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[Dave R]

Originally Posted by Biggd

Now you need side thrusters.
A couple weeks ago my wife and I were sitting outside at Lago's and a guy pulled up with a boat about that size and we thought he was going to try to parallel dock between two boats, we both said, "no way". He pulled right up to the space, stopped, and went sideways right to the dock.

A friend of mine has a 41' Carver with gasoline engines that's quite a handful at low speeds, especially if there's wind. I helped him replace the OEM 5 HP bow thruster with a 20 HP bow thruster, and add a 20HP stern thruster to it over the Winter. It's really easy to dock now and his confidence has soared. Using a 10" holesaw on the forefoot of a boat is quite interesting and scary. You gotta really commit and it's a pretty big project. Stern thruster was much easier to install, just a few holes an some simple glass work.

I had the chance to captain a 48 footer with Volvo Penta IPS pod drives for a delivery trip earlier this Summer. The joystick control with pods is amazing.