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ohdrinkboy · 26-06-2023, 14:55

Looking at this technology. Interesting idea. Not so crazy about the 3"-4" intake under the waterline. The gate valves could be swapped. Thoughts????

I have no financial interest in the product.
https://www.jetthruster.com/

marcjsmith · 26-06-2023, 16:39

Curious as to why the need for an extra opening. I guess I k ow the need. More intake surface being shot out a smaller opening equals more thrust..

Wonder If they could use the existing port start board openings. Ie when you are thrusting to port. Water is getting sucked from the port side and getting shot out the starboard opening. Would be less efficient likely. And when you need to change direction. Pump is reversed and flow goes the other way....

SailingHarmonie · 26-06-2023, 17:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by ohdrinkboy

Looking at this technology. Interesting idea. Not so crazy about the 3"-4" intake under the waterline. The gate valves could be swapped. Thoughts????

I have no financial interest in the product.
https://www.jetthruster.com/

I'm curious... You say something about "gate valves" I only see ball valves in the product pages. What are you concerned about?

I have seen them in use, and they certainly work. The devil is in the details about how reliable they are, but pumps and valves can be pretty robust. Price is quite attractive too. I read through the service manuals, and I have to say I was impressed. The mechanical design, and the quality of the documentation is above what I am used to the marine market.

On some boats they would be a vast improvement over any tunnel prop thruster available. One others not so much.

More holes in any hull are not a welcome thing... but many thrusters have significant failure modes of their own, so not clear that it's actually worse.

Belliure 50 · 05-07-2023, 04:44

I'm looking into the Jetthruster at the moment. But I'm having a hard time trying to work out if their 90Kgf thruster will be enough to push around our 50ft, 20t beastie.

Their site says its OK for 55 - 60ft sailboat, but none of the specs on their thrusters talk about how heavy a boat they can deal with. Often the thruster has to overcome momentum before delivering opposite thrust.

A tunnel on our boat will be problematic to install with the keel forefoot cut away as it is, and a tunnel wont fit as far forward as it should. But plenty of room for 2 inch thrust ports

Snore · 05-07-2023, 05:43

Catalina had these in one of their big boats. Had a bear of a time debugging them- never heard how that story ended.

boatpoker · 05-07-2023, 07:19

Been all over their website and can't find current draw or any other specs.
They have a "specifications" link but it does not work.

Anyone else find specs ?

dfelsent · 05-07-2023, 07:28

Take a look at the product manuals link at the bottom of some pages.

https://www.jetthruster.com/manuals

Install manual lists pump electrical requirements.

boatpoker · 05-07-2023, 07:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by dfelsent

Take a look at the product manuals link at the bottom of some pages.

https://www.jetthruster.com/manuals

Install manual lists pump electrical requirements.

Looking for current draw. I didn't see it. Did I miss it ?

Snore · 05-07-2023, 08:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by boatpoker

Looking for current draw. I didn't see it. Did I miss it ?

Thanks for jarring my memory- as I recall that was the issue Catalina had. The system is powered by a HUGE pump and pulls a lot of amps.

boatpoker · 05-07-2023, 08:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snore

Thanks for jarring my memory- as I recall that was the issue Catalina had. The system is powered by a HUGE pump and pulls a lot of amps.

Maybe that's why they don't publish it.

Statistical · 05-07-2023, 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by boatpoker

Maybe that's why they don't publish it.

Annoying when companies do that. It makes it an automatic nope for me. Dimensions, voltage, current (peak & running), weight, etc should not be hard to find. I shouldn't have to reach out to customer support to get basic info like that and hope it is right.

Bow thrusters aren't used that often so high current isn't a deal breaker but companies hiding things are.

dfelsent · 05-07-2023, 10:06

The current draw was more or less in the install manual. The one that sticks in my mind was the 90 version requires 4 optima yellow top batteries wired in series parallel for 24 volts with a max draw of 1000 A

boatpoker · 05-07-2023, 11:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by dfelsent

The current draw was more or less in the install manual. The one that sticks in my mind was the 90 version requires 4 optima yellow top batteries wired in series parallel for 24 volts with a max draw of 1000 A

Hope their engineering is better than "more or less".