335 Freedom Side Ways Bow Thruster IMTRA Dangerous Problem

[Viking 1]

I have recently in the middle of the night had my Bow Thruster twice randomly turn on and run full power while sitting on my boat lift. One time it happened after both batteries switches were turned off. Imagine if the boat had been in the water at a Marina. This could be dangerous and disasterous. I did not know that the Bow Thruster is wired directly to a battery similar to a bilge pump and isn't deactivated when turning off battery switches, The only way to safety deactivate the bow thruster is to push in the the Red Kill switch on side of the helm.

Grady was not aware of this specific problem with IMTRA. They did acknowledge they have changed vendors and have applied a caution sticker to the helm advising owners of the new bow thruster to activate the kill switch when docking. My boat is a 2012 Grady White Freedom and wanted all Grady owners to know about this issue.

 

[ocnslr]

Sorry to hear that happened to you.

Most thruster installations have a nearby battery so the large cable runs are kept short, requiring only lower gauge wiring to charge the dedicated thruster battery.

 

[Imtra - PN]

Dear Sir,

We are sorry to hear of the issue with your thruster system. Grady White uses our battery switch for their thruster systems. Every thruster system has to have its own circuit isolation. The one they selected is our emergency style battery switch. You can shut this switch off under load (thruster running), unlike most battery switches that are fatally damaged if shutting off under load.

We encourage everyone with a DC Thruster System to shut off your battery switch when leaving the boat, so that voltage is not just “sitting” live to the thruster.

We have been in touch with the tech who looked at your boat and hopefully he can resolve the water intrusion problem that is causing the thruster issues.

If we can be of any assistance, please let us know.

Best regards,
Peter Nolet
Product Manager – Thruster Systems
Imtra Corp

 

[everwhom]

Thanks for the warning. I will make it a habit to deactivate the big kill switch on my 330 when I'm not using the thruster!