In recent years, bow thrusters have become ubiquitous; most new cruising powerboats have them either already installed or as options. There is no question that they make docking easier (and I say that as the former owner of a Grand Banks 36 that did not have one), but they also can introduce problems of their own, particularly in an era of pod drives and joystick controls.
They introduce new electrical or hydraulic systems on the boat; they require some degree of care and maintenance, and they can (in my experience, at least) occasionally not provide enough power to move the boat in a heavy wind or current. There also are many types of thrusters on the new boat and retrofit market. Here’s a thorough look at bow thrusters in the real world from the experts at Lyman-Morse:
Bow thrusters, like politics, drive intense debate. Some boat owners argue that a lateral port or starboard nudge is indispensable when docking. Others contend that a thruster’s complexities of cut-out tunnels, drop-down props, batteries and cables are unneeded drag, weight, and cost. Some believe that good design and boat handling skills should eliminate the need for a bow thruster.
Still, bow and the larger family of maneuvering thrusters are undeniably popular: Roughly 50 percent of all 30- to 65-foot recreational yachts feature a bow thruster, according to Southern Boating Magazine. Factor in sophisticated transverse propulsion systems on larger vessels and low-cost externally mounted thrusters found on smaller boats, and the bow thruster market certainly gets far larger.
Not surprisingly, Lyman-Morse has designed and installed countless maneuvering thruster systems. But interestingly, of the several hundred power and sail boats we service annually or have built, perhaps 3 out of 10 feature the technology. In fact, on our newly announced LM46 Performance Cruiser, a bow thruster is an option; but not a recommended one. The LM46 program is in the school of good design, and good boat handling, means there is no need.
On the currently in-construction Hood 57, bow thrusters were essentially rendered obsolete: The vessel features twin, counter-rotating propellers and individually steerable propulsion modules, as part of the Volvo Penta IPS1350 Pod drive technology. The boat pivots with a touch of a joystick.
Picnic Boat Pairing
But, on over 1,200 JetStick-controlled Hinckley Picnic Boats, bow thrusters play a critical role. “When we first introduced those boats, it was very difficult to harness the jet drive’s authority at low speed. You never knew where neutral was,” says Shepard “Shep” McKenney, the serial marine entrepreneur who led the team that developed the JetStick technology for Hinckley in the mid 1990s. “But once we installed a bow thruster, we gained infinite fingertip control over the jets, and we never sold a boat without one.” Read more:
https://www.lymanmorse.com/march-dispatches-bow-thruster-debate-safety-at-sea/#bow-thrusters
