Tried & Tested

Will Renilson improves boat handling aboard his Jersey 36

- Will Renilson

Remote control for bow and stern thrusters

We own a Jersey 36 single-engine motorboat, and with the dive platform she’s actually 40ft long. She has a shaft-driven Vetus 250hp engine with fully balanced rudder, cathedral hull and has bow and stern thrusters.

At slow speed Jersey Lass will turn in about a boat length and a half to port and about two boat lengths to starboard. This is due to our large balanced rudder designed by my retired naval architect brother… So why do we really need thrusters? And why did we replace our working thruster remote with a new one?

The traditionalists will say that you do not need thrusters... and they’re right, you don’t. You can use warps and can power against a warp to turn the boat on a quay heading. You can moor with a short midships line first then sort things out afterwards or, as we often do, you can moor with a line to the stern cleat and just kick the engine in forwards and she’ll stay alongside while you finish mooring up.

There are all sorts of good seamanship tricks that we can all use when mooring up, but even so, we use our bow and stern thrusters extensively.

Easier single-handed manoeuvres

I often moor the boat on my own, so this is where thrusters come in really handy. If you come alongside and start to drift off, just touch the thrusters… If you are inside a lock and start to drift off, touch the thrusters… If you are trying to get into a very tight mooring space, just use the thrusters and go sideways.

Ditto, if you are mid-channel waiting for a bridge to lift, or being blown off a pontoon finger berth.