www.iFourWinns.com

E-Tec is out of the picture for Sea Ray. Mercury/Mercruiser and Sea Ray are owned by Brunswick. You won't see any Evinrude products offered on this Sea Ray boat. The boat is designed exclusively for the 300HP Supercharged Verado, and it is doubtful the Evinrude is compatible with the design of the 370 Venture. It's not like a conventional transom outboard powered boat that you can just put any brand of outboard on it.
I'll relay the comment to my contacts at Mercury and Sea Ray Merrit Island that ric thinks they are not "smart men".

Since ya'll seem to be interested in express cruiser's with outboard power. Here is some old news. Pursuit started this Sport Yacht before Sea Ray did, and obviously Sea Ray hustled to get their boat in the public eye first. Both brands can be seen at Fall & Spring Boat shows. The Pursuit SY will be powered exclusively by Yamaha outboards.

http://www.pursuitboats.com/Z6.htm

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

They might be smart in other ways, IE, kick backs, contractual agreements, and of course how the auto industry survives: repair. The Verado is almost as maintenance heavy as a 350MAG and costs shittons more to fix. The idea is awesome but the engine choice is horrible, it counteracts any benefit of going outboard. The perfect choice for this boat to see the benefits of outboards and the reliability and low cost of running would be either the Etec or Yamaha. Two Yamaha 300's would put this boat at nearly 2 MPG better fuel economy when compared to two Verados. Two Etec's would be almost 2.5 mpg better then two Verados.

If this idea is going to stick it needs the flexibility of engine choice, the same choice you get when you buy pretty much any outboard powered boat. Even Four Winns's H180 OB allows you to pick Mercury, Evinrude, or Yamaha. Call up your buddies....

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1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

They have already seen your comments. They nearly spit up their Pepsi on their keyboards. Gave us all a good laugh, keep up the uninformed comments, it is amusing to those of us in the boating industry.

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

So you're saying a Verado is cheaper to maintain and gets better fuel economy then a Yamaha or Evinrude outboard? Because those stats are well documented.... and say otherwise.

_________________
1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

I find it interesting that both Sea Ray and Pursuit are pursuing this in larger boats.

But, lest we forget, OMC did this to small boats back in the 90s on Sunbirds and Chris Crafts:



It didn't go so well in the small boats. Although it may have had more to do with the unreliable 2-stroke carb'd motors used than the basic idea of putting an outboard under a fiberglass deck.

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Current Operational Boats:
'04-Four Winns 180 Freedom 150 HP Evinrude
'72-Chris Craft Commander 31 Sedan Twin-350Qs

Pretty much if you see an outboard runabout from the 90's it has a Force engine strapped to it. Those Force engines were absolute garbage, so bad they would break down during seatrials of new boats. It was mostly the electrical and an aftermarket company did produce a better coil AKA the red coil that solved the biggest issue (coils go out all the time) but it was too late. Pretty much every jet boat you see from the 90s, early 2000s is Force based but in the last couple years the aftermarket has come out with parts to make them quite reliable.... 20 years after that engine single handily scared a whole genre of boat owners.

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1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

I think this is a brilliant idea and hope it catches on. Gotta say it makes good sense to me. I love the larger cabin area you can get, and I would think it's much quieter running then conventional inboard twins which is a bonus. The fact that you can fully trim the engines right up is a real benefit too for many reasons. All big positive points in my eyes. I really like this idea a lot to be honest.

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2004 Four Winns 298 Vista
"Last Minute"

I would go that way in a heartbeat better reliability, lower maintenance cost, less weight, most likely less noise, greater cabin space to me that is a no brainer.

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2008 318 Vista "Ka-wai-ola"
350 MPI/BravoIII DTS Seacore
2006 1500 Key West -70 Yamaha
Previous Boats
Key West 2300CC
Pacemaker 270 Sport Fish
290 Sea Ray

I love the whole concept of the boat.

I agree with Ric about E-Tecs that they'd be a nice option IF available. But since Sea Ray and Mercury are sister companies, I doubt we'll ever see that.

One thing I do really love about the 300 Verados; they are the quietest outboards I've ever heard. There's a Fountain in our marina with 2 of them and when it goes by, all you can hear is the telltales pissing.

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07 Azure AZ200,
Previous boat,
95 278 Vista,
And a lot of others.

Ontario, Canada

If they give Yamaha as an option that would be just fine. Just not those Verados. Even on ship shape tv they downed em.

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1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

You obviously have no idea who OMC is. You obviously have no idea who Chrysler, US Marine or Brunswick are either. Let alone Mercury.

Note that I specifically referred to OMC in my post. I have no clue why or how you brought Force up.

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Current Operational Boats:
'04-Four Winns 180 Freedom 150 HP Evinrude
'72-Chris Craft Commander 31 Sedan Twin-350Qs