A Perfect Ten

Whether you boat on the open ocean, Great Lakes or inland waterways, Mercury Marine’s latest offering in its Verado family of outboards — an industry-first V10 — was purpose-built for the outboard market sweet-spot of 350 to 400 hp and deserves a second look for anyone considering a new boat or repower purchase.

“If you look at the versatility that this engine has to offer, from an aluminum, V-bottom walleye fi shing boat all the way up to a quad or quint center console, we had to design it to be versatile,” says Mercury president Chris Drees during a week-long Brunswick Corp. new product and technology showcase held at Mercury’s iconic “secret” test facility, Lake X, near Kissimmee, Florida. “Whether that be weight, top speed, all those factors played a role into making this fit the need in the marketplace, and that’s what we did. The variety of this application is so broad, I think the engineers hit the mark perfectly on what it needed to be.”

Raising the bar

The V10 is a naturally aspirated 5.7L displacement quad-cam design, calibrated to deliver full performance on 87-octane fuel and featuring efficiency-enhancing technologies like a closed-loop fuel system and Advanced Range Optimization. Adaptive Speed Control maintains engine RPM despite changes in load or conditions, making climbing large swells easier and cruising at low speeds smoother. Transient Spark Technology electronically adjusts spark timing to optimize low-end power.

Eliminating the supercharger that is the heart of previous Verado models, the V10 is quieter by 45% and lighter than its V6, V8 and V12 siblings, and offers technology that could eliminate traditional onboard generators.

“Mercury understands the boater better than anyone out there. This is testament to that, right here,” says Dale Stroschein, a fishing guide working out of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, pointing to a static display of the engine. “I don’t care if it’s waterskiing, offshore racing or the sport fishermen who go out on Lake Michigan, they all use horsepower differently, and Mercury just keeps raising the bar. This is like going back and watching ‘The Jetsons’.”

Stroschein, a former competitive angler affiliated with Mercury since 1988, says that many boaters misunderstand horsepower, explaining it goes beyond speed.

“Safety is a big part of horsepower. In the Midwest, we deal with big water on the Great Lakes,” he says. “What people don’t understand is being a fishing guide on one of the nastiest bodies of water there is — Lake Michigan — [with larger horsepower] we are able to control the boat in big seas. That’s a big part of fishing. If we were to only go on really nice days, we’d never go fishing. So, there are times when you just get caught out in storms and when the wave starts controlling you and the boat, you are now in trouble. That’s from a lack of horsepower. These larger horsepower motors allow us to be safer on the water.”

And safety can equate to peace of mind, especially for the number of new boaters who have entered the sport in the past three years, says Ron Enslen of Caymas Boats, who was demoing a 28-foot hybrid bay boat.

“With this new gearcase and lower unit, this boat will run at 20 or 22 mph on plane, no cavitation, no lope, nice and smooth,” he says. “So when you’re cruising a waterway with your family in the bow, on plane at low speed, there is no reason to be uncomfortable. I think that’s going to be an even better seller for us.”

Laser-focused design

The consensus among fi shing guides and OEM boat builders testing the product for the first time pointed to the outboards’ fuel efficiency — averaging about two miles to the gallon regardless of application — and the torque, which project engineers call essential for lifting today’s heavier hulls.

And while the package makes it easier for many styles of boat to reduce the number of outboards hanging from the transom, one builder, Intrepid Powerboats, has gone from twin 600-hp Verados to triple 400s on its 25,000-pound 41-foot Valor.

“We’re seeing about 4 or 5 mph difference at that top end,” proclaims Joe Brenna, VP of customer support for the builder. “I think the triple 400s will be a sweet spot for someone who doesn’t want to have a V12. It’s probably going to be the best setup for future resale value, which everyone should keep in mind when buying or building a boat. I’m in love with them. They’re quiet and they have a lot of torque. Everything on it is robust and it’s been engineered very nicely.”

The V10 is not a detuned version of the V12, which Mercury VP of Product Development and Engineering Tim Reid explains was a laserfocused design for heavy luxury sport cruisers and offshore fishing boats.

“We had to step back and really go back to clean sheets and say ‘how do we hit the breadth of product so that we can get as much volume as possible?’“ Reid says. “The engine, gearcase, the entire mounting structure and the propellers were all engineered simultaneously. We needed a bigger gearcase to support the torque and power that we produce. We designed it as a system, we’re targeting a sweet spot of roughly 50- to 60-mph boats for peak performance and for fuel economy, and then we verified that this gearcase would go up to 90 [mph] and would also go down [in horsepower] nicely.”

The V10’s hydrodynamic gearcase — engineered to improve performance and durability across multiple applications while also maximizing fuel efficiency — has spawned an all-new line of Revolution X propellers specifically for the outboard.

The engine also features embedded technology that will allow builders to use electrifi cation battery packs along with sister company Navico’s Fathom e-power system to make it much easier to eliminate the traditional onboard generator, further reducing weight and onboard noise.

“It’s such a popular horsepower range with a variety of applications,” Drees adds. “This really hits the market with what customers and OEMs were asking for.”

With its power, weight and performance, the Mercury V10 Verados really do offer something for everyone. ★

TONY ESPOSITO

For a Stellar Experience,