34 Trawler stern thruster

[Comodave]

I was watching a utube video when you asked if I added the wings on the stern thruster. And they were doing a bottom job on a boat that had them so I took a photo of it to show what they look like. Keep in mind this is a photo off my TV so the quality isn’t great.

 

[LindaFlorida]

Thanks everyone again, I was confused with the Tunnel. Now I see that there are wings that can be added. I thought that the entire Tunnel/Wings was one piece, something that I had to buy as an option. On Defender Marine I do not see the tunnel being included?

I’ll have to ask the manufacturer.

I ask the manufacturer if I needed the “Ignition Protection” ($1,600 option). Here was there answer: I would suggest the IP version of the SE100 for your stern thruster because the IP version gives the thruster water resistance protection.

“If you have any water in your bilge and hit the throttles all the water will come to the stern and possibly ruin the stern thruster.
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Hope this helps”

 

[LindaFlorida]

Well, unfortunately the tunnel is not included. The tunnel without the wings cost a whopping $520.00.

Thank you everyone again!

 

[backinblue]

Terminology is getting a little fuzzy I think. The wings/deflectors are a simple bolt on attachment. In my opinion, they are needed if the thruster is very close to or just barely below the surface of the water. They are intended to direct some of the thrust downward and therefore should decrease the side thrust some. If the thruster is sufficiently underwater and you are not detecting any cavitation, I think it's better to leave them off.

Not sure what is meant by "tunnel". With my boat and Sidepower/Sleipner stern thruster, it is similar to the pic above from Dave. The thruster motor and electronics are inboard of the stern and the prop(s) are inside of a small "tunnel" on the outside of the stern connected through a hole in the stern as shown earlier by Dave. You certainly wouldn't want bilge water washing over the unit and would want to keep all connections up high. I had some intermittent performance of my stern thruster when I bought the boat and found a connector near the stern thruster laying on the floor of the stern bilge area and sometime would be in a small amount of water. I cleaned the connectors and added some dialectric grease and tied the wires up as high as possible from the bilge and haven't had any issues since. An interesting note is that the sheer pin is not at the prop but is inside the motor unit inside the boat. Upside is you can change it inside the boat while in the water. Downside is can be hard to do if there is not much access around the control unit.

 

[Comodave]

I didn’t have the Ignition Protected version but I didn’t have any water near it either. As long as you have a diesel boat and your bilge is dry then I would not get the IP model. As to the tunnel, it doesn’t come with the thruster because you might install the same thruster as a bow thruster instead. And there are many versions of a bow tunnel but only one stern tunnel as far as I remember.

 

[Darlin]

Maybe you need a longer boat hook