Most V drives are used to move the engine to the back of the boat for more
room. Most of the V drives were in ski boats. Heck, we used to call them
Vee drive boats. We had a Mandella, with a velvet drive and transmission in
one unit. Lots of the Vee drives just had an in/out box and some were
direct drive. Ready to ski, fire up the motor!
Bill

Bill

And here's another twist:

I did a sea trial today on a Cruisers 3275 Express. This boat has always been
powered with outdrives, but Cruisers built this one as an inboard, with
V-drives, to move the engines *forward* and get some of the weight out of the
stern. The experiment has worked out well, and Cruisers will now begin offering
this boat with an inboard as well as an I/O configuration.

V-drives work well on inboard express cruisers because the cabin accomodations
are built too deeply into the bilge to put an engine room below the cabin sole.

Straight drives would eat up several feet of cabin space with little or no
benefit.

I often thought that Bayliner should have used V-drives on their 32 and 38
motoryachts years ago, rather than the
super short shafts and the unavoidable prop tunnels that design required. Those
prop tunnels were enormous factors in the
"bow high" ride of the 32's and 38's....(not enough hull mass in the water to
provide lift at the stern).