Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

A conversation among Whalers
Rudebouy
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Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby Rudebouy » Thu Dec 30, 2021 11:55 am

I have a 2000 Yamaha 60 Enduro two-stroke-power-cycle engine on my 17-foot Boston Whaler boat. It is a great engine, but I am getting older and would love to have a new four-stroke-power-cycle engine with a smart tiller and all the bells and whistles. I am interesting in the Mercury big-tiller 60-HP or the Yamaha 70 hand-tiller.

For any readers who have used a Mercury big-tiller 60 or a Yamaha 70 hand-tiller on a 17-foot Boston Whaler, please give me your opinion of these engines.

BACKGROUND
My name is Nick. I've owned the same 17-foot Boston Whaler since 1983. It's a hand-tiller custom model for fishing in Campbell River, Vancouver Island. These boats we're very common in that town in the 1980's. Now the style of salmon fishing called power mooching is no longer used much anymore as down riggers have taken over the fishing scene.

jimh
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Location: Michigan, Lower Peninsula
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Re: Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby jimh » Fri Dec 31, 2021 8:33 am

Nick--welcome to the forum. I assume your boat is similar to the boats used by professional guides at April Point Lodge. When I visited there in 2003 all the boats had Yamaha tiller engines. You might visit April Point Lodge and chat with a guide or a mechanic there to get their informed opinion on the Yamaha engine.

aprilPointLodge2003.jpg
Fig. 1. Yamaha engines on 17-foot Boston Whaler boats at April Point Lodge in 2003. Photo by the author.
aprilPointLodge2003.jpg (118.01 KiB) Viewed 2800 times


I assume that using downriggers means trolling. A new four-stroke-power-cycle modern engine will be much more fuel efficient at idle and low speed operation than a traditional carburetor two-stroke-power-cycle engine. With the price of gasoline fuel in Canada these days, that improved fuel economy will be welcome.

Rudebouy
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Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2021 11:36 am

Re: Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby Rudebouy » Wed Jan 05, 2022 3:18 pm

My boat is exactly like those [boats shown above in Figure 1].

I know [changing to a four-stroke-power-cycle engine] will be a huge improvement [from an older engine using two-stroke-power-cycle].

jimh
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Re: Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby jimh » Wed Jan 05, 2022 9:24 pm

Rudebouy wrote:I know [changing to a four-stroke-power-cycle engine] will be a huge improvement [from an older engine using two-stroke-power-cycle].
With a modern engine there may be some improvement in fuel economy, but the savings in fuel expense will NEVER equal the cost of the new modern engine. The only way cost recover could be possible is if you operated the boat about 2,000-hours per year.

Rudebouy
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Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2021 11:36 am

Re: Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby Rudebouy » Tue Jan 18, 2022 1:02 pm

I did some research. I found that the Mercury 60-HP and the Yamaha 60-HP are both sharing the same engine. [To me it] like they developed that engine together, and now they build them separately. It's a four-cylinder proven four-stroke-power-cycle engine. I like the engine. For me the brand does not matter. For me the decision comes down to the hand-tiller and which hand-tiller accessories I like better,

Suzuki makes a hand-tiller 60-HP also, but it's only a three-cylinder--I don't think I like that.

I investigate and compare the hand-tillers features and [give a report here].

jimh
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Re: Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby jimh » Tue Jan 18, 2022 5:19 pm

Mercury and Yamaha were collaborators at one time--decades ago. The parameter for their collaboration was this: Yamaha designed and built engines, Mercury bought them, and Mercury painted them black and put their name on them, and sold them as Mercury engines at Mercury dealers.

The collaboration ended when Mercury brought a charge before the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) that suggested that four-stroke-power-cycle engines imported from Japan for sale in the USA should have a large tariff assessed on them in order to prevent unfair competition because they claimed the Japanese manufacturers were selling the engines in the USA below their true costs.

The USITC held hearings on this matter. The result of the hearings was a tremendous embarrassment for Mercury. Testimony was given that the reason people bought imported four-stroke-power-cycle engines from Japan was because they were much better than the engines Mercury was making at that time, even though the Japanese engines sold at higher prices. The hearings also revealed that because of the collaboration with Yamaha by Mercury, Mercury itself was a very large importer of four-stroke-power-cycle engines made in Japan.

The collaboration between Mercury and Yamaha ended soon after the USITC decision to NOT impose tariffs as requested by Mercury was handed down. To retaliate, Yamaha stopped selling engines to Mercury. Mercury then tried to sue Yamaha for breach of contract. The whole affair was a debacle for Mercury.

Yamaha and Mercury became very fierce rivals in the outboard engine market for the USA, both often claiming they held the majority market share.

Your "research" that has found that Mercury and Yamaha are now, today, in 2022 collaborating to manufacture the same engine sounds very strange to me. I would need to hear a lot more details about your research to believe your finding.

I suspect that you are confused. Mercury is now collaborating with Tohatsu. Tohatsu makes a number of smaller four-stroke-power-cycle outboard engines in Japan at their plant, and Mercury buys them from Tohatsu. The one difference between the Tohatsu deal the the Yamaha deal is that Mercury made some fundamental investment in the land and factory for the Tohatsu outboard engine plant, but the engines are built by Tohatsu and sold to Mercury. The investment by Mercury in the land and plant was a way to ensure that Tohatsu could not toss Mercury overboard as Yamaha did to them in their earlier deal.

Rudebouy
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Re: Mercury and Yamaha Tiller 60 and 70-HP on 17-footer

Postby Rudebouy » Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:57 pm

Thanks for the reply. My research consists of looking at new Mercury and Yamaha 60-HP engines. The stroke and bore are exactly the same; to me that coincidence says it's the same powerhead.