I kind of had the feeling like he had a soft spot for the older outboards as it was outboard boats that first got things going for Skater. I am sure from a manufacture side of things they like the simplicity of rigging outboards. Not to get to far of topic, and I would appreciate some other input on this, but if you compare MTI to Skater it really seems like they cater to different markets. Its seem like MTI is building 10 outboards to every 1 inboard currently and Skater the balance seems to be much closer or slightly favor the inboards.

Wife & I absolutely LOVE your 368!! Congrats

every one is saying 8 yr warranty and its typical mercury in that no one speaks of their issues with prop shafts props and transom brackets but does mercury actually stand behind the motors for this period of time? my bass boat buddies get one or two repairs on mercury and then mercury says warranty over and mind you these are what 18' boats with a 300 hp verado and they break. i cannot truly have faith in merc honoring the full term of the warranty especially when they make everything conditional to merc only prop, merc only oil, and so on and so on.

fuel burn, i think the inboards will actually be better than the outboards as the engine is not as stressed out. the ride of the inboard will be better to.

I have a friend in Shreveport w/twin 450Rs on a 26’ DCB that a propshaft carrier backed out on and no one has the correct tools to repair.

At least that’s what Merc is telling him after months of waiting.

That is a LOT of weight hanging on the back of that boat!!!

Yep

Not sure how light that boat is either.

It is new and still going through set up.
I think 119 before the gear case issue.

Cool part was (besides his 28’ pontoon w/two more 450’s on the lift at the dock in his backyard!) was the app on his phone that recorded speed, rpm and prop slip at the full speed range.
Very slick.


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I like his style!!

This I can absolutely say is incorrect.
At 4300rpm, or roughly 95-98mph, my 700 Mercs MAYBE got 1.4mpg. That is 1100 rpm short of redline
At 95-96mph, at 5000-5100rpm, my 450r motors are getting 1.9-2.1mpg. That is 1300-1400 short of redline
Video below

We had a F32 with whippled 700’s. Great boat, biggest issue we had is we like to put a lot of miles on in a day and some days we were searching for fuel 3 times a day. We hated that part. Now it only had 138 gallons so that was an issue. At cruise speed 90ish we would see right about 1.1-1.2mpg. Have a 37 with 450’s coming in the next couple months. Built with 200 gallons. Looking forward to a bit more effortless boating.

In salt water outboard seem like a no brainer .. plus the extra cockpit room.