My boat is a 1996 Iguana 35', builded by Nautirama boat builder in Viareggio (Italy) an designed by Paolo Caliari, basing it on 35ft Cigarette Café Racer's hull designed by Don Aronow.

I'm going to repower the boat with twin Mercruiser 496 Mag HO (425hp) and I don't know what drive to use, BravoOne or BravoThree.

Actually the engines are twin diesel Mercruiser D7.3L (270hp) equipped with BravoThree 1,81:1 drives, having top speed at 38 knots and cruising speed at 30 knots, using 28pitch prop. The boat weight is 4300kg with this engines.

Now I've to choose which drive to use with 330hp-plus and different power&torque curve.

I prefer to have a lower minimum planing speed than an higher top speed for better ride on rough waters and a better consumption at cruising speed, so I think a Bravo III it coud be better for me, but everybody says to me Bravo I is the best for a deep vee 24° hull.

Anyone wants to help me in this choice?

with what you are doing I would go with the bravo 3's, there better at getting large mass boats out of the water and have great low and mid speed drivability.

Thank you hoozeyurdaddy, I think also that top speed loss would be about 4/5 knots between Bravo Three 1,81:1 and Bravo One 1,65:1.

In the first option (B3) I think my top speed could be 47/48 kn, in the second it could be close to 52 knots.

There are a lot of people around that know A LOT more than me, but that is a lot of weight in front of a B3..... (if your build ends up weighing anywhere near what my Cafe does)

Tons of large cruisers use B3's.

Seafordguy, could you tell me how much does your boat weight and how fast is it?

Bravo III should be better with boats weighting a lot like my Iguana 35' (3900kg dry with twin 496 HO). Or not?

I agree with you, US1 Fountain, Bravo III should be better with boats weighting a lot.

I believe a stock Cafe Racer weighs about 9600 Pounds.

I have a little under 600hp from Blown 502's (estimated) and run in the low-mid 70 MPH. (72-73) with 4 Blade Bravo 4 Propellers.

I guess Fountain is right - lots of cruisers do have B3 (which is obviously lots of weight), I guess I just always think of them as the weaker drive when comparing the B1 and B3

Why do you think Bravo3 is weaker than Bravo1?

Consider that my top speed will be close to 56/58 mph, not 70.

I'll also vote for the B3. The boat will plane faster, hand have an efficient cruise speed.




Darrell.