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Yacht Thruster and ezDrive review: what they drill, who they suit
Yacht Thruster and ezDrive come from one company, The Yacht Group of Coral Gables, Florida, which also sells the Yacht Controller remote. Yacht Thruster is a sealed pod that bolts to the outside of the hull at the bow or the stern, below the waterline, on 24 volts. ezDrive is a 12 volt unit built to sit under a wake boat's The shelf across the back of the boat at water level, for boarding and swimming. A stern thruster can hang underneath it..
Both are sold as the way to skip the A 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. and the fiberglass work, and both are priced by a contact form. This review lays out what each one publishes, what the install drills in your hull, and what owners have reported, so you can judge them before you ask for a price.
How this review was made. From the documents and from owners: nobody here has fitted or run either product. The figures come from the two websites, the specification page, the FAQ and the 2024 brochure, read on 23 September 2026, plus a 2012 magazine install story. Owner reports come from the forums, 2012 to 2024, under this name and the European name the same unit carries. Where two of the maker's own pages disagree, you get both figures.
The short answer
Yacht Thruster is a pod that bolts to the outside of the hull, at the bow or the stern, with no tunnel and no fiberglass work. It still goes in through one 2 inch hole and two rod holes below the waterline, so plan on a Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself..
Owner reports cluster on sailboats and slow cruisers with no room for a tunnel forward, and on stern units where the lazarette is full. The ezDrive is for a wake boat with a swim platform.
Every model has a published thrust rating at each position. The 300S is rated 207 lbf at the bow and 148 at the stern.
Neither brand publishes a price, and Yacht Thruster publishes no installation manual. It is a 24 V unit, so a 12 V boat needs a second battery bank.
There is no maker's price. The dated figures on record include a 2012 magazine range of $4,000–$6,000, and $5,896 that a seller quoted as the retail price in February 2023, from a listing that turned out to be a Side-Power pod. Every figure is in the cost table.
What they publish
The three Yacht Thruster models are in our thruster database and carry spec cards. The two ezDrive rows below them are on Yacht Thruster's specification page. ezDrive's own page rates one unit, 88 pounds, in three mountings. The PLUS appears only on Yacht Thruster's page; ezDrive's own site did not list it on 18 September 2026.
| Model | Thrust, bow | Thrust, stern | Motor | Current | Boat, as they state it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yacht Thruster Simplex 300S Thruster
The maker’s own listing, read 28 August 2026. Full page: fit, cost and wiring See it on the maker’s site | 207 lbf | 148 lbf | 3 kW, 24 V | 175 A | bow up to 55 ft, stern up to 47 ft |
| Yacht Thruster 300C (Compact Thruster)
The maker’s own listing, read 28 August 2026. Full page: fit, cost and wiring See it on the maker’s site | — | 148 lbf | 3 kW, 24 V | 175 A | stern up to 47 ft |
| Yacht Thruster Duplex 600D Thruster
The maker’s own listing, read 28 August 2026. Full page: fit, cost and wiring See it on the maker’s site | 397 lbf | 397 lbf | 6 kW, 24 V | 397 A | bow 56 to 66 ft, stern 52 to 60 ft |
| ezDrive (77) | — | 89 lbf at 12 V, 77 at 10.4 V | 1.8 kW, 12 V | 245 A | stern 20 to 28 ft, with a 225 A resettable breaker |
| ezDrive PLUS (110) | 136 lbf | 136 lbf at 12 V, 110 at 10.4 V | 2.8 kW, 12 V | 380 A | bow up to 44 ft, stern 33 to 42 ft, with a 325 A slow-blow fuse |
ezDrive's own specification page lists the Standard, Streamline H, Vertical Stand-Off mounts, each at 88 lb at 12 V and 77 at 10 V. The brochure gives the same two units as 35 and 50 Kilogram-force, the metric thrust rating most European makers publish. One kgf is about 2.2 pounds of push, so a 50 kgf unit is roughly 110 pounds. "of actual thrust at 10.5 V", which converts to the spec page's low-voltage figures to the pound. The three documents put that low-voltage figure at three voltages: 10 V on ezDrive's page, 10.4 V on Yacht Thruster's and 10.5 V in the brochure.
