Electric outboard motor fitted at the bow to help steering

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

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Steering my boat in a marina has been problematic especially when reversing; yes I have managed over the years without issues, by using the propwash effect, and other tricks, however, it is risky and can be stressful. I am thinking of buying an electric outboard (~£120) to install at the bow to help with steering the boat when in confined areas such as marinas; the electric outboard would be removed when no needed.

The controls of the electric outboard would be removed and taken all the way back to the cockpit so it can be controlled while steering the boat. The outboard would be fixed in position so that it acts like a bowtrhuster. What do you think?, has anyone done that?
 
Will not have enough power to do anything significant. Compare the output with a conventional bow thruster and you will see why.
 
Perhaps it's a question of budget? I doubt £120 would buy a trolling motor offering more than 40lbs of thrust. If someone at an adjacent pontoon pulled a line that hard, it might move a small yacht's nose round a bit, in calm conditions. A bit doubtful in a breeze. If you throw money at the problem, the long-shaft 48 volt motors can give 100lbs thrust...

...they're really not cheap though! And...that'd be quite a weight of batteries in need of recharging too.
 
Yes I have always wondered why we don't modify the bow of our boat to have an outboard swing down from an anchor locker type stowage on deck to over the bow for a bow thruster. The idea of cutting a hole in the bow and having it in normal water flow as a drag seems "orrible. Electric powered outboard seems obvious being easily controlled and reversed. Sadly however as said electric outboards I have seen are pathetic in thrust. Nothing like the advertising hype. You would need a fairly gutsy motor. On the plus side with mian engine running charging the battery and only short bursts of power electric supply would not be a problem.

I seem to do Fire and Safety inspection of boats for our club. Recntly I inspected a sweet little 20 ft f/g yawl with a little cubby cabin. I think it was near new. In the front of the cabin under the bunks were installed 4X 100AH deep cycle batteries. The lady who bought the boat (a tree hugging greeny) said the boat was designed for electric outboard power. She had an electric o/b but needed a bigger one. I felt sorry for her but could not dissilusion her. I suppose the batteries are part of the interrnal ballast but a small petrol o/b would have been so much better. Or indeed just rely on oars. The sale of electric outboards is a triumph of optimism over reality at least for the seller. olewill
 
William_H said:
I inspected a 20 ft f/g yawl...In the front of the cabin under the bunks were installed 4X 100AH deep cycle batteries....She had an electric o/b but needed a bigger one....I suppose the batteries are part of the interrnal ballast but a small petrol o/b would have been so much better. Or indeed just rely on oars.
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Wow, 4x100 Ah deep-cycle? Totaling about 100kgs? A lot of weight in the bow of a 20-footer. As you say, if she was serious about being green she could have rowed, or sculled.

I reckon there's hope for sailboats with electric auxiliaries, as long as their owners have a much less dependent approach to them than we've grown accustomed to with i/c engines.
 
Electric outboard does the job for me moving my 20' in and out of moorings but I really don't think one would work satisfactorily in the way you intend. Mine is a 55lb thrust and it's only really any good in calms. Electric outboards of that size don't have the instant controllable power of a small petrol outboard either and that's really what you need.

Should add I'm on a lake too, no tide to contend with.
 
I agree an leccy outboard would be a bit feeble, and quite pricey for the higher output one and 48v required.
Perhaps an old outboard leg could be paired with a beefy starter motor? It would only be run for a few seconds at a time. Still a lot less power than a proper bow thruster but would be mounted further forward which would improve the leverage. Performance would depend on you boats windage as we'll, as mine is pretty ineffective in any sort of breeze.
 
We have a large bowthruster and it it works in an advisory capacity :D

A trolling motor is wrong for the job you describe, they give a gentle push over a long period to aid fishing. What you want is a high output for a short period. A Torqeedo would do it and double as the o/b for your tender. Pricey but genuinely dual purpose for you; the controls are also easy as they sell a remote kit.
 
A trolling motor is wrong for the job you describe, they give a gentle push over a long period to aid fishing.

Jumping on the thread bandwagon here, I'm afraid, but I'd been toying with the idea of an electric outboard as a backup in case of failure of our 40 horse Yamaha on a 15 ft Boston Whaler Sport 15. In modern car parlance, a 'limp home' device.

Is this even remotely feasible ? I have to buy a new battery anyway so could get a deep cycle large enough to power an outboard, but I have no idea how long / far these electrics go for. I suppose a mile or so would be enough to get us to land somewhere, as we rarely go much further offshore than that.

Originally I was thinking of maybe a 2.5 Yamaha or something small that would fit in the underseat locker, as I wouldn't want it permanently on the transom. And indeed this may still be the better idea, but then of course after a long period of inactivity it probably wouldn't start etc, hence the electric thoughts.

Comments, anyone ? Thanks.
 
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I have an electric o/b on my tender - I had also thought of using it as a limp home and a bow or stern thruster. Whilst the tender will zip along nicely under the electric I did once try to just push the back of my cat (35 foot 3.5 ton, no keels, no resistance) round with the tender to see if it was feasible - full power slightly compacted the inflatable front of the tender. It did not move the cat one centimetre. :(

A big £2K Torquedo cruise 4 or something of that ilk would no doubt work fine but anything less than that just wont touch it to either turn or limp home on my pretty lightweight boat.
 
