T200 for boat stern thruster?

Blue Robotics Products Thrusters and Motors
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I am looking for a reasonable option to help improve manuverability for my 21ft, 4200lb boat, particularly for reversing. It is an inboard boat so in reverse the rudder is in front of the direction of thrust so there is almost zero directional control.

My question is whether 2-T200,s would be powerful enough operated at 12V to be able to affect a bit of sideways steering control if mounted on the transom. I would do some prototyping before directly mounting to the boat, but if somebody tells me there is no chance than I will waste no further time and effort. If it works, there could be a HUGE market out there for these. The next option would be a purpose built unit for $1600 unit which would require a very large hole drilled through the back of the boat and nobody wants to do that.

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There is a huge market, they’re called trolling motors and a used one is $200 on Craigslist. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Lol, I have been playing with that idea of customizing one to make that work, but it might be too bulky to fit.

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Steering with a stern thruster when going astern?
Try using a bow thruster to steer when going astern, much more efficient.

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That would be ideal, but a bow thruster would be extremely expensive and not something I can do myself as it involves some relatively complex glass work to install it in a tunnel. For reversing I want a thruster mostly to counteract the prop steering created by a large rotating prop so that I can just reverse straight. If I can get enough juice out of them to actually perform some maneuvering capability even better. Now I can buy purpose built units but they are about $3000 and are overkill for my size boat. I think this spring I am going to pick up one T200 and prototype it up on the end of a pole so I can hold it from the transom and we’ll see how things go.

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@dcoyne I’ve had a customer do a stern thruster mod out of a T200 for a jet boat around you size. He said it worked well enough, I would just recommend staying away from hull penetrations below the waterline.

For a non-permanent mount on a fiberglass boat, I have seen some people use vacuum suction cups with integrated mounting holes.

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Hi Darren,
Understand where you at coming from.
I did see a setup similar to what you described but rigged on the bow. It would get rigged up before berthing, simple control - anchor winch power supply plugged into it which meant the anchor winch control could be used for the thruster.
Good luck with your project.

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Do you know how many thrusters he used?

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He reported just one, here was his forum post: Thrusters are they worth it

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Awesome, thank you so much. I think that was the missing piece to me pulling the trigger and going for it.