BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

A conversation among Whalers
NLA01
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BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

Postby NLA01 » Tue Oct 15, 2019 10:15 pm

I used to read a magazine called "Bass and Walleye" boats; it went out of business a few years back. One of the things that I really loved about this magazine is that they did side by side comparisons of outboard engines, using the same boat hull. They would perform test on each engine and then compare the the data. I seem to not be able to find anything like this on the internet.

I have found individual reports of owners of outboard on message boards, and I have seen testing reports of new outboards with little data, but not test comparisons. The data that IS out there really doesn't matter because test are never done on the same boat and same conditions.

In particular I would like to see test comparison and data reports on newer 300-HP Mercury, Suzuki, Evinrude and Yamaha outboard engines.

The article Jimh did on the Evinrude 140 was the most interesting and informative report I have seen on an outboard in a while from any publication. Are there any resources out there on outboard like that one Jim did and also test comparisons of any outboards period on the same hull?

Are outboard manufacturers no longer wanting their engine to be tested side-by-side?

What ever happen to the days of outboard manufactures trying to outdo each other in performance, like how car manufactures have always done?

Archie

jimh
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Re: Outboard side by side comparisons reports

Postby jimh » Tue Oct 15, 2019 10:53 pm

ARCHIE--I used to subscribe to BASS & WALLEYE BOAT magazine. I also enjoyed reading it, and particularly the articles in which outboard engines were tested and compared. Most were written by John Tiger.

The general problem with magazines or websites run for profit by commercial interests and them conducting head-to-head engine performance testing is paid advertising. Magazines need advertising to make money. Outboard engine advertising generally means that any outboard engine articles written for the magazine are going to be generally flattering for the outboard engine manufacturer.

One of the last tests done by BASS & WALLEYE was a big test in which four outboard engines were tested at once, but each was mounted on a different boat. The boats were all made by the same boat builder and were supposed to be identical. Some engine manufacturers who participated in these tests thought that the testing conditions were not a level playing field. There were complaints about using "racing" engines, running lab-finished and balanced propellers, and changing engine firmware during the testing. At least one manufacturer withdrew from the magazine's testing because they felt there was a bias shown by the magazine people that favored one brand.

While the engine comparison tests might have been fun to read and usually generated a lot of controversy, apparently they didn't sell enough magazines or enough magazine advertising to keep the publication in business.

A safer business model is to avoid head-to-head testing and just write nice articles about everyone's engines.

The magazine has been gone for ten years. Here is a ten-year-old thread about their ending publication:

http://www.continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum ... 18194.html

ASIDE: There was an affiliated magazine from the same publisher called TRAILER BOATING. I first came across a copy of that magazine in a physician's waiting room just by chance many years ago. At that time I did not own a trailerable power boat. I think that reading that first TRAILER BOATING magazine had an influence on my future choice of boats and boating.

jimh
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Re: BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

Postby jimh » Wed Oct 16, 2019 1:25 pm

Acassidy wrote:Are outboard manufacturers no longer wanting their engine to be tested side-by-side?


Evinrude has conducted and shown many tests of their engines literally side-by-side with competitor engines by using a twin-engine installation with two different brand engine of the same horsepower. Evinrude then demonstrated that their E-TEC engine could put the boat on plane by itself, while the competitor's engine could not do that.

These tests were presented in motion-picture with sound recordings, and clearly showed how the test was done and the results. However, many boaters objected to these tests--usually boaters who were big fans of the engine brand that was demonstrated as lacking enough power to put the boat on plane.

Evinrude also conducted many tug-of-war tests with competitors' engine, using identical boats. The two boats tried to pull each other. The E-TEC engine-powered boat always ended up winning the tug of war. However, many boaters objected to these tests--usually boaters who were big fans of the engine brand that was shown being pulled underwater by the E-TEC.

In both cases there was a cadre of boaters who felt that these demonstrations were rigged in favor of the E-TEC, found possible deceptive practices, and in generally tried to discredit the tests and ridicule their outcomes.

My inference is that for many boaters their preference for a particular engine brand is very ingrained, and trying to convince a life-long fan of a particular brand that there is a better outboard engine available in another brand is very difficult. Even with clearly photographed motion pictures, most fans of an engine will not be swayed by losing a tug-of-war or failing to get a boat on plane.

These old brand loyalties are hard to change, but they may no longer be very influential in the sales of new engines. Most new outboard engines are going on the transoms of new boats. Many boat builders are owned by Brunswick, a corporate conglomerate that makes Mercury outboard engines and puts them on all their boatbuilders' new boat transom. Many independently owned boatbuilders have had long relationships with one engine brand, usually Yamaha, and use that brand exclusively, or otherwise make it difficult to buy one of their new boats with a different engine.

That leaves the market for outboard engines that are unconstrained by brand mostly to the re-powering of older boats. I see that market as being smaller than the new boat market, and also affected by longer service life of the original engines. Modern outboard engines tend to be very reliable and to have long service lives. They do not need to be replaced at three-year intervals.