Superaquarama said:
A trolling motor is wrong for the job you describe, they give a gentle push over a long period to aid fishing.

Jumping on the thread bandwagon here, I'm afraid, but I'd been toying with the idea of an electric outboard as a backup in case of failure of our 40 horse Yamaha on a 15 ft Boston Whaler Sport 15. In modern car parlance, a 'limp home' device.

Is this even remotely feasible ? I have to buy a new battery anyway so could get a deep cycle large enough to power an outboard, but I have no idea how long / far these electrics go for. I suppose a mile or so would be enough to get us to land somewhere, as we rarely go much further offshore than that.

Originally I was thinking of maybe a 2.5 Yamaha or something small that would fit in the underseat locker, as I wouldn't want it permanently on the transom. And indeed this may still be the better idea, but then of course after a long period of inactivity it probably wouldn't start etc, hence the electric thoughts.

Comments, anyone ? Thanks.
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What's the weight of the boat, that will give you an idea of what thrust motor you'd need.
 
Superaquarama said:
A trolling motor is wrong for the job you describe, they give a gentle push over a long period to aid fishing.

Jumping on the thread bandwagon here, I'm afraid, but I'd been toying with the idea of an electric outboard as a backup in case of failure of our 40 horse Yamaha on a 15 ft Boston Whaler Sport 15. In modern car parlance, a 'limp home' device.

Is this even remotely feasible ? I have to buy a new battery anyway so could get a deep cycle large enough to power an outboard, but I have no idea how long / far these electrics go for. I suppose a mile or so would be enough to get us to land somewhere, as we rarely go much further offshore than that.

Originally I was thinking of maybe a 2.5 Yamaha or something small that would fit in the underseat locker, as I wouldn't want it permanently on the transom. And indeed this may still be the better idea, but then of course after a long period of inactivity it probably wouldn't start etc, hence the electric thoughts.

Comments, anyone ? Thanks.
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Trolling motors are designed just to hold a boat in position or move very slowly while fishing - hence the name. They were designed initially for fishing in inland lakes in the US and are just not powerful enough for use as a get you home auxiliary. A 3.5hp outboard is suitable for your application and if you really want to rely on it then you need to have a dedicated mount for it and use it from time ti time, even if you normally store it in a locker.
 
Superaquerama,

to turn it the other way round, I knew someone who had a Lochin 33 fishing boat with a bowthruster which could be used as a Plan B limp home if anything happened to the main engine / prop; seems a good idea but you'd have to know the person and situation to appreciate this really seriously was a ' money no object ' set up !

As far as the idea of an electric motor as bowthruster, well I suppose it might while away an afternoon in a marina finding out it's not on !

Maybe the facility to set up a proper outboard at the bow for some sort of emergency scenario may be an idea, but it's the bottom of a very long list of ' what ifs ' for me.

When one looks at the rusting bollards in places like Liverpool docks, and indeed Charlestown today - ie where very large engineless square riggers were routinely manouvred, I cringe to think of any problem at all I might have parking a yacht...

On the odd occasion such as turning the boat I have used long lines from one pontoon to the other - timing it so as not to catch a 50footer ! - and just walked her round, I actually rather enjoy close quarter manouvering, but don't be too quick to grab an engine at all, or then a handful of throttle.
 
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Thanks for the good advice, Tranona.

Highndry - apparently 15 ft Whalers are 580 lbs = 5.2 cwt = 264 kg, but that's presumably just the fitted-out hull and excluding engine and crew, so say 2 up + outboard + bits & pieces not far off half a ton.

So overall it looks as though the electric idea's not a brilliant one !
 
There are some people who have, actually, done this....
http://www.psychosnail.com/boatingarticles/diyrefit/bowthrusters

So, it is technically possible to rig something like this up and get some degree of assistance when mooring but, after many weeks googling and dabbling with the idea, my conclusion was that ... any such home made solution would involve some undesirable structure on the bow. It would involve storing and lugging the O/B forward and dangling it over the side whenever you wanted to use it.

Given the ££s, a bow thruster would be nice. For now, I have just decided to invest in big fenders ;-)
 
Have any small yachts ever relied upon two I/C outboards, well apart, so that one of them can be run in reverse for increased low-speed manoeuvrability?
 
There was a great post on a similar thread from a guy who explained the technicalities of how he used a leaf blower for jet propulsion as a bow thruster. He really had me. (Until, further down his post he said that that he also used it to fill the sails when there was no wind and also as a way of dusting out the saloon.) :D
 
Ravi said:
There was a great post from a guy who...used a leaf blower...to fill the sails when there was no wind and also as a way of dusting out the saloon. :D
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Nice! I expect when there's no wind at all in Monte Carlo, the updraft from numerous superyacht air-conditioning heat-outlets sucks in a nice force-3 for local dinghy races. :rolleyes:
 
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