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I know that several people have installed Lewmar 185TT thrusters and claim it's the best improvement they've ever made to their boat. I'm taking a slightly different approach and installing a Volvo Penta B900 for a number of reasons: I got a better price (always good) because it's an obsolete model (but the replacement was recalled for safety reasons, so the older model is far better!); it has two props instead of one; and it has 213 pounds of thrust versus 185 for the Lewmar. Oh--it can run a little longer without being forced to take some time off for cooldown. I had toyed with the idea of wrapping the engine in cooling tubing and forcing seawater through it, but after doing some heat transfer calculations, I decided I couldn't pull away heat fast enough to make much difference before the 45 second 'on' window closed. So I installed a louvered door in the V-berth right by the motor, and I'm putting in a large cooling fan that will run whenever the motor turns on, taking air in from the bilge area and exhausting it out into the saloon. I hope to never see smoke coming from the motor, but if I were to overheat something, having that air forced into the saloon would be better than letting it smolder down below the V-berth, right?
I'm doing my own installation just because I can--I'm a marine electrical engineer, but have built a fiberglass airplane and other projects, so the glasswork didn't bother me--and I'm saving a lot of money, but it's the hardest job I've done on a boat. The difficulty is glassing the bottom of the tunnel properly. I wish I had thought to cut the hole for the louvered door before I did the installation. But whatever you're charged for installation is well worth it.
There are pictures in the galleries of a great bow thruster installation on another boat. I'll post mine there as well, eventually--no time right now.
Best of luck!
Dave Shaddock
Gypsy, #324
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