Bow Thruster on 55C??

[Airpilot]

For what its worth, we have a 60 ft. sportfish and my wife and I generally handle the boat ourselves. I can put the stern anywhere I want but the bow will fall off in a big wind so a thruster is mighty handy. I have never regretted the thruster and would rank it #2 behind the stabilizers.

 

[captddis]

A lot has to do with where the boat is berthed and how good the crew is. In a fairly tight slip there is no need, but a slip with no outboard pilings it is handy.
Then most of us boat with our wives, Most mine included are not very good cowboys and have a hard time lasooing the piling. Being able to hold the bow against the piling avoids a lot of drama and makes the mate less nervous about getting the loop on fast.
They are a help getting off of a side tie. I usually pivot out against a piling but often there is a powerpole or ladder in the way that keeps you from pivoting enough and most have pulpits with anchors that are easy to catch when backing out after a pivot.

I do not have a thruster but if I had one I would use it.

 

[Pascal]

no chest pounding, just trying to make Habanero realize what once he gets over the "this is big" factor he really will not need the BT unless his slip is really in a bad spot....

we've all been at this stage, getting on a new boat, larger, heavier, and had doubts about our abilities.

personally, i find that adding one or two extra controls to jugle is more of a distraction than anything else... Couple of years ago I was hit by my neighbor who was coming back in, bow in, using his thruster to help turn in. he explained to me that he got confused juggling both trannies plus the joystick. I felt real bad since he's a real nice guy and he was devasted about the cracked rail.


"I have yet to be able to come up with a strategy using lines that will easily allow me to exit the dock without the risk of draggin the stern against the dock. I am having the boat repainted this winter and worry about expensive touch ups."

TG. I never leave a side tie bow first, even with no wind. always always always stern first. If you have wooden pilings, you can pivot the boat off the pilings. If there are no pilings, i but a couple of 18" or 24" ball fenders and pivot the bow against the fenders. With twins you dont' even need a spring line, just put the dock side engine in reverse, offside in forward, rudders hard over towards the dock. Once the boat is at a 45 degree angle, put the second engine in reverse too, center the rudders and back out.

I do that all the time, it's bullet proof, even when on a boat with thrusters.


As to simplistically comparing thursters to GPS and other things, there are huge differences... Price obviously, for most of us $15k is fairly large expense on a boat, but then you have to deal with the extra maintenance incl. the additional batteries, charging system, etc...

this is why, unless one is routinely facing tricky situations, thrusters are not necessarily the answer.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

I don't have a thruster and I guess I don't know what I'm missing since I have never handled a boat that has one. These are heavy boats and they generally stay where to put them. I wouldn't consider adding one to my boat because of cost, weight, drag, and lack of 32v units. That said, if the boat already had one, I'd most certainly use it. Anything that makes a boat easier to handle is welcome.

It all comes down to what you feel comfortable with. If you're unsure of your ability to handle the boat, you won't be having fun doing it.

 

[luckydave215]

Here's the hot news from the west coast for our east coast brothers.....ALL of our docks are floating because of our 9+ foot tidal range, and we don't have pilings except the concrete one at the end of each finger that your bow will scrape if you try to pivot off a dock by splitting the clutches while backing out. The fingers are usually only three feet or less wide, so the bow on a big sportfish will easily reach across to hit the boat on the other side if you aren't straight in the slip at all times. Also, most slips are double and the marina owners cram the boats in, so there's no room to pivot in the first place even if you wanted to. Having 3~4 feet between your rail and your slip mate's is all too typical.
Further, Habanero's new 55C is much smaller, and likely handier, than the HUGE Mikelson he had before, so "afraid of the big boat" isn't the issue here. Our marina is aligned so the prevaling wind is angled to our slips, and the tidal current can run 3 knots directly sideways to the slips (yes, we're a few slips away from each other in the same marina).
Until you deal with these conditions on a routine basis, you're not going to understand.

 

[Skip]

If you can afford it, a bow thruster makes sense when your slip is in close proximity to other boats, and you have a beam current or wind. Without a BT, you most certainly will touch a neighbor boat under these conditions. However, under good conditions, a BT is normally not needed, and will be viewed as a waste of money by some.

To me, the decision largely depends upon what conditions you expect to normally operate the boat. If you plan on traveling a lot to different marinas, or our have a challenging slip in your homeport, a BT makes a lot of sense.

Years ago I had a single engine (inboard) 31' fishing boat with a bow thruster. The PO had put the smallest BT available from Sideways in it, and it was a waste of money. The unit could not overcome the effects of a moderate wind, and it would overheat after about 20 seconds of use. If you do put in a BT, recommend you consider installing the largest BT you can put in the boat.

The other thing to consider is if you think you will ever need fin stabilizers, there are some "reasonablly" priced stabilizer-bow thruster units that share a common hydrolic system. These system will not overheat very easily.

I also agree with the comments above that if you can learn how to handle your boat in tight quarters, 99 percent of the time you will not need a BT.
Good luck, and let us know what you decide.

