00:00 [Music]
00:13 I'm Alistair Dalton from the Scotsman.
00:16 I've ridden on electric bikes, tried electric scooters and driven electric cars,
00:20 but this is a new one for me.
00:22 An electric boat on the Forth and Clyde Canal at the Kelpies in Thorcoke.
00:28 [Music]
00:46 Here we've got our e-boats which we're piloting down here.
00:48 I had them at Falkirk last year and we're going to give them a shot here at the Kelpies.
00:52 What you can do is you can take them from this point here all the way up to Lock 3,
00:55 which is by the visitor centre and you get a half an hour on the boats
00:59 and you can tour around, get a backdrop of the Kelpies for some fantastic photos.
01:03 One of our instructors, Rebecca, who we have out in the water today,
01:06 will give you all the instructions that you need to go out in the boat and handle the boats.
01:10 They've been really popular, so everybody that's been on them, the feedback's been terrific.
01:13 You can go from the Falkirk wheel down to Bonny Bridge and back.
01:16 It's really good that you can take out a couple of family members
01:18 and just tour up and back yourselves without relying on one of our staff.
01:22 There's certainly other potential, so we could look at the likes of Winchburne,
01:26 we could look at other options across the central belt canals, the Fortinclide and Union Canal,
01:31 and possibly even up at the Caledonian Canal as well.
01:34 We'll be running them at the Falkirk wheel right the way through the winter, weather dependent.
01:38 So provided there's no ice in the canal and the weather's favourable,
01:41 you can hire them at the Falkirk wheel throughout.
01:43 You find that people are a bit iffy at the start.
01:47 They seem to be like, "Oh," and then put the power on too much or don't put the power on enough.
01:51 But when they come back from their trip, you ask them how it went and stuff,
01:56 and they went, "Oh yeah, we got the hang of it, it just took a couple of tries."
01:59 So it is quite hard or iffy at the start to get used to it,
02:04 but it's just like anything, riding a bike, anything.
02:07 If you're on the boat with, say, an 18-year-old, then a 16-year-old is allowed to use it,
02:13 as well as if you want your child, as long as they're over the age of five, eight,
02:18 and they know what they're doing, you can let them have a wee shot of just twisting it to let the power go.
02:23 This is definitely completely different to any job I've had.
02:27 My previous jobs have either been in retail or in hospitality.
02:33 This is a mixture of both, but I've always loved it outdoors, so getting a job in that industry,
02:39 doing the thing that I love, is completely better than a previous job that I've had,
02:46 because it's something that I grew up with and I'm now finally doing it as my full-time job,
02:51 so there's nothing that could make me happier, essentially.
02:55 Coming to work happy and leaving happy is the best thing that you can do.
02:59 So quite a new experience. These electric boats are pretty zippy.
03:03 You put on the power and they really start to move.
03:07 I had a little bit of a problem trying to manoeuvre into dock,
03:11 but I'm sure after a bit longer I could do that more proficiently.
03:15 But certainly a fun activity to try out.
03:20 [Music plays]
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