What they publish about the system
| Rule | Published | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Not published: "please complete the contact us form" | Both brands |
| Holes | One 2 in through-hull, two 18 mm rod holes, below the waterline | Consistent |
| Install time | 1 to 2 hours "for the thruster itself (without cable connections)" | Owners on the maker's own testimonials page: a day to three days |
| Run time | FAQ: up to 5 minutes continuous, 25 minutes per hour | Why Us page: 7 to 10 minutes. Brochure: 10. ezDrive: 10. |
| Warranty | FAQ: 2 years | Product pages: 3 years. ezDrive: 2, or 1 commercial. |
| Speed | At 9 knots, 0.1 to 0.2 knots lost. As a bow unit, out of the water on plane. | Consistent |
| Voltage | A 24 V unit. A 12 V boat needs "an additional 24V battery bank". | ezDrive is 12 V |
| Maintenance | "Absolutely maintenance-free". Then: antifoul with an aluminum primer, and keep it off a steel or aluminum hull. | "Maintenance-free", then a maintenance instruction on the same page |
| Boat length | Overview: 20 to 65 ft. The spec page gives it per model. | The homepage tiles differ. Compact up to 65 ft (spec page up to 47). Duplex 50 to 70 ft (spec page 56 to 66). ezDrive up to 32 ft (spec page 20 to 28). The Yacht Group's about page: Yacht Thruster 25 to 85 ft, ezDrive 20 to 45 |
| Brands of boat | "More than 230 brands" | Also "over 285" and "more than 180" on the same page |
| Manual | Referred to; not published | Both brands |
Sources: the FAQ, the specification page, the overview, the Why Us page, the 2024 brochure, and ezDrive's specifications, FAQ and warranty.
Who makes it
The brochure says Yacht Thruster is "manufactured by the worlds #1 thruster company" and does not say which. Everything else on this question comes from outside the two websites, and it points one way.
Power & Motoryacht's 2012 install story says the unit was developed by Austrian company Marinno. Yacht Thruster's own testimonials page carries reviews from Exturn and eXturn owners in Austria, Croatia, Spain and Italy alongside its American ones.
A Trawler Forum seller offering an unopened 300S kit in 2023 wrote that "The Yacht Thruster, Marinna ExTurn and Simplex are all the identical thruster, but just with different branding labels." And the one long first-hand review of this unit on the forums is of an Exturn EX35, bought in 2020 from Sleipner's Side-Power web store.
So a magazine, a seller and an owner all say the same pod has been sold under at least three names, and its American seller does not name the factory. We have not confirmed who manufactures it today, or what the corporate relationship is between Marinno, Exturn and Sleipner. Ask, and get the answer in writing. The warranty and the spares come from whoever that is.
What it drills
This is the product that our no-hole page exists to sort out. "External" and "no fiberglass work" are both true. "No holes" is not.
The overview page's method has two parts:
One hole for the cables. You "simply drill a 50 mm diameter hole through the hull" for a stainless A fitting that passes through the hull below the waterline, sealed with a wide lip on each side. Cutting one means the boat comes out of the water. fitting that carries the cables.
Two holes for the rods. Then you bolt stainless rods "through two 18 mm pre drilled holes".
All three holes are below the waterline. They go in the bottom of the boat, so the job needs a Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself.. The housing gets antifouled afterward, "using an appropriate aluminum primer".
The installation time of 1 to 2 hours is for the thruster alone. On the maker's own testimonials page, self-installers give their time for the whole job. One puts it at "one long day plus an hour". Another says "about 24 hours" of work, about three working days.
Read the FAQ's grounding answer before you choose a spot. The housing is 6.5 inches across. It "normally is not mounted at the lowest point of the boat", and the seal is meant to work as a crush zone.
The ezDrive goes through the transom
The ezDrive goes through the The flat surface across the very back of the boat. instead. It uses a 1.25 inch stainless threaded fitting with neoprene gaskets, set "above the boat bottom so as not to interfere with the wake".
No ezDrive page says whether that fitting sits above or below the waterline on a loaded wake boat. The Streamline guide does not say either.
The one owner install in our records was on a Nautique G23, and it took about 10 hours. In his words, it cost about half of what the builder charges for its factory thruster.
Batteries and current
Yacht Thruster: 24 volts
A Yacht Thruster is a 24 volt unit. On a 12 volt boat, the FAQ's answer is short: "an additional 24V battery bank will be required."
