First Part

As a marine surveyor I see lots of bow and stern thrusters. I would guess that over fifty percent of the installations I see are not working during a survey or perform poorly during a sea trail. Why? Generally an electric problem, and generally an electrical problem that could have been avoided by proper installation and system design.

In todays boating world there may not be a more important piece of non primary use equipment on your boat besides a bow & stern thruster. The number of boaters that can not control their boat without a bow thruster or even a bow and stern thruster is numerous thus many docking damage events occur when an operator has become dependent upon a thruster system that then fails and does not work when they need it most. Second and even more difficult to deal with is a bow thruster that is stuck on! This is a very common failure mode and very difficult to deal with.

In todays boating world there may not be a more important piece of non primary use equipment on your boat besides a bow & stern thruster. The number of boaters that can not control their boat without a bow thruster or even a bow and stern thruster is numerous thus many docking damage events occur when an operator has become dependent upon a thruster system that then fails and does not work when they need it most. Second and even more difficult to deal with is a bow thruster that is stuck on! This is a very common failure mode and very difficult to deal with.