 

[Pete]

For what its worth, we have a 60 ft. sportfish and my wife and I generally handle the boat ourselves. I can put the stern anywhere I want but the bow will fall off in a big wind so a thruster is mighty handy. I have never regretted the thruster and would rank it #2 behind the stabilizers.

Our boat is smaller, with a lot less power, but my opinion is the same as Airpilot. I will only add that "a bow thruster can never be too powerful". If you install one, use the largest capacity you can fit in the space you have.

Pete

 

[Pascal]

"Until you deal with these conditions on a routine basis, you're not going to understand."

Dave,

this is exactly why i included the following in each of my post on this topic:

"Unless you routinely dock in areas where danger lurks"
"unless his slip is really in a bad spot"
"this is why, unless one is routinely facing tricky situations, thrusters are not necessarily the answer."

 

[GJH]

I guess I'll weigh in here, well, just for the sake of weighing in. I agree with luckydave and Brian on this one. People have different environments to deal with, different crew (with different abilities and different trainability), and different personal levels of hand-eye coordination. Spending money on something that makes boating pleasurable given those various factors is money very well spent. For many of us, this isn't a rodeo contest, or challenge to our manhood, it is Pleasure Boating, in that order.

My boat came with a thruster, and though we took the time to make sure it was rated correctly for the boat and worked within specs (continuous duty cycle), I personally didn't assign any particular extra value to it. With the exception of one Grand Banks we chartered, all the twins I'd ever used didn't have them.

When we had to move the boat from an odd slip over to a slightly tricky- to-approach lift as part of the survey, my broker, an extremely experienced captain and Hatteras handler, was elected to do the job, being something of a legend.
He hammered that thruster like an eager game show participant hitting the buzzer. After I got the boat, I had another very experienced pro captain, who had done a lot of the work on the boat as well as delivered it a few times, take a half a day and show me best practices for handling it. He too used the thruster with alacrity. They both gave me the same answer when I made comment/question to the effect of "gee I thought you pros didn't need to use those 'cheaters'": "Hell yeah, I'm gonna use it, if it's there and gets what ya wanna get done better, USE the SOB! They're great!"
One of the guys went on to say "I can do everything I did today on one engine too, but it'd pretty dumb not to use both of them, wouldn't it?" Of course, we went on to do some one engine exercises too, which I had some forced experience with earlier in my career.

I have to admit, I don't use the thruster very much, though often times I should, and I always have it on and ready when near the docks. It has come in extremely handy in a few situations. I am an average boat handler at best; I have mild dyslexia, so am one of those like Pascal mentioned that adding the extra element sometimes can confuse things, so I forget to use it.

So I guess my advice is get some experience using one if you can, and if it makes life a whole lot more fun for you, go for it. You'll have plenty of company amongst the grizzled pros as well as us pleasure wussies.

Oh, and what Pete said on size. Go "up one" on thrust power if you can.

 

[sandspur1966]

Opinions on thrusters crack me up. As a former captain of ocean-going tugs, owner of numerous vessels of varying size including my present 58 Hatt (sans thruster) I have experience with them and without them.

I agree that as master, running a boat without the skill level to operate it without a thruster is just foolhardy (and frankly the same can be said for the ability to operate a twin screw vessel if you cant dock it under one main) I think advising someone NOT to get a valuable tool out of some sense of misplaced machismo is absurd.

If you can afford one and install it correctly, do it... You will find that it just makes life easier in little ways that you never noticed before.

For me, I choose easier. And as far as resale value... if that question were really the pivotal factor... would any of us own a yacht? Hatteras or not?

 

[ron6785]

Like I said earlier in familiar conditions like your home port you probably will never need a bow or stern thruster, but while cruising in a variety of situations they really make it much more convient to dock and get away from the dock. The reason bigger is better is that when you need the thrusters its generally in bad or windy conditions so they need to get the boat to respond quickly or they will heat up and shut down. You generally only use them in short bursts of 5 to 10 seconds. Again, I have a My so sail area is a problem. My thrusters do not heat up as long as I keep the bursts at 15 seconds or less.

We have many purists in our YC always po poing thrusters, but when we actually have gone on a cruise with some of these manly men every time we come into port we're running around throwing them lines and fending them off piers other boats etc.

I paid about 16k for both by bow and stern and that included 4 agm batteries to power them.

 

[MikeP]

Yeah, the most important thing to realize is that weenies use bow thrusters; real men do not. It's simply a matter of which you choose to be.

So let's don't make it into something complicated, just cut to the real issue and get on with it.

 

[sandspur1966]

Now THAT's funny!

Oh and that would be MISTER Weenie to you Mike!

Thanks for the laugh.

 

[Brian Degulis]

Yeah, the most important thing to realize is that weenies use bow thrusters; real men do not. It's simply a matter of which you choose to be.

So let's don't make it into something complicated, just cut to the real issue and get on with it.

I find your post offensive to the highest degree!!!!!!!

OSCAR MEYER