As with our carbon fiber propellers, conventional marine thruster units have changed little over the years.  Most are essentially small shaft mounted propellers, but now we have designed a unique lightweight, low noise Ring thruster unit with individually replaceable carbon fiber blades.

Carbon Fiber Ring Thruster Design

The Ring Thruster comprises a circular housing containing an electric motor with carbon fiber propellers mounted on the interior of the ring. The design has many advantages over conventional propulsion units.

• The ring thruster is compact - saving space

• No additional gear box required - saving cost and weight

• No cavitation - reducing noise and improving efficiency

• No propeller fouling - Ropes and obstruction pass straight through the middle of the thruster

• Improved acceleration - particularly under high load

• Blades are mounted in a water cooled, ceramic seal - Avoiding blade degradation

• No overheating - Entire housing and engine cooled by surrounding water

Thruster Propellers - The Thruster with exchangeable blades

Each thruster unit is fitted with separate exchangeable blades constructed of advanced high strength carbon fiber materials. In the event a blade is damaged it can easily be removed and replaced without the expense of replacing the entire propeller.

Ring Thruster - A low weight & low noise thruster

The Ring thruster is ideal as a bow or stern thruster. One of the distinguishing features of the Ring Thruster fitted with Carbon fiber propellers is their ultra lightweight. Up to 50% reduction in weight is achievable in comparison to a conventional thruster units propeller. In addition due to the unique design of the low profile blades, the carbon fiber propeller is extremely quiet and free of cavitation.

Ring Thruster - Improved acceleration and reduced fuel consumption

Another unique feature of the ring thruster fitted with carbon fiber propellers  is the flexible pitch of the propeller blades, which provides quicker acceleration. The pitch of the blades adjusts automatically as load is applied, enabling the thruster unit to reach its top RPM quicker than a conventional propeller. This is described as an "intelligent" ring thruster, resulting in quicker acceleration.

Auxiliary Ships Propulsion Unit - Flexible Blades

The Ring thruster can also be used as an auxiliary propulsion unit, in the event of main engine failure or quiet overnight passage making.

As with our Contur Carbon fiber propellers, the ring thruster blades are flexible which allows the yacht to achieve her top speeds at lower RPM rather than full throttle. Under such conditions the load on the propeller blades allows the ring thruster carbon fiber propeller blades to adjust to an optimum pitch, and by doing so the vessel reaches the required speed at a lower engine RPM, which in turn means lower power consumption and greater acceleration for a give speed.

Outboard Ring Thruster Propulsion Units
Extremely light and versatile

The smaller ring thruster units are also ideal as a removable outboard propulsion unit. They have extremely good power to weight ratio and due to the configuration of the blades, allow the boat to operate in shallow and difficult waters.