Does anybody know anything about V-Drives?
 

Not so much on wake boats and such but with cruisers. What I've heard is that no one likes working on them since some areas are hard to access. Also docking with rudders sort of scares me a bit since I've never driven a rudder boat. Most of the boats I'm looking at (34ish) are stern drives and one that I like is a V-Drive. Don't know if I should chuck it or not since I'm so unfamiliar with them.

Twin or single?

If twin its not bad docking because the motors are so far apart. I single is like our old ski boats, reverse no matter what only goes one way.

I owned several V-drive boats.

Coming from a performance boat, they actually have MORE room in the engine compartment then alot of go-fast boats. The engines are in the compartment "backwards" but not right up against the stern so access isn't bad. V-drives are probably easier to dock then stern drives. When pivoting a boat with the shifters, the pendulum point is more towards the center of the boat and much easier to pivot on. The bad.......I had a 33 Searay with V-drives and another boat in the marina was exactly the same with stern drives......his cruise speed and top end were about 15% higher than mine. He did have to haul is every winter while mine could stay in for 2 years without issue.

Twin 496s

Buddy had a 32' Carver with small blocks and V-drives and had no issues transitioning from a single engine I/O cruiser. He was slipped in a marina on the IL river and had no big issues with maneuverability around the docks. I think the only issue he ever had with the V-drive was a shaft seal (stuffing box?) that was leaking a bit and had to be replaced. When I was first looking to move my boating to LOTO I was actually looking at 340 Sea Ray's with 496's and V-drives. Since the boat was going to be wet slipped I wanted V-drives as opposed to an I/O boat.

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My buddy has a 36 Silverton up north with v-drives in it that I've done some work on, and other than working on the stuffing boxes under the motors it is not any harder to work on than his 42 Silverton he has drown here in Florida that has conventional drives. Both are identical 350 horse BB Crusader's.

As far as docking the helm is pretty much left centered and all the maneuvering is done with the motors, takes a little getting to know the boat as they all have different characteristics. My buddy can impressively thread the needle in any conditions with his 42 flybridge he has owned
for 35 years but the 36 Sport he bought 2 years ago he struggled for the first year.

And neither of the 2 are fun to work on.

Cool, seems like "walking" a boat to the dock parallel would be a bit of a challenge at first, but that's what going out in the evening when the fuel dock is close and practicing is all about.

Houseboat has V-drives, docking is easier with a rudder boat as you can "walk" the boat. Maintenance is much easier than a twin big block boat, doesn't get any worse than that. Tons of space in between motors. I was concerned about the rudders as well cause we anchor on beaches a lot and obviously didn't want to run the rudders into the sand, but I found that, at least on the houseboat, the bow was at or nearly as deep as the rudders and props while floating. My biggest complaint is you have to pull boat out of water to service the running gear.

For cruisers I like Tiara, Stamas, and Intrepid

Older Silvertons are a well built brick chithouse with quality oversized running gear and tend to have practical interior floorplans .I don't know about the newer ones.

Been looking at Formula PCs, with the V-Drive you cant trim them, is that going to be slower, burn more gas? Didn't think of that one.