Sea Ray introduces Zeus on the 38 and 44 Sundancers

[geriksen]

We have a boat in the yard right now made by one of Sea Ray's competitors that has IPS. This is acually the first one of it's kind 36 ft for them and it is still in the test and tune process. Some guys from the factory are here modifying the running surface of the hull.
They said the best thing about it is how quick they can install them at the factory (told ya). The changes they make here will do into the mold for future hulls. It was too cold up north to run the boat there.
Check out the QL trim tabs! Wild!
I haven't been able to ride in it yet but I hope to when they are done with it.
btw, that is a white bottom job done by us. You wouldn't even think it had been painted.

I hope the picture I am attaching makes it.

 

[geriksen]

Just got back from sea trailing the IPS powered 36 non-sea ray.

Plusses,
Smooooooth... NO vibration
Awesome accelleration. It will really jump at almost any throttle setting
The joystick/pseudo bow thruster worked great. You could crab the boat sidways and also rotate it at the same time just by using the joystick. It is a little touchy but very intuititive and easy to use.

Minuses,
They come unpainted and require expensive (propspeed) paint
Steering is speed sensitive (it turns more at low speed). This is fine except when you slow down in the middle of a turn the drives turn more and instead of levelling out the boat suddenly rolls further over and turns more. "whoa! hold on!" (picture passengers, drinks etc. suddenly on the floor.)
Loading it on a trailer is just downright scary..... (forward facing props)
QL trim tabs (not really IPS related) were too much on this boat. Extremely sensitive and very hard to get set right. They may have just been a bit too big.

It all does work quite well but the whole set up is very "touchy". The smallest control movement makes large and sudden changes in what the boat does. Responsiveness is nice but making those tiny/fine control movements might be a bit tricky in rough water where the boat is moving around a lot. It would be nice to desensitize the whole thing a bit.

I will say this. The bow thruster people are in trouble. This really does make a bow thruster obsolete.

 

[fc3]

Considering that its the first application on that hull, it all sounds like just a series of simple software changes. Interesting to see that the production boats do.

Best regards,
Frank

 

[Bottom Line]

I saw the the 2 new Cobalt (37' and 46') Yachts last fall, at a Cobalt dealer convention on our lake. The 46 had the Zeus drives and the joy stick. It was very impressive to see the the boat crab walk or slide completely sideways...it sure made docking look extremely easy. I heard after we left, they took some of the dealers out on a ride and when coming back into the dock, something did not function quite right and they put a nice scratch in the fiberglass.

 

[geriksen]

Yes,
I think if they change the progamming so that the steering ratio changes on accelleration but does not change on decelleration until you reach idle speed that will fix the problem.

The QL trim tabs are just so effective they have to be smaller than convantional tabs to have similar response time. The ones on this boat were the smallest available.

 

[geriksen]

Got another IPS boat. This time it's an itailian job.
Check out the bow thruster location. Nicely molded in, but there is no need for it anymore.