Current draw. The 300S draws 175 A The figure a maker prints as the normal running value, as opposed to a peak at start-up or a minimum. and the Duplex 397 A. No Cold cranking amps: how much current a battery can deliver in a short, hard burst, which is the rating starter batteries carry. A thruster draws like a starter, so the makers size its battery this way rather than by capacity. or cable table is published for either.
Sharing the windlass supply. The FAQ allows the anchor The electric winch at the bow that raises the anchor. It has its own heavy cable and often its own battery. That is why a bow thruster is sometimes wired alongside it. supply, "normally yes", subject to the cable size and a specialist's check.
Run time. The maker's pitch is that the water-cooled motor can run for minutes at a time on "approximately ½ the amperage" of a A 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. unit of the same thrust. The run-time figure itself is given three ways across their pages, as the table above shows.
ezDrive: 12 volts
The ezDrive is 12 volt and draws 245 A, or 380 A for the PLUS, behind a 225 A resettable breaker or a 325 A slow-blow fuse.
Battery. Its FAQ says a dedicated battery "is not required, but it is recommended for best performance". It suggests a Group 31 AGM.
Run time. It runs "up to 10 minutes continuously with a safety reconfirmation after 3 min 15 seconds".
Our wake and ski page has the owners' discussion of charging it. Neither brand publishes a cranking-amp figure. Our battery page explains why most makers size this load in cranking amps rather than amp-hours.
The one warranty case on record
In November 2024 a Nordic Tug 37 owner on Trawler Forum described his Yacht Thruster e-Thrust, fitted at the stern. It had stopped "within a few months of installation" after working that morning. The e-Thrust is the 12 V stern model in the maker's brochure. It is a different unit from the 24 V Simplex, Duplex and Compact pods.
The maker's technician asked for photographs and tests. The prop turned freely, and a mechanic followed the maker's suggestions without result.
Under the warranty procedure he paid $5,000 for a replacement shipped from Florida, to be refunded if the original was found defective. The maker's finding was that a barnacle had jammed the prop and repeated use had burned out the motor. So there was no refund.
His own summary: "I'm out $5,000 for the motor plus an additional ~$2,000 for shipping, haulout and labor". That is about $7,000 in all. He also wrote: "I know of two others in the NT community who had done the same with good results."
The thread's replies do not agree with each other, and they are worth reading whole.
- Several members doubted that a barnacle could stop the prop without the fuse blowing.
- The owner confirmed that "the fuse that was included in the unit didn't blow, neither did any A small, deliberately weak pin between the shaft and the propeller. If the propeller jams on a rope, the pin breaks instead of the gearbox, and it costs a few dollars to replace.".
- Others put the fault on antifouling and bottom cleaning.
- One said the story "just doesn't add up" without picking a side.
This is one owner's account of one failure and one company's decision. We have not seen the maker's side of the correspondence.
What the procedure shows. Under the maker's own procedure, a warranty claim can mean paying for the replacement first. ezDrive's written warranty goes further. Evaluation costs fall on you if no defect is found, and hauling, shipping and labor are never reimbursed. Read the thread before you order.
Strengths and limitations
Three of the limitations below are things the maker has not published, and one is a dispute with only one side on record.
What holds up
- A published thrust rating for every model, in pounds, at each position: 207 lbf at the bow and 148 at the stern for the same 300S. It is the only external maker on this site that rates by position.
- No fiberglass work and no tunnel. One 2 inch hole for the sealed through-hull shaft that carries the cables, two 18 mm holes for the rods, and the unit bolts to the outside of the hull.
- The motor sits in the water and is cooled by it, so it can run for minutes at a time, and no owner on record reports a thermal cutout.
- "I have the Exturn EX35 and it moves my boat briskly." On a 30 ft wooden cruiser that planes, the unit lifts clear of the water at speed, "zero cavitation" at the dock.
- Long service on record under the European name: an Exturn duplex fitted in 2015 on a 52 ft yachtfisher, "it's been flawless" five years on.
- The ezDrive was built for one job, a ballasted wake boat under a swim platform, and its own spec page says which boats it fits: 20 to 28 ft for the smaller unit, 33 to 42 ft for the PLUS. One owner did the install in about 10 hours.
