BoatBanter.com - Electronic shifting/throttle controls

Black-n-Gold wrote:
"steve" wrote in message
...

Has anyone changed their old throttle and shift cables and tried these
electronic controls? It reminds me of servos from my model airplane
days. I have an old Bayliner and it has a flybridge and inside cabin
shifters/throttle controls. The cables are old and in need of
changing. I would like to try something cableless if it is posible.

Steve, I'm in the same boat - pun intended. I own a 78 Bayliner saratoga
with the same setup. my sense is the electronics cost more than I'm willing
to spend on this old girl.

They've been around a long while now so probably have all the bugs sorted.

The notable boat around here is a police launch with twin Yamahas, they
do safety & compliance checks all day long & need to stay on station
beside the subject vessels, using the gears/throttles etc much more than
most usrs would.

They have not reported any problems or criticisms, the original
motivation for changing from cables was that they were getting very
short life from the OB gearboxes & it was thought it might have been
because all the different drivers etc were being too gentle on the
shifting, whereas the electronic ones have no 'feel" whatsoever, when
you select a position the servo just keeps pushing at a set (quite
quick) rate till it reaches it's stop.

You also need a surprising amount of space in just the right place near
your OBs to mount the servo box etc.

What finally stopped them eating gearboxes was changing from OMC to
Yamaha, so while it makes sense that the electronic ones with their
uniform speed shift might be better for the gearboxes; no blind blind
test can be claimed because they changed to Yamaha shortly after & the
gearbox problems went away.

Cost seems very high literally thousands & would always exceed the cost
of replacing whatever is wrong with your existing system, indeed exceed
the cost of replacing all your system & the benefits if any, are not
such that you'll notice with recreational use etc.

So if it's a vote thing I vote don't waste the extra money, save it for
dearer fuel:-)

One last thing, don't do "nothing" worn badly functioning cables can
end up damaging your gearboxes.

K

& Krause's lie of the day is:

Other than what he's picked up here over the years this liar
clearly doesn't & never has owned a boat & certainly never done any real
boating, yet he insults all the NG real boaters with lies like this;

Have you ever sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii? I have.
Have you ever rounded Cape Horn? I have, twice.
Have you ever transited the Panama Canal? I have.
Have you owned more than 20 boats in your lifetime? I have.
Have you ever sailed large boats competitively? I have.
Have you ever been hundreds of miles from land in a powerboat under
your command? I have.