Sterndrive for Big Express Cruisers?

Yea, I have. But for me it's still a dream. I'll have to wait a few years untill there are some used ones out there. Wrote a song about it, here it goes, "I can't afford it, I'm under welfare, my wife won't let me".........hey wait a minute, I'm not married!

Gary I like the Grady's too, but they cost even more than the Whalers! If I had your money I'd burn mine. HA, HA.
 
JeffM said:
Makes the swim platform hard to use, though.

Guess it depends on your planned use of the boat. We use ours mainly for water sports and anchoring/swimming, where ease of boarding is important, and the deep, full-width swim platform is very nice to have.

I'm glad there's more than one manufacturer out there....to each his own!

Jeff
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May sound crazy but I've always used the outboard as a seat. There is a swim ladder. Makes a nice diving platform to. Man I'm way to big to be doing it but then there stronger than the hard top.LOL
 
My boat was hauled before Thanksgiving and I was BS'ing with the mechanics at lunchtime. Just prior, I saw him cussing at at a big sterndrive express (Doral 30 something I think). Even though the boat was rack stored- still a bunch of corrosion related issues like frozen bolts. He said he felt they had no place on a boat that size. I would never own a sterndrive in saltwater if it were to be wet-slipped, just my $.02.

In any case, a boat that size needs to be inboard powered for the reasons noted above.
 
I looked at a very nice Italian built boat last year at the boat show. That boat had Volvo diesels and the Volvo sterndrive. The diesel sterndrive is different, completely different than the one on the gas engines. I wandered over the the Volvo engine display and looked really carefully at the engine and drive. Now, to me, it appeared that the bellows for the drive shaft connected the top of the sterndrive to the bell housing of the engine. Thus, it appeared that the engines's bell housing is exposed to raw water. The Volvo guy said that it has not been a problem, but it doesn't sound like a great idea to me, either. If you're ok with the back of your diesel sitting in salt water, go for it. I'm not.

But not so fast... If you're not planning on keeping this boat forever, you have to think, even a little bit, about resale. Who is going to buy this boat? In general, guys who are buying Rinkers are looking for the biggest boat with the most features (think built-in blenders) for the least bucks. These guys don't care about diesels. Your diesel boat that you bought for a $50,000 premium over a gasser will probably sell for the same amount as a gasser at trade in time. Talk to a couple of brokers and ask their opinions. Most will tell you that certain boats don't resell well with diesels. This boat sounds like not just a white elephant, but a white elephant twice over. Sterndrive diesels and a Rinker with diesels.

You're better off looking at a boat with known good diesel resale value. If you want that extra sterndrive-like behavior with diesel power, get something that has good diesel resale with the IPS drive.

Best regards,
Frank
 
In the next ten years IPS and Zeus drives will replace inboards altogether in larger model boats. These technologies will improve and the price of the systems will drop leaving only i/o's and these technologies to run the boats. Zeus is now offered in the 38 dancer and IPS drives are now offered in boats 36 foot and greater(cruisers, four winns and formula come to mind).
 
I think some of the "battle wagon" builders like Bertram and Viking find things like engine placement for weight balance/ride quality just as important so I'll disagree with that prediction. I like having the engines mounted in the middle of the boat... not going to get that with the pod drives. If Sea Ray starts building all their bridge boats with rear engines, this will be my last Sea Ray.
 
Four Suns said:
I think some of the "battle wagon" builders like Bertram and Viking find things like engine placement for weight balance/ride quality just as important so I'll disagree with that prediction. I like having the engines mounted in the middle of the boat... not going to get that with the pod drives. If Sea Ray starts building all their bridge boats with rear engines, this will be my last Sea Ray.
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One word:
jackshafts

Best regards,
Frank
 
Fair enough... but that will introduce a lot more failure points into something that is very simple right now.
 
Gary and Frank................don't you think that performance, fuel mileage, and GPS based maneuvering will make pod drives the more desirable choice in the future? I understand the simplicity of inboards and also placement of engines but I wonder whether the good old inboard/v-drive will really be that desirable in the future?
 
True

But most things today are more complex than they were 40 or even 20 years ago. Mostly, they're also more reliable. If everyone does their engineering right, it could be a win-win.

On the other hand, however I don't have much faith in Mercruiser. Their stuff does not seem better today than what they made back in the 80s. Electronics, autos, etc, have all gotten much more complex and more reliable. Merc's outboards and sterndrives still seem... iffy. The guys with Volvos seem happier, however. We'll see.

If I were writing an order for a new boat today, Dave. I'd probably get the Regal 4460 with the IPS 600 drives. They get great performance with smaller engines -- which is good for economy of operation. I don't think much of GPS based maneuverability, however. The GPS system isn't that accurate. It's good for getting close to a waypoint, but I would not ask for it to do much more than that. GPS will get you to the inlet, but I wouldn't trust it to get me though it.

Best regards,
Frank
 
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I sure hope that the new 'pod' drives don't completely replace inboard power.

My old 340EC has the motors right in the middle of the boat with straight drives, vs. the 340DA of the same vintage that uses v-drives to place the motors against the transom.

A friend of mine has an '89 340DA at the same marina I'm at. I've run his boat, and the difference in planing speed and RPM is huge compared to my straight inboards.

