Mercury Verado 250 seatrial experiences

Pitkis · 17 June 2004, 22:26

I was lucky to have been playing with Mercury Verado for four days during the last weekend. We had a major boating press happening in which I was hired to a driver of Bruckwick group boats. One of our boats, Aquador 21, had a brand new Verado 250 installed. Herewith some recent experiences about the engine, even though the boat wasn't a RIB. I had also long talks with Mercury Marine superspecialist Serge Santy, who has the most comprehensive information available about all Mercury Marine engines in Europe.

To start with, there are five Verados now in Europe of which two are the largest 275 hp versions. This our engine is the first Verado in Scandinavia and arrived Finland last thursday 8 days ago. The installation was carried out with very thight schedule since our happening started in saturday.

The engine is impressive. At first you can see its different installation geometry: the engine is actually outside the stern, so the distance to other structures like back of the engine well is longer than in ordinary outboards. Therefore you can tilt the engine to nearly horizontal position, which allows for example the propeller change easier than earlier. Powerhead is tall and it's cover can be deassembled easily in two pieces revealing the engine itself. Other point to note is a electro-hydraulic streering unit, there is just a small cylinder and two hydraulic hoses which take care of steering. No more cables or bulky hydraulic pumps.

Our test boat, Aquador 21, is a luxury daycruiser with maximum power recommendation of 225 hp. After some initial trials we installed a four blade 19" propeller and left the harbour for a test drive. I was more than eager since I had been waiting for months to test Verado!

The engines is started from a button in remote control unit. Needles to say, idling sound is hardly possible to hear, like a whisper. Clutch is electronic, you just firmly push it in and the boat will start to move. For the first time I was surprised, did the transmission really engaged, but Mr. Serge Santy said everything is ok. The clutch is just so soft that you hardly can feel when it works.

At under 10 knots hydraulic steering unit's sound is the only noise you can hear. Due extreme hurry with installation, the unit had to be placed under a sofa just on deck, so in following installations the small buzzing heard from steering system will disappear.

After we left the harbour, I opened the throttle and felt the power. Engine accelerated immediately and pushed the boat instantly to 40 knots. After some trimming the speed rose near 50 knot limit but not over it. The sound at full speed is incredible, you could speak without shouting just sitting on a sofa 250 hp Verado running over 6000 rpm just 3 feet away from you! There's just some small humming heard from stern....

I did quite a lot different acceleration tests and I have to say that Verado does speed probably better than any other production outboard. Sami Seliö, a U.I.M. F1 Boat driver was in our team and compared this engine to his earlier experiences. He said that Yamaha V-MAX 250 HPDI had the best throttle response he had tested to date, but Verado's capabilities were still better and the engine was the most responsive production outboard he had seen ever. My opinion is similar, Verado is fighting in completely the different category than other four-stroke engines and is, according to my subjective test session, better performer than most of the two stroke ourboards. Verado just accelerates like a rocket, at 30 knots you can feel the rush when pushing the throttle full open.

Aquador 21 weights some 1200 kg and we had 200 litres of fuel, 100 kg of equipment and two persons on board. After some serious driving, we really concentrated on hitting the top speed. At full throttle and nearly maximum trim 50,1 kn was achieved in nearly calm water. Not a bad figure, engine speed at four blader was 6260 rpm. Accelerating the Verado to top speed is great, power just comes and at over 40 knots while trimming high there's a low whistling sound like heard inside a jet plane flight - the compressor gives a nice sound! In our installation trimming too high wasn't possible, so driving was easy since limiter allowed no cavitation.

My earlier opinion about Verado was that it may be the most significant step in modern outboard history if everything will come true like promised. Now, after seatrials, I am confident that Mercury had done something that is very difficult to beat. It's not only the pure power, but just for example electro-hydraulic steering and control is totally different and very easy to handle. This system, by the way, comes to standard feature to Optimax V6 series also in very near future, maybe next season.

I spoke a lot about future or Verados and sales prospects. Deliveries start in Europe in July-August for the engines now revealed. Only authorized Verado dealers can sell and install engines, so all Mercury dealers cannot work with these fine mechines at first phase. Customers are not allowed to install Verados by themselves, so you have to order the Verado dealer to put your engine properly to your stern. Even if you would break the rules, installation is not possible since you need some softwares during preparations that are available only for Mercury staff.

Four cylinder models are following in 100-200 hp power range soon, probably a year after these 6 cylinder models. Also some larger engines will come, most likely a 300 hp version soon. Even larger power is easy to push out of Verado block, the racing model with 400 hp output can be easily created just by changing the chip in controller. Still, pleasureboat versions with higher output than 300-325 hp are not likely to come out.

I will post you some images from test drive tomorrow, but here was my first seatrial opinion. Andre and other guys who have already ordered Verados are getting a very fine engine, something that really stands out of the current ourboards available.

Suzuki416 · 17 June 2004, 22:53

so you liked it then!

jwalker · 17 June 2004, 23:07

Well done, Pitkis. Thanks for that.

Louise · 17 June 2004, 23:11

It sounds great - the performance of a 2 stroke but the quietness of a 4 stroke (if I've understood correctly)! The steering sounds good too. Do please keep us updated so we can follow how it performs and its reliability in the longer term.

(Blimey - even I'm interested in it and I'm a girl!!

)

The Jackeens · 17 June 2004, 23:12

Is there a price point set for these babies yet ???

Richard B · 17 June 2004, 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jackeens

Is there a price point set for these babies yet ???

Do you mean: how much are they?

Rogue Wave · 18 June 2004, 00:59

He probably means at what figure area can you start haggling

TIM · 18 June 2004, 08:12

My Big Question is Fuel ?????

Do they burn as much as a ficht/hdpi/opti at low to mid revs????

I have two views on the new engines...

I have heard that the will be more expencive than the current 2 strokes and 4 strokes.

What is the piont in spending a fortune on a engine that will not return it to you over the long term?
Unless you need 275hp and hopefuly more !!!

I think what mercury have done is amazing.. they have finaily dragged the engine market into the real world with electronic throttle, gear and steering

If the price was compitive and they published fuel figures... I would buy one

Pitkis · 18 June 2004, 08:13

There were no final pricing information yet, but some rumours about 25 000 euros for a 250 hp model was heard. A bit more expensive than other 4-strokes, but after seatrials you really don't think about that first...:-)

Rogue Wave · 18 June 2004, 09:55

I think I read somewhere that the block was a straight six Japan sourced engine that was supercharged. Does this mean it's a Skyline block

Phil Davies · 18 June 2004, 09:57

Intercooled and supercharged - groundbreaking engineering in terms of outboards for sure and designed, I understand, by the guy responsible for the original Porsche Formula 1 engine programme. As long as this doesn't mean it's built to be run flat out for an hour and a half every other Sunday afternoon and then has to be stripped and rebuilt before the next outing