WillDo Jet Thrusters

[Willallison]

Does anyone have any experience with the WillDo Jet thrusters?

[baeckmo]

Due to the principle of design (high speed, low flow jet), the force/power ratio is considerably lower than with an axial prop in a tunnel.

[Willallison]

Yes - thanks Baekmo, a quick look at their specs indicates that they are somewhat less efficient than a traditional thruster (6kW for a 40kgf vs 2.2kW for a 42 kgf Lewmar, for instance!).
However, there is limited draft and space in the application I am considering and a couple of their units may be one of the few thruster options that can fit.

[Willallison]

Am I correct in assuming that Willdo are one of the casualties of the GFC? Their website's been down for a couple of months now....

[singleprop]

Yes, Willdo is closed down..Equipment and spare parts sold on auction but the owner keeps the email address open for one year to support the customers..

[Willallison]

Thanks singleprop. Do you have the email address?
Their Oz distributor tells me that another company has taken them over - you don't know by chance?

[singleprop]

rietweld@willdo.com

Don't know the new company. I am sure that the distrubutor knows the new company.

[Willallison]

Thanks.

[FedericoSolnau]

Yes, willdo is cosed down. But there is a new company producing the Jet Thruster now. They currently have 3 models in production:
JT30, JT50 and TJ90 (30Kgf, 50Kgf, 90Kgf).

You will find all the information about the new company on the following WEB:

http://www.solnautic.com/

I hope this helps every body interested in this great product!!!

:):):)

Greetings,

Federico Ramirez.

[Mat-C]

Thankyou Frederico!
Do you have any connection with the company?

[FedericoSolnau]

Hi Mat-C,

Yes, I am the person in charge of the product in Spain. If I can be of any help to you, don’t doubt to ask. I’ll do my best… (English is not my language).

Greetings,

Federico Ramirez

[Willallison]

Indeed - thank you Frederico - whilst not the most efficient in terms of power consumption, the jet thruster is one of the few options available for vessels of limited draft.
I have such an application and have sent the company an email requesting pricing.
Can you tell me whether Solnautic has simply taken over the manufacture of some of the previous WillDo units, and if they plan to introduce any of the other models - such as the mini-thrusters?

[FedericoSolnau]

In fact, the company that has taken over the manufacture of the product is not Solnautic. The new manufacturer is Holland Marine Parts. Solnautic Sailing SL is the distributor for Spain.
Holland Marine Parts has taken over the product adding some modifications to improve it. The new 3 way valve is more efficient and the new product has no electronic box which makes it simpler and of course more resistant.

Yes, the Jet Thruster has many advantages over the traditional system, and power consumption efficiency is not one of them. But this is just a matter of using a slightly bigger battery.
And it is absolutely true that in many boats it is the best option and the only valid one on many cases.

As far as I know, they are working on a minithruster too, but to know more about it the best is to contact Holland Marine parts.

You will find their contact details on my web:

http://www.solnautic.com/

Cheers,

Federico Ramirez.

[Willallison]

Thank you once again Frederico

[MechaNik]

I had the pleasure of driving an 11m super yacht tender that had such a system in, although I don't know the brand. It had great performance and was a retro fit too. I can't comment on efficiency because from what I saw the pumps where run by PTO off of twin 660hp Yanmars, not electric. Sure is a great alternative if you don't have the room for a thruster or you're doing a retro fit.
Any idea who is doing a PTO version?

[Willallison]

That would probably have been one of the Willdo units. They had both PTO and electric versions.
I'm still waiting to hear back from the new company... its been over a week now since I emailed them... perhaps Frederico can give them a kick...!

[FedericoSolnau]

Every body from the factory is at the Düsseldorf Boat Show at the moment.

They should be back at the office next week.

At the moment they are only building electric systems, but of course, they are planning to do PTO on the future. Even though this might take some time...

Cheers,

Federico Ramirez

[Willallison]

ahh... ok... thanks

[drjasper]

HI everyone, I'm too Australian, and I'm interested in this type of thrusters. I can't find an email address for the Holland company. Has anyone been able to contact them as yet? Ted

And I've just realised this conversation is a year old. hehe. Has anyone had any progress in finding out more about jet thrusters at all. and The cost?

[Willallison]

WillDo were, I believe, a victim of the GFC. They were taken over by Holland Marine Parts http://www.hollandmarineparts.nl/

I looked into them, but.... They are rather inefficient, requiring much larger motor for the same thrust as a traditional thruster. Also, they require 24 volts - and the application I was looking at was 12.

I contacted the factory direct and they were quite helpful...

[drjasper]

According to the advertising you can get them as 12v as well. I've tried contacting the Holland people but no response. That's why an email address might be helpful.

I know they are less efficient than the usual prop thrusters, but the way I'm looking at it is, that it doesn't matter about their efficiency as long as they work and putting a pump in my bow is relatively easy where as putting a standard thruster in would be very difficult for me.

Ted

[Willallison]

I just took a fresh look at the website myself Ted and you are right, they do now offer the smallest (30 kgf) thruster as a 12 volt unit. It was still under development when I last spoke to them. It was really a bit small for my application anyway...
All my correspondence was simply through the email shown on their website:
info@hollandmarineparts.nl

What sort of boat are you looking at installing it in?

[Ad Hoc]

...they do now offer the smallest (30 kgf) thruster as a 12 volt unit.

Will,
Have you looked at these??

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/06fa8bec#/06fa8bec/144

[Willallison]

Oh yes... trust me... I (think) I've looked at pretty much every thruster on the market!
Even those with the smaller diameter tubes are too big to fit into the boat in question. At its deepest, it has a draft of just 300mm and up the bow it's considerably less.
I even looked into putting a retractable jobbie in it and found a fabulous little unit from RMC ( http://www.rmcmarine.com/Products/RMC-Swing-Thruster/Default.aspx ) but even that wasn't submerged sufficiently to prevent the thruster from cavitating.

Another option was an externally mounted one. The best of these appears to be the Exturn ( http://marinno.com/e/index.html ) But (quite apart from looking dog ugly!) they can't be subjected to solid water passing by at more than 10 knots, which also wouldn't work in this case as the boat (intentionally) runs very flat.....
I did consider building a custom retractable system for the Exturn as it would be relatively simple (and it is a pretty efficient little unit), but the cost of the unit is quite high and by the time I had a centreboard-type arrangement built for it, the cost have just got a bit out of hand...

As always though, I keep looking - and I'm always open to suggestions.....