posted 01-27-2004 08:09 PM ET (US)     

It is a photo of a bunch of outboard boats at a dock, with "generic" outboards on the transom, and a big shark, fin only showing, swimming by in the water. Copy says:

"THERE'S SOMETHING NEW IN THE WATER"

posted 01-28-2004 02:35 PM ET (US)            

Asking Pat Mackey, president of Mercury Marine, about "Project X" would be like asking Dean Kamen about "Ginger" (a.k.a. The Segway Human Transporter).

Does anyone even remember "Ginger"? It was top secret and revolutionary. A technologically amazing new device. It was going to change the world!

I occasionally see a water meter reader riding the sidewalks of Seattle on a Segway Human Transporter. I think you can rent one by the hour for amusement.

posted 01-28-2004 08:37 PM ET (US)            

Their situation reminds me of where our company was about 25 years ago. We we introducing a new product. We generated terrific pre-introductory buzz about it. We had television spots. We had billboards all around town. Man, you could not look up from your car and fail to see one of our billboards.

Finally the new product came out...Initial sampling was great. Consumers came in droves to look and sample...About three days later it was back to business as usual, no big change in consumer habits.

Hype can bring them in, but you have to have product to sell.

posted 01-28-2004 09:16 PM ET (US)            

Good product or not, I still can't help thinking about shrimp cocktail every time I see a profile view of the Project X motor hanging on a transom.

posted 01-28-2004 11:31 PM ET (US)         

The real reason for the intense secrecy is to keep the corporate spies and copycat Japanese, and probably Bombardier, at bay as long as possible. So far this secrecy has worked, as all three of the Japanese companies, several years ago, put their eggs in the big cube 60 degree V-6 basket, coming up with 3 close versions of ho-hum performance, while Mercury secretly developed a smaller cube, higher performance in-line 6, weighing a lot less. Mercury is convinced that everybody will be immediately attempting to "reverse engineer" it, but they hope not for 3 or 4 years. Once the cat is out the bag, and they get one shipped home for dissection, the race is on. That's just the way it is these days, unfortunately. The term "reverse engineer" represents a whole profession dedicated to legally circumventing patents, some times to the better.

posted 01-29-2004 03:26 PM ET (US)         

As for "coleman", he should know that the good people of Wisconsin always spoke highly of him. Even though there is no such quote in the Sounding article. As a teacher, he should do a better job with his footnotes.
Our friend Dyskow, of Yamaha fame, and Mercury hater par excellence that coleman is referring to, does say that "they're (Mercury) biting the hand that feeds them." Give me a break. He seems to forget that Mercury designs and builds his 30, 40, 50 (half of it) and 60 4-strokes, an excellent line of engines that are better relative performers then the ho-hum 225's that Mercury got from Yamaha.

Once the Project X 4-strokes hit the water, the big, heavy, bulky looking conventional V-6 225/250 4-stroke beasts are going to get their doors blown off, which is not all that difficult anyway. Any respectable EFI or DFI will do it already. Performance oriented owners are complaining that the advertizing "hype" hasn't held up, and fuel economy is only minimally better, dragging around all that weight.

posted 01-29-2004 04:24 PM ET (US)            

I'm betting that the "Axis of Outboard Evil" will dupe Mercury and Whaler into selling them two 320s so they'll have a pair of "shrimps" to dissect and a pair to run.
I don't see this practice as pathetic. There is nothing unethical, deceitful or unlawful about one competitor buying another competitor's product on the open market and seeing what makes it tick provided that they respect the other's intellectual property rights when it comes time to making their own. Happens all the time in American industry between competing American companies. The learning that comes from it is what makes good products become even better. No doubt in my mind that Mercury does this just like everybody else. Innovation happens incrementally.

I'll have no problem looking at them from behind if that actually happens as I have long gotten over my daily "need for speed" although I do get a fix every now and then with the Classic 15. What I am interested in learning more about, however, is how much care and feeding these modern technological marvels will require relative to the "ho-hum" generics. If I have learned anything in this life it is that there is no such thing as a free lunch and all this "pleasure" from the yet to be seen "high performance" is likely to come with some "pain" one way or another.

Larry, what exactly is the definition of "big, heavy, bulky looking" in the context of outboard motors? Gauging from the couple of difficult to get a good look views in the X Files, the X motors were not exactly looking "trim on the transom" to me despite the black color.

posted 01-29-2004 06:01 PM ET (US)         

I like your Axis of Evil remark relative to Mercury's complaint. We'll have to see if Mercury has any grounds for these dumping claims against the "Axis"! Who knows, certainly not I, except for the low prices I have seen on Suzuki engines. I've never thought Yamaha was a target, anyway, because as they say, their engines are always higher priced than Mercury, HP for HP.

My definition of big, bulky, heavy 200/225 Japanese 4-strokes is in relationship to my Mercury 200 EFI's. Side by side, the 4-strokes are gigantic in comparison, and with 40% more weight, completely out of the weight realm for powering my 25 Outrage. I have seen photos of your "black shrimp cocktails", with a person for scale, at they seem smaller, and much narrower. The lower two cylinders are in the mid section of the engine. As for weight, I'm guessing they could be 100#'s lighter, around the 500 mark instead of 600.

