sideways

Thanks Gary. We are a Hurricane dealer and I did not know this video was available. I have been following the Webasto and Eber....(Espar here) problems with great interest and have seen a lot of the same problems. We have had a few small problems with Hurricane but those have been in the area of information rather than equipment. It is certainly no less expensive than the others for initial installation but the owner will find it less expensive over the long run. One of those reasons is the maintainance ability for DIY owners.

Aquafax is the distributor for Blue Sea's and they only requested two ACR's on their last order. The two they have coming are the new generation part number 7610. It is about five pounds more than the 7600. It is watertight and has a couple more adjusters than the 7600. We sell the 7600 to the customer for $94.00 US. We very rarely install a charger or tweek the boats system (alternater ect.) anymore. The ACR has made each thruster installation about $300.00 to $500.00 cheaper. It truely has cut our warranty work way back and we do about 40 thruster installations a year. I do not have any affiliations with Blue Sea Systems nor receive any monetary rewards from them. The gentleman I just talked to at Blue Sea said He was just at Aquafax during METS. He also said that one of the people at Aquafax slept through his presentation. That must be the one you talked to. I can understand that because my wife of thirty years is from Croyden and she sleeps through most of my presentations. Must be an English/American thing. Apparently someone needs to ask Aquafax to carry more ACR's.

I will have to check with the manufacturer, Blue Sea Systems. They are about 40 miles north of me (Pacific northwest coast of America). I will find out who their UK distributor is.

There is a very simple way. Use a Blue Sea Systems PN 7600 Automatic Charge Relay to charge the battery and everything else is taken care of. www.bluesea.com We have several hundred in use and not one problem. The thruster battery or batteries need to be double the amp draw for the ACR to work properly. If the draw is 500 amps then the battery needs to 1000 CCA

Vetus had a unit that looked very much like this on the market a little over 20 years ago. I installed one and it did work but was sadly lacking in thrust. Vetus quickly dropped the idea. I would imagine that it will need at least 1800 lbs of pressure and a minimum of 8 gallons a minute hydraulic capacity. That will require about 20HP. Will the main engine supply that at idle? If you had that kind of hydraulic power then you would be better off with a standard hydraulic tunnel thruster. The available thrust I find in the Willdo site is dismal for this unit. It may be OK on a NB but will be more expensive and less powerful than a standard thruster.

Years ago the outboard motor companies rated their units in several different ways. Horsepower off the crankshaft, horsepower off the propeller shaft, horsepower with different octane fuels, and on and on. Now it is off the prop shaft and ,I believe, Honda is the only company that will also use "Thrust". Thrusters and windlasses do not have a shared "standard" as such. A couple of the companies are beginning to set the standard by using strain gauges in a test tank. The thrusters are mounted in a tunnel with propellers and run against one or more strain gauges. Both Side Power (in Norway) and Lewmar (Havant) allow visitors to see them. Sometimes the tests incorporate a lever arm and lift weights. It would be interesting to have a type of bollard pull but I do not see that happening. We have a tug boat builder very near and their finished boats must come in at a predetermined level on the bollard. The lack of standards has allowed most of the thruster manufacturers to claim anything they want to. A few take it seriously. It is much worse with windlass claims. The honest companies will actually pick up a given amount and rate how fast it happens before overheat. Some place the weight on a wood pallet and drag it across a warehouse floor and I heard of another that placed the weight in a shopping cart. I am a bit prejudiced toward Lewmar as they have been the most open and honest of the of the four thruster companies we have delt with. I have been allowed to inspect the test equipment and get my nose right in the middle of actual tests. I would love to be able to see BHP, IHP, amp draw, run time to overheat, decible level ect. on all thrusters but we are years from that. In the mean time there really are some meaningful numbers if one knows where to look.

There is a standard for figuring horsepower to thrust. Most thruster manufacturers will begin with 21 lbs of thrust per horsepower. That is usually conservative and acurate with older style kaplan propellers. Some of Lewmars thrusters will run at 28 lbs of thrust and they have one of the best test tanks in the world. Side Power has a pretty good tank and their reported thrust looks fairly accurate. When Lewmar and Side Power tested Vetus they came up with results lower than Vetus claims. Little things like propeller clearance between prop tip and tunnel make a big differance. Basically use 21 lbs per horsepower and it is easy to convert to kgf

Go to Lewmar.com. They have a graph or just ask the question and they will do the math for you

Go to www.bluesea.com . Look at battery isolators and automatic charging relays. We install 2 or 3 ACR's a month and don't see the 0.7 voltage drop that comes with isolator use.

Dave I have been reading and enjoying this forum for months now and suppose it is time to make a comment or two. I am an American living and working in the Pacific North West. My wife, of thirty years, is from Croyden although most of the family now lives on the Isle of Wight. I love England and would retire here if possible. Can't say the same for your politics though. My job is almost 100% thruster sales and installation. I run the dept. that does the installations and I write most of the bids. We have installed hundreds and average 40 to 60 installations a year. After 37 years in the marine industry I also do not concider myself an expert on the subject. Learn something new every day and that is why I try to follow this forum at least four days out of the week. This is the most active boating forum in the world. This is also a good place to get your hide turned into a rug if your opinions tend to be stronger than the truth. Bow thruster battery charging. We used to use good three stage marine battery chargers and sometimes still do. Even the best can be troublesome. The last few years we use mostly Blue Sea Systems ACR's. Similar to the old Isolator systems but cheaper, easier to use and no problems at all. We never use long cable runs and never use welding cable. Only tinned marine battery cable. Lots of reasons and too short a space to go into it. All of our installations are on salt water vessels. We usually use AGM batteries mounted almost on top of the thruster. The ACR makes it possible to mix batteries with no concern. It allows no more than 60 amps drawn off the host batteries. Thrusters do use high amperage and they are very easy to get them to perform beyound expectations. One last note. The best electric thruster in the world is made in Havant England and is the Lewmar TT. We have proved it over and over and I'll argue that over a pint with anyone. We have had zero problems since using the Blue Sea ACR for charging. Go on line and check it out. Lets see if my hide gets turned into a rug Sideways