NLA01
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Re: BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

Postby NLA01 » Sun Oct 20, 2019 1:17 pm

Jim you make excellent points and I believe they are all correct. I completely forgot about Trailer Boat magazine, which seemed to be the sister publication of Bass and Walleye magazine. I remember them sharing many articles about performance reviews of outboard and even shared the same editors. I absolutely loved those two magazine and fast forward to present day and the internet certainly falls short to fill in that gap of side by side comparisons those magazine did.

The history of innovations in outboard technology since the very first outboard produced was always been driven and geared toward side by side racing and who had the fastest outboard. This was the same for every motorized vehicle that was every made. Even though there is no way the modern manufactures do not care about performance of their outboards, they sure do like to keep information hidden from the public.

With the longevity of boats and the common practice of re-powering older boats I think the re-power market it actually pretty stout at least in my area, where saltwater shortens the life of outboard motor. And new hulls are insanely expensive. It is not uncommon to see a boat repowered many many times over the hulls life. Many new boat owners repower after 5-10 years and a 40 year old Whaler might be on its 5th repower.

It seems to me that the local Evinrude dealer and the local Suzuki dealers seem to be the choice for re-power in my area and the dealers seems to really be geared only for re-power sales. The local Yamaha and Mercury dealers also sell new boats and they focus first in boat sales and the outboard sales are not their primary business. So almost all re-powers around here are Evinrude and Suzuki.

The other market are the locals boat builders (and there are many) a they'd will put any brand power you want on the back. The local builders build for the Texas coast bay fishing and some of these boats run 80 mph on the water. So I know they are looking for performance in the outboards. I would say the local builders supply maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of boat sales on the coast

So maybe I am missing the resources on the internet about outboard comparison. I would like to see the comparison of 300 outboard s on the same hull.
Thanks
Archie

jimh
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Re: BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

Postby jimh » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:21 am

Outboard engine manufacturers have done head-to-head comparison testing on the same boat. Evinrude presented a motion-picture and sound recording of their engine mounted with a competitor's engine on a twin engine boat. They showed how the Evinrude engine could put the boat on plane by itself but the competitor's engine could not.

Evinrude presented motion-picture and sound recordings of their engine mounted on a boat and a competitor's engine mounted on the same model boat, engaging in a tug-of-war pull. They showed how their engine could pull the boat with the competitor's engine under water.

The curious outcome from these two motion-picture demonstrations was an astonishing amount of disbelief in the fairness of the testing, usually coming from people who did not own Evinrude engines. This revealed to me how strongly held and how often irrationally held were the engine brand preferences among boaters, and there seemed to be nothing that could alter the opinions held by some boaters about their engine brand preference.

Seahorse
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Re: BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

Postby Seahorse » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:03 pm

jimh wrote:Outboard engine manufacturers have done head-to-head comparison testing on the same boat. Evinrude presented a motion-picture and sound recording of their engine mounted with a competitor's engine on a twin engine boat. They showed how the Evinrude engine could put the boat on plane by itself but the competitor's engine could not.

This revealed to me how strongly held and how often irrationally held were the engine brand preferences among boaters, and there seemed to be nothing that could alter the opinions held by some boaters about their engine brand preference.


That particular twin-engine 25' boat with a Yamaha 200 and an Evinrude 150 was available at dealer shows and at major public boat shows for people to go out in the rig and try the demonstration themselves. I'm told over 1000 people were on board over time and could try anything they want with the throttle, trim, and persons positioning to try to get the Yamaha to plane the boat.

Boattest.com, an independent online magazine, requested a trial by their writers and asked for all types of changes including swapping the motors from side to side, to try and influence the outcome. They ran the boat for 2 days and could not get the 200 hp Yamaha to plane out on one engine, including propeller changes.

jimh
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Re: BASS & WALLEYE BOATS Magazine

Postby jimh » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:15 pm

I really liked the twin-engine E-TEC v. competitor engine test. Since there was only one boat involved there could not be any boat-to-boat variation as might occur with testing with two different hulls of the same model.

Maybe the guys at BOATTEST.COM held a suspicion of asymmetry in the hull mold, and that was the reason for swapping the engine locations on the transom. Since the non-running motor was always tilted up and its gear case was not in the water, I don't see any way the non-running engine could have affected the outcome.

Maybe they thought a right-hand rotation propeller mounted on the starboard side of a V-hull would get some advantage over a right-hand propeller mounted on the port side of a V-hull.

I think none of that sort of influence could be found because there was a more significant problem: the four-stroke-power-cycle Yamaha engine could not accelerate under the propeller load.

When no loophole in the test could be found, the naysayers reverted to a new strategy: the test was meaningless and proved nothing.

The reactions the test elicited from boaters was more surprising to me than the outcome of the test. The real results were that engine brand preference are baked-in for a boater long before he is old enough to afford to buy his first outboard engine.