Single ZF drive with bow thruster

[Mr. Sandman]

The IPS are forward facing mounted, and if you hit something the props are first to see the impact. The ZF are rearward facing. Both units are designed to shear off in the event of a massive hard impact without letting water in the boat. Hulls are designed to incorporte the mount, they can not just be bolted on any boat.
If you hit something that shears this off...your insurance will buy you a new one.
They make these now in very heavy duty models..I mean really heavy gears that blow away any I/O or any OB. All are designed for diesel power plants and they have models for over 1000 Hp. I saw a cut-away of the smallest one that could take up to 480Hp and it had a 7" main gear that was incredibly massive. The bearings and casing of the unit look like commercial equipment not what you typically see in OB/or I/O's.

Coupling these drives with modern efficient common rail diesels will deliver the best of both worlds, very efficient propulsors (counter rotating props) ,effective drive units that have a minimum of wetted surface (low resistance), a heavy duty transmission inboard that is properly cooled all driven by a effective power plant.
Both ZF and Volvo are really focusing on this joystick control but while that is nice I think the selling point is the mpg @ speed.. I spoke to someone at seavee before they gave that boat over to ZF and they said they have build a lot of 34's with the 480 cummins and they never saw speeds like that. (he said they had it up to 42) The single pod is unique and along with the bow thruster they were still tuning the software for the joystick control as it is more complicated than with twin stern units, but even without the joystick control, just a basic bow thruster I think this a milestone achievement. They can deliver double or more fuel economy over conventional approaches. (forgetabout triple or quad ob's buring 80-120 gals per hour (of gasoline) at white knuckle speeds) The disadvantage is you don't have the really high end speeds 50+...but to be perfectly honest, you rarely can run at those speeds, at least not the waters where I fish.

[striperman36]

I like a nice semi-displacement cruising speed with a good mpg, that I can trailer. If I can do that , I'm sold.

Some day I'm going for the 27 OceanMaster or Sandman's boat.