water jet for a bow thruster ?
- Thread starter simonfraser
- Start date
Boathook
Well-Known Member
Vetus used to do one and stopped after a few years. Why ?
The thrust quoted seems very low - "He also plans to offer two different sizes of Sidejet: the 11.5kgf unit shown here for craft up to 28ft and a 25kgf unit for boats up to 35ft."
I had a vetus 55kgf on my 30 foot boat and really could have done with more, especially on a windy day in a marina with little space.
The thrust quoted seems very low - "He also plans to offer two different sizes of Sidejet: the 11.5kgf unit shown here for craft up to 28ft and a 25kgf unit for boats up to 35ft."
I had a vetus 55kgf on my 30 foot boat and really could have done with more, especially on a windy day in a marina with little space.
kashurst
Well-Known Member
I don't think it will be successful. For a variety of reasons.
1) a basic Vetus bow thruster is around a £1000 give or take from a chandler. They are not that hard to fit. They are over estimating that difficulty and overestimating the price of the existing competition.
2) New build boats have no issue designing in a bow tunnel - Jeanneau etc do it as part of the hull moulding with a fll in section.
3) The secondhand market in boat accessories is not all that big and pretty conservative. How many boats already have a bowthruster? How many actually now want one? How many of those who do want a retro fit thruster will be doing it themselves?
4) Set up costs - the design albeit imaginative, requires a pretty big tooling budget even if done in China.
5) promotional costs, a few trade shows and a regular advertising campaign to build awareness will eat early profits.
I did a boat accessory about 18 years ago and set up a small business etc to get things going. It was a real eye opener into the boaty world. All the distribution chain people want big margins - they need them, they sell relatively little of anything. However that is less of a problem if you sell direct or through minimal distribution to manufacturers. Will the boat manufacturers take it up? Not at the prices/performance in the magazine article.
1) a basic Vetus bow thruster is around a £1000 give or take from a chandler. They are not that hard to fit. They are over estimating that difficulty and overestimating the price of the existing competition.
2) New build boats have no issue designing in a bow tunnel - Jeanneau etc do it as part of the hull moulding with a fll in section.
3) The secondhand market in boat accessories is not all that big and pretty conservative. How many boats already have a bowthruster? How many actually now want one? How many of those who do want a retro fit thruster will be doing it themselves?
4) Set up costs - the design albeit imaginative, requires a pretty big tooling budget even if done in China.
5) promotional costs, a few trade shows and a regular advertising campaign to build awareness will eat early profits.
I did a boat accessory about 18 years ago and set up a small business etc to get things going. It was a real eye opener into the boaty world. All the distribution chain people want big margins - they need them, they sell relatively little of anything. However that is less of a problem if you sell direct or through minimal distribution to manufacturers. Will the boat manufacturers take it up? Not at the prices/performance in the magazine article.
PCUK
Well-Known Member
Not powerful enough. Vetus and others have tried.
dunedin
Well-Known Member
The hose connections have a single clamp. Is that sufficient to avoid a hose being blasted off if there was a blockage in the outlet?
And no seacock to seal if there was a hose loss or leak.
And no seacock to seal if there was a hose loss or leak.
jointventureII
Well-Known Member
Also with the amount of cr*p floating around the average marina, it must be likely to block up the intake quickly
Fire99
Well-Known Member
I had a look into these after this article appeared as my boat doesn't have a Stern Thruster and you never know, I may buy in to the convenience. I have to say, even speccing a fairly beefy conventional Stern Thruster, it was still a fair bit cheaper than a suitable water jet version, so to be honest, I'm yet to see any advantage to having a more quirky waterjet system.
rogerthebodger
Well-Known Member
The efficiency is not high enough as a axial flow turbine that is what is a bow thruster Its all about pressure and flow rate
lusitano
Well-Known Member
Seem to recall an article back when the water jet systems first came on the market - problem with them was blockages in the tubes caused by crustaceans