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Old 09-14-2014, 12:21 AM   #14
Irish Rambler
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City: NARBONNE
Vessel Name: 'Snow Mouse.'
Vessel Model: BROOM FLYBRIDGE 42.
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,733
May I explain a related modification I've just completed you may find useful.
The problem arose when I bought another boat and wanted a bow thruster, I had watched a skipper trying to moor his boat in a marina, he had twin engines with 2 throttle controls, 2 gear controls, bow and stern thruster controls and basically it was like watching a farmer trying to ride a race horse, you can guess the result, he got all flustered, cocked it up and hit another boat causing damage to his, and the other boat.
I always try to improve my close quarter handling skills and have never caused any damage, and hopefully never will.
I came up with the idea of fitting singe handed controls to eliminate this.
I used a CH 74 series single lever Morse control and used the trim switch for the bow thruster giving me one handed control over 3 operations, gear, throttle and thruster.
I discussed this with Parks Masterson at Hopcar marine via this forum, he was very helpful and supportive unlike the so called 'engineers' at my local Morse distributor,he also supplied me with the controls.
From personal experience I recommend his company highly, I live in France and Ireland and he's in the USA, I have no financial connection other than to recommend him from a very satisfied customers viewpoint.
Here's what I have done.
I replaced the normal Morse single lever with a CH 74 series Morse control with trim switch, the only slight hitch was that the Vetus bow thruster controls had 4 wires, the Morse had 3 so I used a changeover switch between upper and lower helms to fix that.
Sea trials have proved this to be a resounding success and a child of 5 (figuratively speaking) could helm the boat, it's so simple.
I hope you find this is helpful, all donations to my retirement fund please and I'll spend it on the very best Irish Whiskey (we need the exports)and loose women, I'll blow the rest.
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