Having Nightmares about my Thruster Installation
Having Nightmares about my Thruster Installation
I hate drilling holes in my boat; always had a strong aversion to that. Even above the waterline. But I'm getting a thruster installed right now after running the boat 16 years without one. I'm having anxiety about it so I'm going to share.
Of course the installation involves drilling a gigantic hole completely through the boat with extremely high precision:
Nightmare #1: Receiving a phone call: “Hello Mr. Ranta. We’re sorry to report that we grazed your holding tank when drilling the hole, which was apparently not empty, and the contents went into the bilge and then was pumped into Portage Bay. Unfortunately there was a $10k fine and a court appearance, and your boat stinks something fierce. But the thruster works great.”
Nightmare #2: “Hello Mr. Ranta. We’ve unfortunately started drilling the hole in your boat but discovered that your boat can’t actually be fitted with a tunnel type bow thruster. So sorry for the inconvenience. So we are offering to patch up the hole for half price and give you some complimentary spring lines”
Nightmare #3: “Hello Mr. Ranta. We’ve completed the thruster installation, but we didn’t actually have as much room for the batteries as we thought. We built a shelf in the VIP stateroom and suspended the batteries next to the television.”
It's being done by Yacht Performance Center; they were highly recommended, but I'm still a wreck.