A salute to stern thrusters

[BartW]

Careful there, B.
What you are saying is one of the interesting features of separate levers for gear and throttle, which has its merits.
With my old lady, whenever mooring in some crosswind, I needed a tad more than the push at idle (about 600rpm, with her).
So, I left the engines at around 800rpm instead, and continued to use only the g/box levers as usually.
I did check that in advance with a ZF engineer, who confirmed me that the gearbox was designed to engage/disengage up to 850/900 rpm with zero risk of damaging anything.
1000rpm sounds a bit high to me, though.
Don't you hear the g/box yelling at you from the e/r, if you engage the gear at that rpm...? :ambivalence:

yes I know,
I don't intentionally engange / disengage at >900 rpm,
but it has happened that it did that accidently,
even at >1000rpm in a few rare occasions
but I could never hear nor feel the gear
but yes I realise that this can be dangerous.

 

[Hurricane]

I think it is "Welcome to the Club" time.

You may remember when we left CF a couple of years ago, our Stern Thruster was waiting for parts so we had to "go natural" for a while.
It isn't easy without (as you say) too much going on from the main engines.
For small adjustments, the ST and BT is the way to go.
Like most, ours ar electric so we can't use them for anything serious but for the final tweeking, they come into their own.

 

[Nigelpickin]

Baby steps MapisM, but you’re getting there....

 

[scubaman]

My current mooring is similar to yours, between two pairs of poles and stern to the pontoon.

I don't have a stern thruster and agree that at times it can be a bit tricky to delicately control the stern with the props alone. I mean, with both engines on tickover @ around 600 rpm, the boat is doing 6 kts. This means that you have to be really quick when administering the 'nudge'.

In my situation, in theory you can 'lean' on the poles, but the trouble is that there is so much grip between the wooden pole and the rubber insert in the rubbing strake, that if there is any longitudinal movement, the insert moves and pulls out.

But as you say, quick nudges on either engine are the only way to only move the stern sideways without moving the bow as well.

I've gotten by without a stern thruster so far, but I guess it could have it's use...

 

[vas]

Stern to and no thruster (that's what I also have to do)
I instruct (not always successfully though...) son to pick up the right side stern line (according to how the wind blows, usually blowing us out of the mooring and to stbrd, so he has to pick the port line) and then someone (usually me) picks the slime line and he then moves it to the bow while I go back to the controls for a bit of bow thruster or stbrd engine fwd that is needed to keep us in place, but that's it.

Agree if you pick the bow lines first, stern thruster will be more useful, but cannot you get one of the stern lines first? I admit I never moored between poles though.

cheers

V.

 

[BruceK]

As a result, with say port fwd and stbd rev, the stern does slide towards port, but the bow does much more of the opposite movement.
Which is fine in some occasions, but not when you want to move the stern alone.
And the engines effect is much stronger than thrusters, so even combining (with a third hand...! ) a b/t pull towards port, the bow still slides to stbd.

With my outdrives if I want to bring my stern in without having the bow swing outwards too much....
Bringing the stern to port
turn hard to port
engage stbd in reverse to start the swing
go to neutral steer 1/4 to stb and bring prt into reverse and stbd into fwd
adjust revs on each engine to maintain neutral longitudinal movement

then pray there is no wind and no current and no one looking. It can be hit and miss and I wish I had just one thruster. ST or BT I dont care as I reach for Kwakkers number.....

editited. missed a step...steer 1/4 to stb