On Aug 28, 12:01?pm, HK wrote:
Eisboch wrote:
"HK" wrote in message
...

You're just sliding down that hill again, Chuck. Your goal, stated or
otherwise, is to promote anything and all things that might sell boats.
I have no ongoing business interests in the boating world. I think hanging
large appendages out of the bottom of a plastic pleasure boat is
inherently risky and certainly riskier than the typical inboard prop shaft
and rudder combo. A steel commercial vessel with watertight compartments
and bulkheads, well, that's different, eh?

Harry, you seem to be taking the position that the only safe type of engine
on a small pleasure boat is an outboard (probably run like I used to as a
kid ... with the latch disengaged so if you hit bottom or something, the
engine just pivoted up).

Nothing wrong with an outboard, if fact I'd prefer it to an I/O, but both
are not practical for some boats. I've seen a SeaRay with conventional twin
screws and rudders have the entire strut on one side ripped out of the hull
when it's prop picked up and wrapped a submerged 2" hawser. I also
recently saw a mangled mess of props, bent shafts and a hole almost 2 feet
long in a boat that got out of the channel in Wood's Hole and ran up on the
rocks.

Eisboch

No, that is not my position. Though on a *small* power pleasure boat
like mine, I don't believe inboards make much sense.

On straight inboard boats, I prefer the shafts and drives be at least
partially protected by a significant keel ahead of those appendages.
There are plenty of inboards with such bottom protection. But even bare
struts, shafts and props present less of an inviting target and probably
don't hang down as low as these new variations on I/O drives that come
through the bottom of the hull. Plus they are very complex, just the
sort of thing you need when "cruising" to faraway ports.

You have a point on the complexity issue. Otherwise you are
enunciating through your fedora, especially when it comes to
protection.

The entire keel and the foreward sections of the hull protrude
substantially deeper than the Zeus drives on the 41 GB. Visualize a
semi displacement hull, instead of a planing hull, and you may be able
to appreciate why the Zeus drives are not unduly exposed. The total
surface exposure is much less than with traditional exposed shafts and
struts, and a serious wack may be substantially less likely to sink
the boat.