What does not
- No price, anywhere, for any model. "Please complete the contact us form." Neither site publishes one today, so every figure on this page comes from a magazine, a seller or an owner, and each is dated.
- The holes are below the waterline. "External" here means no tunnel. It does not mean no haul-out: a 2 inch through-hull and two rod holes go in the bottom of the boat, and bottom paint follows. The ezDrive's 1.25 inch transom fitting sits "above the boat bottom" and its pages never say whether it is above the water.
- The warranty is 2 years on the FAQ and 3 on every product page. The run time is 5 minutes continuous on the FAQ, 7 to 10 on the Why Us page and 10 in the brochure. The homepage counts 180, 230 and 285 brands of boat in three places.
- One documented failure, and the warranty procedure around it. A Yacht Thruster e-Thrust on the stern of a Nordic Tug 37 stopped within months. The e-Thrust is the 12 V stern model in the maker's brochure, a different unit from the 24 V pods. The owner paid $5,000 for a replacement up front, refundable only if the original was found defective; the maker's finding was a barnacle-jammed prop, so no refund. "The fuse that was included in the unit didn't blow, neither did any shear pin."
- ezDrive's warranty, in its own words: installation, removal, hauling, shipping and labor "shall not be reimbursed", and if no defect is found you pay the "Costs incurred in evaluating warranty claims". The term is 2 years for pleasure use and 1 for commercial.
- It is a 24 V unit. On a 12 V boat "an additional 24V battery bank will be required", and the 300S draws 175 A nominal, the Duplex 397 A. The ezDrive is 12 V and draws 245 to 380 A.
- Who builds it is not stated. The brochure says "the worlds #1 thruster company" without a name. A 2012 magazine story says Austrian company Marinno; the maker's own testimonials page carries Exturn owners; a seller calls Yacht Thruster, Marinna Exturn and Simplex "the identical thruster"; one owner bought his EX35 on Sleipner's site. We have not confirmed today's manufacturer and neither page says.
- Yacht Thruster publishes no installation manual. The FAQ refers to "the installation and operation manual", and none is online, so you cannot read the mounting rules before paying. ezDrive publishes one: the Streamline installation guide, for its horizontal models (eight hours estimated, and silent on the waterline). It publishes none for its two vertical models, the Standard and the stand-off, and its installation page no longer links any.
- The ezDrive is rated 88 lb on its own site and 89 lbf on Yacht Thruster's. A second, stronger ezDrive PLUS at 136 lbf appears only on Yacht Thruster's specification page.
Who it is for
The owner reports under both names cluster on two kinds of boat. Whichever you have, plan on a Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself..
Good fit if
You have a sailboat or a slow cruiser with no room for a A 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. forward. A pod low on the The part of the hull just behind the bow, where the front of the boat curves down toward the keel. It is the shallowest part of the underwater hull, so a tunnel there has little water above it. works on a long The 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. and stays in the water. The maker's testimonials page is full of Hunters, Beneteaus and Catalinas. The forum reviews are a wooden 30 ft cruiser and a 52 ft yachtfisher.
You want a stern unit and your The storage locker at the very back of the boat, under the aft deck or cockpit. On many boats it is already full of steering gear, tanks and hoses. That is why a stern thruster often has nowhere to go. is full. That is the Nordic Tug case, on the 12 V e-Thrust: two owners were happy and one was not.
Your boat is inside the maker's own lines. They put one 300S on boats up to 55 ft at the bow and up to 47 ft at the stern, and the Duplex on 56 to 66 ft boats.
For the ezDrive: you have a wake boat with a The shelf across the back of the boat at water level, for boarding and swimming. A stern thruster can hang underneath it., on the builder's own list. It suits an owner who would otherwise pay for the factory option. Our wake and ski page prices that choice against the alternatives.
Look elsewhere if
The pod would be the lowest point of your hull.
Your hull is steel or aluminum without isolation.
You want to read the price and the manual before you pick up the phone. Neither is available.
What it costs
Neither brand publishes a price. So the thruster finder, our free tool that matches a thruster to your boat, cannot price either, and the cost tables on this site leave them out.
