Bow Thruster Manufacturer opinions

[bowball]

I saw that Sleipner Sidepower makes a serial parallel switch box to convert 12v boats to use 24v thrusters.

Their description: "This switch box enables the installation of 24V thrusters in boats with a 12V system. With an additional 12V battery, you supply 24V for the thruster’s operation, while all batteries are charged by your normal 12V system when the thruster is not running. The reliability of this fully automatic system has been proven in hundreds of boats over many years."

"The Side-Power series/parallel switch box have been designed to provide a safe and reliable 24V power for a 24V thruster in a 12V boat.
It has been specially designed and built to accommodate for the high current demands of an elec- tric thruster and are available in two versions, one for the SE170TC and one for the SP240TC.
It is also designed so that there is no need for additional charging devices and connections, the extra battery will be automatically charged by the “original” charge feed in the boat for the stand- ard battery (battery bank) that are being used as “Batt.1”.
There are no need to install 2 special battery banks as one of the boats “standard” banks can be used as Batt.1, preferably the start battery bank as this is “always” full. The start battery bank is also preferred as there are normally no electronics that can be knocked out by a voltage drop or peak caused by all heavy electromtotors such as a thruster."

That might be an interesting solution for those installing the larger thrusters.

Has anyone used one of these?

https://www.defender.com/pdf/sidepower_brochure.pdf

It seems it takes your 12 volt wiring and charges a 12v battery and on demand converts that to 24v for the thruster/windlass, as opposed to taking your 12v wiring to a converter that charges a 24v battery.

What's the advantage/disadvantage of the two alternatives?

 

[Jeff F]

I have a 5HP Wesmar which is anemic on the Nordic 42. Only useful when almost dead calm. The 42 handles well with rudder, prop walk and spring lines so the bow thruster is mostly unused. 10 HP is the min for this size boat.

Tom

I don't know whether this is your case, but based on reading many threads here over the years my sense is that a lot of the complaints over anemic thruster performance can be traced back to inadequate installation or tired/undersized batteries.

The 7.5 hp Vetus BT on my current boat worked OK when I got it, but performance improved markedly when I installed a new dedicated 1700 CCA battery pack with a short run of 4/0 cable to replace the old cabling from the house bank. It doesn't seem at all undersized now on my 50' 17 ton boat.

I'd encourage the OP to think of any new thruster install as a system, with the choice of batteries, cabling and charging as important as the thruster itself. Going bigger has its costs, and in a 30-40' boat I'd argue that 10+ hp is overkill.

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[Jeff F]

I don't know whether this is your case, but based on reading many threads here over the years my sense is that a lot of the complaints over anemic thruster performance can be traced back to inadequate installation or tired/undersized batteries.

The 7.5 hp Vetus BT on my current boat worked OK when I got it, but performance improved markedly when I installed a new dedicated 1700 CCA battery pack with a short run of 4/0 cable to replace the old cabling from the house bank. It doesn't seem at all undersized now on my 50' 17 ton boat.

I'd encourage the OP to think of any new thruster install as a system, with the choice of batteries, cabling and charging as important as the thruster itself. Going bigger has its costs, and in a 30-40' boat I'd argue that 10+ hp is overkill.




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[Jeff F]

It seems it takes your 12 volt wiring and charges a 12v battery and on demand converts that to 24v for the thruster/windlass, as opposed to taking your 12v wiring to a converter that charges a 24v battery.

What's the advantage/disadvantage of the two alternatives?

I had a similar system, and took it out when I built a dedicated battery bank to support my 24v thruster.

Just as a minor correction, two 12v batteries are required. This isn't a transformer, but rather a series/parallel switch. In parallel the two batteries supply 12v and in series they supply 24v. So they allow a pair of batteries to do double duty, supplying 12v or 24v depending on the switch position.

In my case, I rewired to include a pair of starting AGM batteries dedicated to the 24v thruster, and wanted them to have their own charger to ensure optimal battery health. My house batteries are 6v GC, and so I wanted separate charging profiles for the house and thruster banks.

Since I had no intention of drawing 12v from the thruster bank the switch became redundant. And given that I was installing a new charger, it was an easy choice to remove the switch, wire the pack in series and charge at 24v. In my case there was no advantage in switching back to parallel just to facilitate charging once the decision was made to install the dedicated charger.

I can see value in some cases. There was a recent thread on powering a 12v windlass from the 24v thruster bank, and this would be a good solution for that.







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[Seevee]

I've had both Side Power (mostly) and Side Shift. Both good and have one of each on the current boat and they work together fine.


The Side Shift tech support was second to none when I wanted to use the same controls (different paddles) for both thrusters, plus the remote. Side Shift is wireless, so a bit easier to install.


I did upgrade my props on the Side Power to the new 5 blade ones, and made a difference.

 

[rgano]

Here's a novel bow thruster design worthy of consideration. Merry Merry

That is freaking hilarious!!!

I have some experience with a hydraulic BT, and I must say, I liked it very much. No run-time limits and variable power too.

My own MS 30 Pilot has the smallish 12-volt powered Side-Power SP55 mounted, and it can supposedly be run for up to three minutes, but I tyoically might run it for a handful of seconds. Recently, after what I am guessing to be 16 years of use, it became a bit sluggish due to carbon build-up around the brushes. The support from Side Power was extremely good. While brushes for my motor were no longer available, and new motor was, but the tech suggested a simple cleaning would resolve the issue. A full aerosol can of CRC Electronic Cleaner later has it running like a champ.

 

[Yachtman]

Alfa Mike,
Are you an Alfisti?

 

[carpedatum]

Check out DockStar - we had two on our 34' CHB Trawler and it could spin on a dime, hold the boat against the slip, easy to install and MUCH less cost than other brands. No extra batteries, wiring etc.

https://www.dockstarthrusters.com

We have a few owners in our area from 34' to 44' that have DockStars.

Seconded. Randall at DockStar was among the most helpful people I spoke with on my thruster selection journey, and I would definitely recommend looking into them. The very '80s pointy-bow-yacht styling of our boat meant I couldn't practically use a DockStar out there, but Randall was super-frank about that and his reasoning. I will definitely look again at DockStar if our next boat needs thrusters. If you can use DockStar, you'd save a ton of time and effort over virtually every other option.

 

[backinblue]

I only wish the water in my home slip was smooth as glass like in the DockStar video! Nice idea and maybe I would try rather than cutting a hole in my boat, but many others here claim that thrusters are often under-powered so I'd have to question how well DockStar can move a boat against wind and current when you really need them to.

 

[oguidry]

I really like the Sidepower RC20 remote control for my bow and stern thrusters, especially when single handed.