Why Not a Thruster?
There’s no denying that joystick
controls have a cool factor, but
think about it: Maneuvering with the
engines, especially in tough condi-
tions, takes a lot of power and puts a
lot of stress on the machinery. You’re
fi ghting leverage to turn the boat,
even more so with closely mounted
outboards. But there’s another way,
simpler and less expensive: Install a
powerful thruster at both ends of the
boat, and you can spin to your heart’s
content without taxing the engines
and steering. I like the thrusters sold
by Yacht Thruster, a division of The
Yacht Group in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
They’re built by Sleipner, the company
that also builds Side-Power thrusters.
These are external thrusters, bow
and stern, making them easy to install,
and sealed, so they require virtually
no maintenance. The bow thrusters lie
along the centerline, out of the water
when the boat’s on plane, and adding
minimal resistance when running
slow—no more than a thruster tube.
All that’s required is a 2-inch mount-
ing hole and a pair of ¼-inch holes for
steadying rods so the thruster doesn’t
spin when activated. Yacht Thrusters’
stern thrusters bolt to the transom, like
most stern thrusters, but have more
powerful motors than most. Being ex-
ternal, the thrusters are water-cooled,
and can be run continuously for up to
10 minutes at maximum power. They
draw about half the power of other
electric thrusters, too. Yacht Thrusters
has bow and stern thrusters for boats
up to 70 feet.
The thrusters can be controlled by a
joystick or touchpad at the helm, or re-
motely with a Yacht Controller wireless
remote that’ll work from anywhere
on board, and for at least 20 feet
beyond the rails in all directions, so
you can use the thrusters to hold the
boat against the dock while you step
ashore to rig lines and fenders—great
for single- and short-handed cruising.
Yacht Controllers—there are several
models—can also be connected to
electronic controls and steering from
most manufacturers, including those
from The Yacht Group, using plug-and-
play technology that’s easy to install.
They will also control an anchor wind-
lass. The Fusion model remote has its
own joystick that’ll do everything the
one at the helm will. A joystick you can
carry around? That has a pretty good
cool factor, too.
BOATYARD TIP
Mid-Summer
Tune-Up
Vibration, galvanic corrosion, calcium buildup—oh my! Why not take a few
minutes this coming weekend and give your boat a once-over?.N
ot long aft er I purchased the
Betty Jane II and brought her
down to Florida, I got in touch
with a Yanmar mechanic, a
really good one, and asked him
to make a close inspection of Betty’s 240-hp
diesel engine. Yeah, I’d had an “engine guy”
do a basic examination as part of the pre-
purchase survey in Connecticut but what
I was hoping to extract from a designated
Yanmar mechanic were specifi c details and
assurances that his more generalistic col-
league had not had the time or the expertise
to provide.
Mr. Yanmar put a full morning in. And
he wound up making a suggestion or two
concerning the continuing health of my
turbocharger, discovered the source of a
modest oil leak and, with great diplomacy,
remarked upon my engine’s overall cleanli-
ness. “You know,” he noted, “you can hose
an engine off with fresh water aft er you use
a little marine degreaser.”
But the most remarkable thing the guy
did seemed just a bit insignifi cant to me—at
least at fi rst. Toward the tail end of his stint
in my ER, he put a ratchet wrench on one
of the hose clamps nesting at the top of my
primary fuel fi lter and asked me to try turn-
ing it. What resulted was memorable. While
both the screw and the clamp itself had
looked secure to me, neither was even close.
More to the point, both were so loose that I
had to put three or four turns on the screw
before the hose underlying the clamp even
began to feel snug around its barbed fi tting.
“Funny—the eff ect that constant vibration
can have on hose clamps,” the Yanmar me-
chanic observed while going on to tighten
every other hose clamp he could fi nd.
Of course, loose hose clamps aren’t the only
thing worth checking on as we reach the
mid-point of summer. It never hurts to pullyour zincs as well, make sure they’re still
reasonably intact and replace ‘em if they’re
less than 50 percent. And it never hurts to
check the tightness of your drive belt or
belts (if you want to keep your batteries
charged and coolant fl owing), the condition
of your engine’s water-pump impeller (if
you want to avoid overheating problems)
and, although it’s not directly related to
engine maintenance, the ease with which
the levers on your seacocks move back and
forth. Unexercised marine valves can some-
times seize due to the buildup of calcium
and other mineral deposits.
None of these chores, even when done
in concert, is a serious time-burner. You
should be able to fi nish off the whole
shebang within the confi nes of a rainy,
late-start Saturday morning. But addressing
such simple stuff dockside—where tools,
lubricants and electricity are readily avail-
able—may well prevent what seems like a
“little thing” from going big-time some-
where down the line, spoiling an entire day
on the water for you and your family.
—Capt. Bill PikeYour hose clamps may look tight. But are they?71