His boat needs over 3000 RPM to stay on plane, whereas my boat will actually hold plane as low as 2200 RPM, with no trim tab added. My buddy went to all chain anchor rode to help put some weight forward, which actually did help more than I would have thought.

Putting the motors aft gives you more cabin space, but it's a big trade-off in performance.
 
Straight drives will always be around. It's a simple cheap and reliable system. A boat big enough for straight drives, will have the engines in middle of the boat.

I think IPS and maybe Zeus will kill the v-drive. In all the comparisons tests, the IPS have better performance and efficiency usually with smaller engines. Performance is not just for speed demons, getting on plane fast is a safety issue. I test drove more than a few mid-sized v-drive cruisers that took full tabs and a lot of time to level out. You giving up visibilty and manauverabilty during that time, plus you're putting out a monster wake.
 
Agreed, the v-drive is a dead drive walking. With more hulls being designed around pod drives (as small as 35' I think), what sense would a v-drive boat make. Even if there were no gains in cabin area, which there are, the handling gains alone put v-drives to shame.
 
The pod drives are the newest gee-whiz thing in boating so there is a lot of interest and some will sell to "early adopters". The other market for them is going to be the busy professional or executive who is a weekend warrior, or less, who can afford the pod drive and wants it because its easy to drive but who won't take the time to learn to properly handle his new big boat.

One axiom of machine design is to get the job done simply and cost effectively and there isn't much way the competition can hurt you. That is certainly true in this case as well. The plain straight inboard and, to some degree, the v-drive as well, is a simple elegant and very cost effective design. I just don't ever see either as becoming "dead" as long as boaters navigate in new and unknown waters and as long as boater's are a sensitive to cost as CSR members seem to be.

I can't think the same guys who complain about every Sea Ray price increase are the same ones who will choose a new pod drive boat over a v-drive.

There was a time when the newest, slickest and best idea for the internal combustion engine was the rotary engine. The magazines touted them as the death knell for reciprocating overhead valve engines and early adopters loved them...............perhaps we are debating boating's version of the Wankel engine.
 
fwebster said:
...perhaps we are debating boating's version of the Wankel engine.
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True, or it could be more like fuel injection. EFI has made the carburator virtually obsolete. Only time will tell. My Dad an RX-2 it was sweet.

On one test I read the IPS was more than $10K less than v-drives because the engines were smaller. So this isn't going to be just a cost issue.

The whole learning to properly handle the boat theme, reminds me of people talking about automatic transmissions. And as a computer geek it hit's home. People should not be allowed to operate a computer unless the can write octal assembly language and design an ALU. Those old DEC computers were simple, elegant and cost effective, they had nothing to fear from a personal computer.
 
It's hard to predict where propulsion will go in the future. However, there is clearly a big opportunity to improve on the reliablilty of I/O's kept in saltwater. There is also a big opportunity to improve upon the efficiency of traditional straight-drives and v-drives. Too early to tell if Zeus or IPS will be it. There is a big reward waiting for the person/company that figures it out.
 
You know, there's something about the new 'pod' drives that is interesting to me.

They are designed and installed on boats that are most certainly moored in the water their entire lives. As such, it was decided, first by Volvo and then by Merc, to cast the gear housings in bronze. This makes good sense, as bronze is way higher on the nobility chart than any form of aluminum. No matter which aluminum alloy you use, it wants to be anodic, especially so when you use stainless fasteners to hold it all together.

So why in the world don't they make stern drives out of bronze? Sure it's heavier, but you could easily engineer pivot points and hydraulic rams to take the extra heft.

I'm certain it comes down to cost, and the answer is simply that it is far cheaper to use aluminum.

This is something that's not been touched on here; it costs far less in labor to use one of the 'pod' drives on your new boat. The manufacturers are touting this new technology as the wave of the future, and I don't doubt the performance figures I see in the magazines for it. But, as always and in everything, the bottom line is- the bottom line. Once you've designed your new model's hull to accept an IPS or Zeus, it's far cheaper to throw a couple of them in your boat, and warranty expenses related to misaligned drivetrains, etc. disappear.
 
fwebster said:
There was a time when the newest, slickest and best idea for the internal combustion engine was the rotary engine. The magazines touted them as the death knell for reciprocating overhead valve engines and early adopters loved them...............perhaps we are debating boating's version of the Wankel engine.
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The wankel engine has inherent defects. The huge surface area of the combustion chamber makes for a massively large quench zone. Because of that, thermal efficiency of the wankel will always be terrible. Thus, it is very difficult to get good fuel efficiency from them. Maybe if they could build an all-ceramic wankel without a cooling system... but then again, the same in a reciprocating engine would still be more efficient.

There is no inherent defect as such in the idea of pod drive. Ocean liners and other commercial boats have been using them for years. The only issues are ones of engineering, and those are solvable.

As to cost, the extra cost of the drive is partially offset by the reduction in cost by allowing the use of smaller engines. There isn't much difference in price between V drives and the IPS in the boats that I have priced.

JAndrewG said:
They are designed and installed on boats that are most certainly moored in the water their entire lives. As such, it was decided, first by Volvo and then by Merc, to cast the gear housings in bronze.
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Actually, the Volvo IPS housing and propellers are made of nibral, a nickel, bronze, and aluminum alloy that is more noble and stronger than marine bronze. Nibral is also more expensive and harder to machine that bronze, thus the bi-metal Zeus drive with a bronze housing and stainless props.


Best regards,
Frank
 
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