Last week I had the opportunity to demonstrate Zeus® to a reporter who was not a boater. We used a 2010 47 Sea Ray Sundancer which has been designed to take advantage of all Zeus has to offer. We worked out of Burnham Harbor, a marina at the base of Soldier Field in Chicago, on perfectly calm day. Lake Michigan was flat and glassy. When I think of Zeus, I tend to focus on the ability to maneuver in any direction, including sideways, at low speeds using the joystick controller, or ability to engage the Skyhook® feature and cause the boat to stay in one spot on the same heading for as long as one likes. In this one-hour demonstration I was reawakened to the cruise and top-speed handling capabilities, as well as the fuel efficiency, provided by Zeus. A boat equipped with Zeus can achieve up to 15 percent greater speed at both cruise and full throttle, and up to 30 percent greater fuel economy, than a boat equipped with normal inboard drives. In today’s economy and with today’s fuel prices, these efficiencies may be even more important than the maneuvering capabilities joystick controls provide. However, these are all matters of the brain when one thinks of Zeus, and while they are important, there is the matter of the boater’s soul and emotions when on a boat. Running at top speed with a 47’ Zeus-equipped boat and turning as hard as the wheel allows and feeling the boat lay into the turn with the gunnels on the inside of the turn barely above water’s edge with no skidding – that feeds the boater’s soul and creates emotions no other drive or handling system can imitate.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Announcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.