All in Opinion
To start, I will say that this article is aimed at documenting the abandonment of a specific market that Mercury Racing was instrumental in creating. The high performance outboard market is almost non existent, yet outboard sales are at all time highs.
This is a short overview of some of the options you have when it is time to re-power or find an engine for a restoration project.
Buying a used boat today is like buying large quantities of cocaine online, it’s dangerous and full of unknowns.
At Wave to Wave, our favorite boats are smaller, single engine sport boats. This covers a large spectrum because some boats are semi offshore, some are lightweight lake hot rods and some are somewhere in the middle.
The Wave to Wave Outboard buyers guide is focused on performance orientated outboards from the midsize horsepower range to the high horsepower range.
Bowriders are the worst boat design because they cause the greatest number of fatalities on the water, obstruct the driver's view and negatively affect performance. There, I said it. I hate bowriders, always have, always will.
In the automotive world we are firmly in the the electric revolution. But what does this mean for performance boats?
This is a difficult category because there are so many small tunnel hulls that are great.
In the late 90s the EPA began to set goals for outboard marine engines that evolved around the same time they outlawed lead from gasoline.
What does the performance boat world have in common with Rap music? Besides drugs and money, there is a rivalry of sorts but it’s not really a rivalry it’s just a strong distinction between how boats are made and designed in each region.
As performance minded boaters, we have seen the slow demise of the small displacement, lightweight and powerful two stroke outboards.
I think I discovered Ship Shape TV while cruising around YouTube a couple years ago and I have to say I love it.
First off, before the Donzi mafia comes to get me, let me be clear; I really like Donzi classics, there is no arguing about their place in boating history.
A noticeable number of new midsize offshore boats and big lake performance boats are running outboards now.
Instagram can be entertaining and since it has photography as well as video, it can be a great place to checkout some boats while you’re wasting time on your phone.
The DeLorean of cars, futuristic design with horrible quality and even worse performance.