What exists is dated and second-hand. The table gives each figure with what it covers. Read the middle column before the number.
| Source | What the figure is | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Power & Motoryacht, Jul 2012 | The unit, "depending on the installation and size" (a magazine's range, 2012 money) | $4,000–$6,000 |
| Pau Hana, Sep 2019 | Exturn duplex on Amazon, from a September 2019 post. The higher figure is the list price it sat in his basket at. The lower is the sale price he paid ("I bought it right away"). | $7,000 paid ($12,000 list) |
| Pau Hana, Sep 2019 | The same listing, dropped again from the same list price ("it’s happened again", in the same September 2019 post) | $8,000 |
| mtreels, Feb 2023 | 300S kit at West Marine, as he quoted it while selling his | $5,896 |
| mtreels, Feb 2023 | His unopened 2019 300S kit, asking | $3,800 |
| Waterford, Nov 2024 | Replacement stern unit under warranty, paid up front and not refunded, plus shipping, haul-out and labor (the cost of a repair) | $5,000 + $2,000 |
| HAWKS2842, Jan 2022 | ezDrive hardware from a Nautique dealer, install extra (a quote) | $6,200 |
| biffdotorg, Apr 2022 | ezDrive's advertised starting price at the time, as a jet-boat owner read it (a dated snapshot) | $4,999 |
| SanBernard River G, Feb 2023 | ezDrive kit for a Nautique G23, ordered December 2020, his own labor (paid) | $4,700 |
| dshack, Feb 2025 | "An ezdrive setup" all in, as a Malibu owner priced it before buying a used one (a belief about the market) | $10,000 |
| a2t, Apr 2025 | A rebuilt ezDrive system, as a former owner priced it (not new) | $5,500 |
Two of those rows say something the others do not.
The 2023 seller. He was asking $3,800 for a kit he said sold for $5,896 at retail. The retail listing he linked was a Side-Power pod. That is the naming question from the "Who makes it" section, in one post.
The owner who fitted his own Exturn duplex. He had left it in his Amazon basket at $12,000, and bought it when the price dropped to $7,000. In September 2019 he wrote that the same listing had dropped again, to $8,000. Only the first of those is a paid price. The second he watched.
Compare like with like. Set the 2012 range or the 2023 retail figure against what a tunnel install costs and Sideshift's published kit prices. Then add the Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself. that this unit needs and a A thruster that bolts to the outside of the hull, up near the bow or on the back of the boat. Its propeller hangs in the water below it. Nothing is cut through the hull, so there is no tunnel. does not.
Videos
One video from each maker’s own YouTube channel: Yacht Thruster’s 300 Simplex going onto a hull in a yard, and an ezDrive going onto a 2025 Centurion wake boat. They are the makers’ pitch. Watch them for how the units go on, and take the claims to the sections above.
Questions to ask before you order
Both brands sell by phone and contact form, so get these answers in writing before you pay.
- What does it cost, delivered, for my boat? Neither site says. Get the kit, the controls, the shipping and any adapter for a curved hull as separate lines.
- Which warranty: 2 years or 3? The FAQ and the product pages disagree. Ask which document governs, and whether a claim requires paying for the replacement first.
- Who manufactures it, and where do spares and a replacement motor come from? The brochure does not name the factory.
- Can I read the installation manual before I pay? Yacht Thruster's is not online; ezDrive's Streamline guide is. Ask for it, and read the mounting rules against your hull before the deposit.
- Where exactly does the 2 inch A fitting that passes through the hull below the waterline, sealed with a wide lip on each side. Cutting one means the boat comes out of the water. go on my hull, and what is inside there? Tanks, bulkheads and the The part of the hull just behind the bow, where the front of the boat curves down toward the keel. It is the shallowest part of the underwater hull, so a tunnel there has little water above it.'s shape decide it; the maker sizes the adapter from your photographs.
- What is the 24 V plan on a 12 V boat? A second bank, its charger, its cable, and where it lives.
- Which run-time figure applies to my unit? The pages say 5 minutes, 7 to 10, or 10 minutes continuous, depending which one you read.
- For an ezDrive: is the The flat surface across the very back of the boat. fitting above the waterline with the boat ballasted? The pages do not say, and it decides whether you ever do this afloat.
- What antifouling and primer, and does a diver's scrub void anything? Corrosion and neglect are standard exclusions.