As for the high cost of performance, there have been exceptions. Both of my Whalers are powered by somewhat high performance outboards, fastest in their respective classes, and have been very reliable. I'll run my maintenance free 200 EFI's against any maintenance free 4-stroke 200 you can find, and leave it in my wake, guaranteed. Same for my in-line 6's against a 4-stroke 115. I believe it's possible for someone to develop a higher performance, lighter weight and quieter 4-stroke than are currently being offered, with no additional maintenance problems. We'll just have to see, but I am on the optomistic side, rather than the pessimistic side. I really don't want to see the Japanese bury yet another American industry. By shrewdly playing the DFI waiting game, they let OMC self-destruct, leaving only Mercury to go after. But Mercury has learned this lesson, playing the same waiting game with big 4-strokes, and is not about to lie down and play dead.

posted 02-03-2004 01:10 PM ET (US)            

When we tested our own boards, we always had them dummied up with last year's graphics (top and bottom) to help keep any new designs (good or bad) under wraps until the boards went to production. I also remember seeing the owner of a very small snowboard company demo Burton's new asymetric alpine board, and imediately take it to a picnic table and trace the profile on a few sheets of newspaper. This same guy later tried to hire me and another Burton employee from the R&D group, but we had heard rumors that he didn't always make payroll so we passed on his "generous" offer.

posted 02-03-2004 02:40 PM ET (US)         

I wonder what a company like Grady or Pursuit is going to do as Project X comes out. Being contractually tied to Yamaha, they've got to be concerned, not only about the Yen problem and dumping complaint, but about their 4-stroke 200/225 offering. Without question anybody with the money to buy a big new Grady or Pursuit is going to a least be watching the super quiet & hot performance of Project X 250's with interest. And the more powerful Yamaha 250/300 HPDI's have had a few initial reliability problems. So how many of these people are going to want their Grady or Pursuit with Project X instead, or worse, yet, won't buy one with out them? There is no question these engines will help sell the "transoms" they are on, and I'll bet boat builders are already scrambling to make some new deals with Mercury.

This should be interesting for some of the Yamaha affinity deals, along the lines of the Whaler buyers who want other than Merc.

posted 02-06-2004 01:20 PM ET (US)            

quote:

---

I figure I'd give you all a heads up on the latest news that Mercury has released to their dealers about Project X. As most of you know, it will debut at the Miami show next weekend. Horsepower will eventually range from 135-250 with 200, 225, and 250s coming first in the straight 6 configuration. The smaller engines will be a straight 4 cylinder configuration. DTS, SmartCraft, and power steering will be integrated into the motor for plug and play operation. Just run the DataLink cable and steering lines from the helm to the transom, bolt the engine on, plug it in and you're ready to run. Rigging time will be greatly reduced resulting in less labor charges. Pricing is expected to be 18k list for the 250. There will be several examples in the water at the Mariott to give demos.

---

posted 02-06-2004 03:30 PM ET (US)            

Yes, fly-by-wire's origination is from military aircraft-I believe the F-18 Hornet was the first production military aircraft with fly-by-wire and the Boeing 777, the first US Commercial. I'm sure some fly-boys will help me out if I'm incorrect.

posted 02-06-2004 08:02 PM ET (US)            

I was very suprised when Yamaha came out with their 225 4 strokes and made an agreement with Mercury to sell them as well with black and decals.

From what I heard, Yamaha couldnt make them fast enough in the beginning and to give Mercury some to sell as a competitor, lends to make me think there was a deal that would lend a reversal of this arrangement.

What possible returns did Yamaha get out of that deal? Possibly some marketing rights to new Mercury technology?

posted 02-06-2004 08:32 PM ET (US)         

This may be a highly unpopular notion, particularly here, but first of all, I think Yamaha wanted to bury Honda with their new 225, and having an additional 4000 instant sales, painted black, really runs up the production figures and helps pay for develpment costs much faster. From what I can tell by observation, the Yamaha/Merc 225 has outsold the Honda I'll bet 10 to 1. They have been very popular. So for Yamaha this engine has made sense, and maybe not so for Honda, not yet.

But I also think that Yahaha probably realized fairly early in the game that the interest in this engine could be short lived, and have a real problem competing with the Project X.
Look at the huge bass and go-fast markets to which it has no appeal at all. Don't think they don't know what "X" technology is about! So therefore, sell as many as you can of this first generation 4-stroke technology, quickly, before it's performance characteristics & high weight defeat part of the initial fascination with a big 4-stroke. Afterall, it never has outperformed anybody's DFI, and the "X" could really blow it away. I think sales of this engine are going to be decreasing rapidly as Project X gets out there, and even Yamaha probably knows it will be short lived as THEY bring up Project X technology themselves. Keep an eye on it's pricing, and this should tells us if I'm on the right track. I expect it to go down, unless Mercury's anti-dumping claim works. Then they're in REAL trouble. If they end up costing what an "X" does, big problems in sales.

So that's MY theory, goofy as it may sound. Kind of "Get it while the goin's good"!

posted 02-06-2004 08:36 PM ET (US)            

http://continuouswave.com/whaler/cetacea/cetaceaPage54.html#54-04

Previous postings on this forum have mentioned:

--fly-by-wire shift and throttle
--integrated hydraulic steering
--Smart Gauge instrumentation
--range of horsepower 135-250
--in-line six and in-line four blocks
--only 250-HP available initially then more models throughout 2004-2005
--pricing TBA but expect to pay for value,

and so on. We've been talking about these things for two years or so.

Now something that has been mentioned often but so far unconfirmed is the possibility for air induction boost, either turbocharged or supercharged.

Another area left unconfirmed is variable valve timing.

But all of this has been written in detail for months and months here--probably more than most other boating forums. It ain't like some guy on another forum leaked this all out in one post this week. We've had our ear to the ground on this for two years.