Seven Marine, more to the story
 

I have always marveled at the engineering behind Seven Marine outboards. Their design was amazing and they really pushed the boundaries of what everyone thought was possible. It was bad news to hear that Volvo Penta, who acquired a majority stake in 2017, would cease production in Jan 2021.

There is always more to it than a PR statement can justify. But, here is a deep dive and a bit of a tip of the cap to Eric, Rick and Brian Davis who built the company in Wisconsin from a concept to reality. It's a great story with a somewhat sad ending.

https://www.wavetowave.com/home/2020...gy-up-in-smoke
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https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...1533412046.jpg

Great article, but reading about all of those "specialized parts supply chain" would make me real nervous if I owned those OB's even when they were in production.

The Yamaha 425 is the killer, made for big heavy boats and a worldwide parts and service network.

Agree with you there. And yes the Yamaha 425 is a beast, the 425 HP belies what a torque monster it is.

But it’s SOOO effin heavy.

That sits on boats that are also so effin heavy. Not like anyone is out racing with 425 yammers

True, but for a 300 lb weight savings, mercury 400’s make more sense. Just one a holes opinion.

After living in the Silicon Valley for thirty years with a high rate of acquisition and management changes that article seems about right. Sounds like some amazing accomplishments with that outboard.

i am merc for going fast and Yamaha fishing. To me they don’t cross markets. Would never build a play boat with yamahas and never would build a fishing boat or big cruiser with merc. To different motors

My statement is from personal experience on the weight side. I am In the process of having my outboard boat re-powered and wanted the Yamaha 425’s, but I couldn’t get insurance due to the extra weight on the transom. My boat came with twin 350 verados from the factory and the 425 seemed like a great upgrade up to insurance time. So it’s getting a “new to us” pair of 400’s.

This makes no sense as we maintain hundreds of Mercury powered fishing boats in south Louisiana. We also handle much of the Mercury powered charter fleet in Venice and those guys are putting 1200-1500 hours per year on their engines and replace them/the boat after about 3 years or near 5000 hours. A lot of them have made the switch from Yamaha to Mercury because of the problems they had with their Yamahas.

On a fishing boat.. the 425 makes some where around 25% more torque and has a 5 year warranty over Mercs 3 year.

The only reason I would see anyone not taking the Yamaha on a fishing rig would be the cost difference really IMO.

Depends on the boat. My insurance company would not write a new policy if I installed Yamaha 425’s due the the additional weight and being within a certain percentage of transom capacity.

I can understand that part of it.

I am speaking more in line with I am building a new HCB, Yellowfin, Contender, etc etc and getting power options. In that application aside from cost I just cant see the reason to run a merc there is all and the transom issue isnt one in a scenario like that.


As someone prior in the thread said, they seem like they (Merc and Yamaha) are perfectly two different motors focused on two different applications and each one does that very well.

Great story. Thanks for posting it. I wonder how many engines 7 sold during it's lifespan? Volvo sucks for buying the company just to kill it off!

I agree partly. First off, the original founders could of refused to be bought. Unless they needed the capital to carry on. Unaware of the original deal it's been so long.
Also aside from the green BS. I'm sure the numbers don't add up too well as far as sales, good margins and whatnot.

Great piece, as usual, Jared. I would gently disagree that Seven Marine "changed the industry" but that's one of those inherently subjective statements that's hard to prove or disprove.

"Changed Industry"
 

You might want to take that conversation up with Elias De La Torre .

Chris

Hydra Sports and HCB certainly are important, high-quality brands, but they are two pieces of the industry, not entirety of it. "Changed the marine industry" is a huge statement, and the truth is that Seven Marine barely penetrated the high-performance market. at least to my knowledge, between a few builds with Deep Impact, MTI and Nor-Tech. To be fair, I was told many times by those inside Seven Marine that they never we're going after the high-performance center-console market.

To be fair, that was not their intent—at least that's what I was told in numerous interviews during the years with those inside the company.

