For my upcoming charter, the boat I will have (Moorings 46.3) will have bow thrusters. I've never used bow thrusters so I was looking for some tips and tricks and do's and don'ts.

I've read various snippets about them but it sounds like, in general, they tend to be finicky about being used too long. It sounds like if you use them for more than a couple minutes at a time they might burn out (or at least trip a breaker?). Is this true? It sounds like a terrible design flaw if so. I'm not terribly worried about this I suppose - since I've never used/needed them in the past. On the other hand, this a slightly bigger boat than I've chartered in the past (and there's a reason they are there...).

So, any insight into that aspect of it would be helpful.

Next, and please don't kill me for asking this but, I was wondering about whether it might make sense to use the thrusters when picking up a mooring. My reasoning is that approaching a ball at slow speed means not much water past the rudder and therefore less steerage and more tendency to get blown off to either side as you approach. Could I just keep the rudder straight and use the thruster to change direction and keep my bow pointed at the ball? Can you effectively steer with the thrusters?

Now, I've never heard of this, which makes me think it's probably a stupid idea for some reason, but - again, not knowing anything about them - it SEEMS like it could work. Also, I don't normally have a problem picking up balls so I don't really need a different solution I guess but there certainly have been times when the wind is strong and swirling where I've had to reset, drift back and try again.

Thanks!