Ski and wake boat thrusters: bow, stern or both, at real cost

The short answer

Bow, stern, or both on a ski or wake boat

At the stern, a thruster fixes the end that misbehaves, and it is the easiest end to fit. The WB230 bolts to the transom above the waterline, and Sideshift calls it “a great DIY project”. A stern unit also works on the longest lever on the boat, so it needs very little push. The section why these boats are so hard to dock explains the rudder and the prop walk.

At the bow, a thruster would help when the wind takes the bow as you come alongside. This site lists none for a boat that planes, though, and the cost strip says why.

At both ends, you get control of the whole boat. Our page on bow and stern thrusters together covers what that adds, and the section the options lists what is sold for these boats.

Buying only one? Our page bow or stern first? helps you choose, and our page on what a stern thruster costs has the dated prices for the back of the boat.

Why these boats are so hard to dock

A tournament ski or wake boat is an inboard. The prop is fixed in the middle of the boat. The rudderThe blade behind the propeller that steers the boat, and it only works when water is flowing past it. At docking speed it does almost nothing, and in reverse it does nothing at all if it sits behind the propeller. behind it is the size of a dinner plate. Both were put there for one job: holding a straight line at speed with a rider on the rope.

Slow to docking speed and that rudder goes quiet. Prop walkThe sideways kick a propeller gives when you put the boat in reverse. A single propeller pushes the stern one way and only that way. That is why a single-screw boat backs predictably in one direction and badly in the other. drags the stern to one side, and reverse is a guessing game.

A pontoon owner can swing his outboard and point the thrust where he wants it. You cannot. In a crosswind at the fuel dock, you are driving the one hull in the marina with no way to push sideways.

The push you are missing is small. We ran these hulls through our calculator. A transomThe flat surface across the very back of the boat.-mounted unit works on the longest leverThe distance from the point the boat turns about to the place the push is applied. Double the distance and the same push turns the boat twice as hard. on the boat, so in a 15 knot breeze the push you need is:

That assumes a planing hull that catches little windageThe area of the boat the wind can push on: the hull sides, the cabin, the mast and rigging, or the canopy. A tall, boxy boat has a lot of it, and wind force does not care how slowly you are moving., with the unit on the transom. Treat the exact number as a guide. Your boat needs only a small sideways push, but it needs it the instant you touch the control.

The options, and there are only a few

The list is short enough to count on one hand: three aftermarket routes, plus the factory option you have seen on new boats.

Sideshift WB230

This is the only wake-specific thruster with a published price: $4,495, for boats up to 30 ft. It bolts to the transom above the waterline and rides clear of the water on planeA hull running fast enough to climb on top of the water instead of pushing through it. Anything hanging below the hull adds drag and can be damaged at that speed.. It needs no extra battery.

Sideshift's own page calls it "a great DIY project" needing "no previous experience or special tools."

ezDrive

Built by wake boat people for wake boats. It is sold as packages matched to your exact model, and owners who have one talk like converts.

The catch: ezDrive publishes no prices. You fill in a quote form and a number comes back by email. The dated figures owners have posted are in the tables below. They sit between the WB230 and the factory options.

Our review of ezDrive and its parent brand reads their specification, warranty and FAQ pages side by side.

The Bakes kit, if you run a Malibu or Axis

This is a steering-assist thruster that mounts in the Power Wedge. It is listed at $3,375 on sale against a $4,000 regular price, for boats 23 ft and under.

The factory option

It works, and it is how this category got its reputation for costing five figures. It is only available on new boats, and the makers keep it locked.

One MasterCraft owner put it plainly: "Mastercraft won't sell the throttle control for thruster unless you have a boat with it on it." The control alone was said to run $4,000.

Not on the list: a bow tunnel

In every owner thread we read, nobody had cut a tunnelA tube bored straight through the hull below the waterline, with a propeller in the middle of it. It is the conventional thruster. Fitting one is mostly a labor job rather than a hardware one. into a ski or wake boat. No maker we track sells a tunnel kit for these hulls, because the ballast tanks take up that space.

Run your boat through the finder and you will see the same short list, sized to your length.

What owners pay

The figures below come from the wake boat forums. We gathered them the same way as the trawler figures on the cost page: dated posts, named posters, and a record of what each figure covers. They were read 30 August 2026.

The first table is money that changed hands or was formally quoted.

The row that matters most is the one somebody paid. That is $4,700 for an ezDrive kit on a 2019 Nautique G23, with about ten hours of labor on top. The owner put the total at "about 1/2 in total of what it costs from Nautique."

The second table is what owners believe the job costs. None of these is an invoice, so none sits in a price column. They are here because the gap between them and the first table is the whole story.

Every big number in that second table traces back to a factory option sheet, or to hearsay about one. For years the factory price was the only thruster price a wake boat owner saw. Those owners were pricing the boat maker's option, margin included, and calling it the price of a thruster.

Both kits, the WB230 and the ezDrive, go on the stern. At the bow, this site lists no thruster for a boat that planes: no external unit, and no tunnel or retractable fits the hull. The strip below says so for each of the three styles.

A different length, or a different boat? The thruster finder prices your own, and the comparison by boat type puts this row next to every other kind of boat.

A weekend job in your own garage

Your boat is on a trailer, in your garage, at working height. No trawler owner can say that.

The five figure thruster installs on this site belong to boats that need a travel lift, a yard slot and about a week on the hard before anyone turns a wrench. You need a free Saturday, a friend who owes you one, and a socket set.

The maker's own claims for the WB230 back that up: "installed in only a few hours," no holes below the waterline, no special tools, no added battery.

The one documented owner install in our records is the $4,700 ezDrive above. It took about ten hours: a full day, or a two-day weekend at an easier pace.

Owners describe the payoff themselves. One who fitted his own unit wrote: "It saved my butt trying to squeeze into a slip with a strong crosswind, and it meaningfully sped up the process of picking up a fallen rider."

Another owner had one on his 25 LSV. His verdict: "it was a game changer. Actually makes docking fun."

What this means when you dock