Obviously, Seven Marine outboards were an automatic rule-out for anything in the mainstream runabout world from the likes of Sea-Ray, as well as tow boats and, equally obvious, large yachts. So what you ended up with in terms of overall impact was in a pretty small niche of super-heavy center consoles.

As I said, Jared's piece was excellent. But I just don't see how Seven Marine products changed the entire marine industry. That's a stretch.

The big rumor I'm hearing is that Mercury is unveiling a replacement for the 7 Marine engines at the beginning of the new year. It will be radically different from anything Mercury has ever built before........

mercury "was" going to unviel their new 500 at the canceled miami 2021 show. probably will be at the poker run now instead

The thing I can not figure out is why did Volvo buy them. I could understand why Merc would have bought them just to shut them down and eliminate some future competition. But it looks like Volvo did it for them...lol.. Volvo gets nothing from it but a swift kick in the pants and Merc and Yamaha will reap the rewards. I would think the Executives at Merc are still scratching their heads over this one.

Chris

Couldnt it be said that Seven Marine was the catalyst for the majors to start upping their horsepower goals?

As was addressed. The CEO at the time that brought them in is now gone and replaced by a new CEO and staff that are leaning the company in a new greener direction.

One CEO cherished Seven marine
Next CEO threw that trophy in trash.

If it was a numbers game, the new CEO looks like a rockstar for stopping the bleeding on a product that had limited potential sales.

HCB and Intrepid are probably doing the head scratching on what they are going to power their bigger boats with. You can't hang 2-3 more Yamaha 425s off the back of their 65 ft center console!

Time for the first stagger OB's,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, This is a joke of course.

I would do diesels like the 45 nortech option...

Got my eye on used diesel nortechs. Much cheaper than OB boats.

would have loved to see a speedy lower on the 627. Im sure some big cat guys and fast CCs would have had to have it.

I also like the simplicity of big CCs that were pushed by twins.

7's wont work on a cat and or it would be counter productive as they dont like to be surfaced or aired out. They break off blades and break drives. Looking at the heft of their drive I would not think it is possible to break but who knows what metal is used in the gears. I would have to agree with the bleeding point comment and its going to be tough for Intrepid and HCB and the likes to re-configure power. Diesels are cool but that would weigh more than 7's I did see a 56 Nor Tech with I think Quad Cummins and surface drives. Cant imagine doing an oil change on that. Guess you could buy a 55 gal drum for your oil changes.. Maybe in the future Merc or another will come along with some bigger power and less weight.

Chris

Even with the costs of upkeep a diesel would be light years less expensive in the long run, thousands of hours before a rebuild compared to hundreds. the only downside would be speed, but in a big CC, im looking for comfort not top end.

High RPMS are death on diesels so in a performance boat that might be an issue, even BobtheBuilder had a motor fail on his 50 NT. It had less than 1000 hours on it IIRC.

The other issue would be arneson parts, "Rik" hasn't been great with getting parts lately.

Thanks Matt, I appreciate that. I think "changed" as in opened the imagination to what's possible with outboards, HP and design wise, which was somewhat limited in 2011.

One of my spy’s in Fla said Merc was set to release a 525 HP version of their OB at the Miami show until covid cancelled the show.

Personally I think those motors are ugly but regardless, we are in midst of a paradigm shift in OBs.

phuck that guy, there are other drive options out there that are similar to them, from reliable companies.. not theives

Whew for a second I was thinking you were talking about BobtheBuilder! :D

!!!!!!!!

Twin Disc Marine manufactures/sells the larger (ASD-8 on up) Arneson Drives, Rik would not be involved with the sales/support for the drives that would be mounted behind diesels on the larger (40' and up) CCs and/or cats.

Correct, Rik owns Arneson Industries, LLC which manufactures/sells the ASD-7M drives that were developed on my 30 Skater. The drives were intended as a Bravo 1 replacement/alternative, not for use on larger boat/higher torque applications.

noooo Bob is awesome, the other one and his wife have ripped off lots of people...

so what did you purchase from them?