Pat, I read many of your comments whihc is very valuable and informative to us in the boat building business. I agree that the design and durability of outdrives have improved 100%. In one of your mails you mentioned that a catamaran the same size as a monohull would not really be of value excepting stability. The last monohull I built was 53ft, then I changed to building Power Catamarans. Last year I completed a 50ft power catamaran with a beam of 15.86ft and amazed myself in the process. I fitted 4 full size double bed cabins with lots of storage, (for normal fitted bedding bought in stores), 4 bathrooms with seperate showers, a galley with saloon table for 8, seperated from a drive station, seating and bar, a great aft cockpit with an engineroom below with 6ft 2inches of headroom. The fuel tanks were also bigger, the water not, so on went a watermaker. I definately could not do this on the 53 monohull with a similar beam. Tim Aventure-Powercatamaran ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pat Reischmann" <preischmann@msn.com> To: "power-catamaran" <power-catamaran@lists.samurai.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 2:56 PM Subject: [PCW] outdrives > As with most things outdrive design has improved over the years. Most of > the > disadvantages listed relate to old technology. > Volvo has been the leader in this area. Their outdrive legs are made of > composite, so no more corrosion problems. The have also been designed to > raise > higher for better clearance. The synthetic gasket material today is very > reliable. I have built over 100 yachts with saildrives with similar > sealing > gaskets and never had a problem, this is with yachts in service for over > 10 > years. Additionally Volvo offers Duoprop technology which can improve fuel > economy by another 20%. I do believe the drive train is the most > susceptible > part of an inboard install. Stuffing box, cutlass bearing, coupler, > keyway, > alignment etc. That is why I am currently a big advocate of enclosed shaft > systems with inboard installations. Though it costs more, I for one would > not > do another inboard install any other way. > _______________________________________________ > Power-Catamaran Mailing List