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Sadly I can't testify regarding several years of use. We relocated (to the desert) and had to sell the boat. I can tell you that both of our Sideshifts were operating just fine, and looked just fine to the folks who dove to clean our hull, three years after the installation. We were in...

Seconded. Randall at DockStar was among the most helpful people I spoke with on my thruster selection journey, and I would definitely recommend looking into them. The very '80s pointy-bow-yacht styling of our boat meant I couldn't practically use a DockStar out there, but Randall was...

I went with Sideshift, bow and stern, with a 24v AGM battery bank near each unit. The two banks share a 2-bank charger. This setup has worked well on our 42 foot express cruiser. One thing I found valuable was reaching out to the manufacturers. Sure, they have a sales job to do but I felt...

I (sadly) have gas engines, so take this story for what it is worth in this context (perhaps not much). Our old boat came to us with two "refreshed" inboard Mercruisers, and I eventually came to understand that "refreshed" meant she'd been fitted with two replacement long blocks, installed by...

Good idea! I _so_ wanted to use the DockStar thrusters. The owner/designer was sure their bow thruster would not work on my boat due to the shape of the bow (exceptionally long and pointy). I didn't realize they had a "hold" feature. Nice! They are also much less expensive to deploy.

I have these on a 42 foot express, bow and stern, with an independent 24V battery bank for each (though the banks do share a dual-bank charger). Love them - they make a huge difference. They are not variable power but are very responsive to intermittent inputs, on a nice remote with very good...

Our current boat (not quite so big but 42' with plenty of windage) didn't come with thrusters. The former owners got along fine without them. The Admiral and I had never owned a twin-screw inboard monohull before, but I figured we'd learn. Of course, for various reasons, she has to be backed...

Seconded. When my port gear shift started sticking badly I wanted it to be anything but the cable. People kept telling me that'd be expensive. I inspected all the bits, and found more than one potential problem. I adjusted and lubricated linkages. I swapped out the control heads (both of...

Oh, wow, just discovered Sortimo https://www.mysortimo.us/en_US/Storage-Bins-%26-Boxes/c/47146?q=:tsa - apparently Adam Savage (Mythbusters) is a fan of their work. Looks pretty extreme (and priced to match)!

I put in two of the battery-powered version of the Nest Protect. The only things that have set them off so far were legit and obvious crew screwups - running our gas engines at dock with the aft cabin door open, and cooking over propane with the cabin sealed up. They are more communicative and...

I believe I just found it. Looks like a "Keter 22 Inch Resin Cantilever Tool Box". https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DZQCS7H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've been using a pair of Plano 137401s https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E3FKTO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 but learned the hard way that the handles on these won't hold up to a full payload of stainless steel fasteners. A couple of trays full of screws/bolts is fine...

Sideshifts are working for me +1 on Sideshift. They were helpful to me regarding sizing. My 24000lb cabin cruiser is now fitted with an SS350 up front and an ST350 at the stern. The boat has a windage problem and we back her into the slip, usually with a crosswind. The Sideshift thrusters...

So much good advice here! I have a relatively-new-to-me Cruisers 4285 Express with a full flybridge enclosure, which does try its best to act like a Silverton when we back her in at Moss Landing. I got similar advice (from the surveyor) about the flybridge enclosure and wind. We hired a...

The key being OpenCPN only speaks NMEA 1083, but it can accept the data (for AIS and a number of other bits of instrument data) via ethernet. So if you've got a multiplexer like Kplex running somewhere, you can point OpenCPN at that. Kplex comes in the box with Openplotter 2. You'd get that...

If you're a bit of a tinkerer... I've been using Openplotter 2 on a Raspberry Pi 4, which is pretty easy to interface with the boat's NMEA 2000 and ethernet networks. That offers a lot of flexibility. I leave that running headless in an electronics compartment, and run OpenCPN on a Dell...

Thanks for posting - I followed your lead This is a really old thread but I thought it might be worth adding my own very recent experience. Thanks so much for all the discussion here. My new-to-me cabin cruiser came to us with an Electroscan and a Jabsco head. Last month, I ended up getting...