Mercury Introduces the Bravo 4 - Forward Facing.

I's amazed how expensive the wakeboard boats are - having owned an inboard Malibu Skier back in the 80's and 90's, I think I paid $15K new. My dockmate just bought a Moomba Wake boat - only $156K. His is an inboard, Ford Raptor supercharged V8...
 
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It's unreal how expensive these new surf boats are. The Super Air Nautique G23 Paragon goes for ~ $265k. Unless you're making a living competing, I can't see spending $265k on something that otherwise rides like garbage and beats the crap out of you.
 
When I first saw the Volvo version of this I thought it would be very vulnerable to impact, more likely to get fouled with weeds etc. with the props in the lead.

Don’t you think?
 
Yes, I would agree. At least when line or weeds hit the skeg or lower unit, there is a chance (albeit small) that it will bounce off first. Another downside is you cannot trim these drives as high and so you are at higher risk in shallow water.

Maneuverability is improved with this design since the props are further under the hull and you still get directional thrust and no prop torque.

I’d guess that Mercruiser wanted to add options for boat manufacturers who want to get into the surf market. That’s why Volvo designed their forward drive.
 
TimW said:
MF's oughta be illegal.

Nothing like sending 3' swell thru private docks around the lake.

But, the inconsiderate A holes gotta be able to have their fun at everyone else's expense.
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Amen. Most of these boaters are inconsiderate and oblivious to the havoc they create. And the new ones throw 6’ wakes.
 
It’s is a big problem on our lake. These people look for quiet coves as the main channel is usually really busy and the water can be rough. Those coves are usually narrow and docks and boats take a beating. I would like to see them limited to the main channel here and only during early morning or evening hours for surfing/wakeboarding. At least with skiers, the boats produce a minimal wake - especially compared to surf boats or even bow riders.

To be fair, cruisers can also make some big wake, though I have yet to see someone plowing through a cove. There is a new Carver C52 on our lake that produces a BIG wake when running up the lake but they keep that in the deep water in the main channel. They are respectful when pulling into a cove as are most people with cruisers. The surf boat owners, not at all.
 
Surf boats are all the rage now. Good to see mercruiser getting into it. I would say these type of boats in Utah have a 80 share of the market. Surfing is much easer to do than wake boarding or skiing so there is a big draw for all the family to do it. It is low impact on the body and lots of us that grew up sking and wake boarding that love to get behind the boat like it because it doesn't hurt and doesn't tale a-lot of energy to do it.

Now with that said yes totally agree.
Most of the owners of these boats dont understand how big the wake is that they put out and what type of damage they can do and just over all chaos it is to a nice lake.
On our lake there is a hand full of good open bays and at any given time you can have 20+ of these boats doing there thing. The other thing with these boat are they are rated to have 10 or 12 persons on the boat. So one of these boat can be going for a couple hours doing there thing over and over.

We have three of these boat on our dock and they all paid over 200k for them and now with cova the sales on these boat have gone up 150% so you have lots of inexperience boaters out there.
 
Cap'n Scuba Steve said:
Yes, I would agree. At least when line or weeds hit the skeg or lower unit, there is a chance (albeit small) that it will bounce off first. Another downside is you cannot trim these drives as high and so you are at higher risk in shallow water.

Maneuverability is improved with this design since the props are further under the hull and you still get directional thrust and no prop torque.

I’d guess that Mercruiser wanted to add options for boat manufacturers who want to get into the surf market. That’s why Volvo designed their forward drive.
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Ah, no on the Volvo comment. They built an innovative drive by wire platform, the IPS pod system using forward facing counter rotating props. BTW, Mercruiser tried to build their own pod system (Zeus) and it was a less than successful venture.

In any event here they are trying something new, that Volvo introduced 12 years ago. As for bottom clearance, there really isn’t a lot of draft change with the B3 because of the limited safe angle. On our 280, we could get maybe 3 inches of draft reduction before the angle became too sharp for the drive shaft u joints to operate.
 
Henry Boyd said:
Ah, no on the Volvo comment. They built an innovative drive by wire platform, the IPS pod system using forward facing counter rotating props. BTW, Mercruiser tried to build their own pod system (Zeus) and it was a less than successful venture.

In any event here they are trying something new, that Volvo introduced 12 years ago. As for bottom clearance, there really isn’t a lot of draft change with the B3 because of the limited safe angle. On our 280, we could get maybe 3 inches of draft reduction before the angle became too sharp for the drive shaft u joints to operate.
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The Forward Drive was inspired by their IPS Pods, which were introduced 12 years ago as you mentioned. I was talking specifically about the Forward Drive, which was only introduced 5 years ago for surf boats from Cobalt, Regal, Four Winns, Monterey, etc which are designed as stern drive boats.
 
Still haven't seen any of these in the real world. Just at the boat show a couple weeks ago and didn't see any there either. Are they out there in any real numbers yet?
 
So I have a Supra, and we love it, but like many of you have said, people will ruin the wakeboarding/surfing sports for everyone because they are inconsiderate. I will not consider replacing the boat we have with a I/O at all. Ours can do a decent wake, but it can slalom ski as well, and if you are driving slowly in close quarters it is a far smaller wake than the wave runners around the docks. There are some of us who will only use their boats for surfing in WIDE open lakes, not coves or rivers. But like many have said, the bad apples spoil the bunch. Making more boats surfable will bring out even more people who lack consideration of others and others’ property. But I’ve seen many cruisers moving way too fast and causing huge wakes when if they slowed down, wouldn’t be damaging property either.
When some of you speak of how expensive surf boats are, has anyone priced out a similar sized Cobalt or Chris Craft? A new Sea Ray SLX260 is right up with that Nautique. https://buildmy.searay.com/build/SLX260Surf
New boats have seen a massive (like 40%) price increase in the last 5 years, maybe less. Materials have gotten more expensive and will likely never go back down.
 
I see a lot of Cobalt's with the Volvo foreward drive (my Marina is a Cobalt dealer), I do not hear much about problems with the Volvo.
As far as prices go, well here is a good comparison, I recently bought a 2014 Cobalt R5 - from an individual whom I knew, so I think I paid a fair price. But here is the real eye opener - I have the original invoice when my 2014 was bought new - $94,741, a 2023 Cobalt R6 which is the new model of this boat - one is sitting at the dealer now with the price listed on it $206k! Most of the used R5's I was looking at before I found mine were asking close to if not more than what the boats sold for new - most around $80-90k, some more. The good news is it was pretty easy to sell my SeaRay - but I also was asking a fair, not covid crazy price. I think the boat sales, at least from what I am seeing from our marina are slowing down -- I am seeing boats sit on their lot for months, not days now. But when it comes to things like boats, airplanes any type of recreational toy -- there will always be people who have money and will just buy them regardless of prices.
 
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