail these in a three-hour steam and it performed very well,” says Jim. “The larger blocks are more akin to coal and burn more slowly. The consumption /tonne /mile was only 31% more than coal and as our experience using it grows we expect to reduce this still further.”
The rapeseed oil briquettes cost £475 a ton, delivered. “Yes, it’s more than coal but there’s no point keeping an 80-year-old steamship going if you are not looking after the planet at the same time,” says Jim.
“Just trying to find enough coal in 2022 due to the war, supply issues and costs to keep her operating was very stressful. The rapeseed oil briquettes give us a dependable fuel source that is produced in the UK, so not susceptible to outside political forces, cost stable and eco sound.”
The summer of 2023 saw an important milestone in the life of the Puffer – 100% use of biofuel. Successfully and ahead of schedule. “We’ve found more benefits to using this biofuel,” says Jim.
“We don’t generate black smoke now so the boat (and our passengers!) will stay a lot cleaner. The coastguard will be happy as they will no longer get calls from people thinking we were on fire! Seriously, organisations who are providing funding for heritage projects increasingly want evidence of eco initiatives.
It’s been a lot of hard work but the trailblazing Puffer and her dedicated team have a lot to celebrate as they steam happily into the future.
