Has mercury ever designed a shaft drive, like the Arneson drive? I thought i remember a prototype that they built...

bump

why not just buy an arnesin? is a mercury sticker on a copy of an arnesin better than an arnesin? never liked the idea of copying someone elses design

Yes they tried a prototype single unit in 1992-93ish and in turns it would walk the back end of the boat around and that resulted in the birth of the Blackhawk

BBB thanks I thought they tried something in the past. I use to have a picture someplace but can't find it...

I liked the Blackhawk concept, Donzi had used the engine drive combo. I like the idea of the counter-rotating props in a surface drive application for a single engine boat. Maybe some of the more informed and learned Mercury people can tell us why it never took off as commercially successful, and what the weak points of that Blackhawk were; but as you stated the Blackhawk is an outdrive, not a shaft drive. I do not remember seeing a Mercury Shaft drive, but I would bet money that they built one as you wrote, would like to see a picture of it (shaft drive if it exists).

I would also love to see the picture of the Mercury Shaft Drive as well.

Thanks for posting the pic of the Blackhawk though, very cool.

You are welcome, and I really like the X-Power drive, and the Weisman drive also looked good to me, but I do not have first experience with drive. Still would be interested in seeing a shaft drive, not an outdrive examples as I have posted, by Mercury.

I would also like to see a pic of any shaft type drive that merc designed. If they were to mass produce something like that they would probably put a merctrans in front of it to make sure something would break.lol Randy

Smarty what is that drive on the purple boat? I have never seen anything like it. Randy