Looking at other online sources, people seem to be in Love or Hate camps.what are the facts please? Unless you get the boat at a knock-down price, I mean really low, I wouldn't touch one without a full service history or a late model. Volvo Pentas IPS drive features patented forward-facing props, which lets them bite into clean water. Sacrificial anode maintenance is both cheap and easily performed by the average inboard boat owner. There are a lot of traditionalists in that market.. Skip to the beginning of the images gallery, Zeus ArcPods are finally here! Stephen Smith is the southwest sales representative for Caterpillar. Ariel Pared is the president of SeeVee, which has built about 20 Volvo Penta IPS-drive boats. To start with, Zeus and IPS boats have to be hauled after their first 25 engine-hours. They tasked ZF Marine to bring them a transmission that would mate with their Zeus pod, electronic controls and joystick steering. Around here most mercury dealers wont take it on. Drive Pirates However, I think the best application I have run to date was a 39-foot SeaVee with pod-drives. The biggest difference between IPS's and Zeus pods is the position of the propeller. I guess you could say I'm a power user that vapes around 1-2 grams a day and after almost a week of use, I'm still on my first ArcPod. Much more service options down there. The engines are in their normal spot, but then you jackshaft to pods, so you lose space in the lazarette, he says. The first American company to install the Volvo Penta Inboard Performance System was actually Tiara. Zeus service includes changing 0w30 SAE transmission oil, hydraulic steering oil and filters inside the hull as well as 90-weight gear oil outside the hull. The pod-drive boats were clearly more maneuverable and accelerated more quickly than strut, shaft and -prop-drive inboards. Here are both performance charts. Instead, Zeus pods came with traditional aft-facing props and the traditional exhaust-through-hub design. Having the ability to move sideways, spin and dock raises the comfort level, especially for an inexperienced boater who wants to weekend but doesnt want to train on an 18-foot vessel, Meissner says. Grant Bentley captains Home Run, a 60-foot Spencer. Such tales are grist for boaters imaginations, as is the mere idea of components made of expensive, finely machined alloys dangling below the boat, protected by neither keel nor shaft. And often, they are recoverable and repairable. Today electronics are inextricably entwined with every aspect of our lives, and whether its commercial jet engines, cars, home appliances, or chartplotters, we expect and receive virtually bulletproof reliability. Yes, you need to be concerned about steering and propulsion fluids (lower unit) but you are not dealing with shaft irregularities, cutlass bearing maintenance, and thruster maintenance. Just add a bracket and bolt them on, install the digital controls and joystick and youre set. His experience tells him a similar grounding with conventional shafts would have been much worse, perhaps even damaging rudder or strut supports badly enough to flood the boat. We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. If you seem to be going through zincs quickly, call an electrician, Fessenden warned. There is definitely more maintenance with pods, said John Siebert. Pods require drive-oil changes every 250 hours or annually. The Zeus ArcPods are the convenient method of preparing, loading, and transporting your dry herb for use with your Zeus Arc GTS or Arc S vaporizer. You get similar handling advantages to pods, but with less maintenanceand its easy to find a mechanic certified on Yamaha, Evinrude, Mercury, and other brands. Click to enable/disable essential site cookies. Id guess none. ZF also built far larger pods that could handle far more horsepower. You need go no farther than your marina to hear a list of suspects. (Its not a bad idea to do the sameminus the sealsfor inboards.). All rights reserved. The aft placement of pods has added to usable space on board. ZF Marine entered the pod fray when its exclusivity agreement with Zeus expired. Fortunately the 42 Express cockpit is well laid out for Zeus . More interior room? Volvo doesnt offer the option of in-water service. I can do a 180 in about a second and a half. Petzold pulls the props annually to grease the shafts, and to remove any fishing line or other foreign matter on the shaft or wedged into the seal. I want to comment on how well Mercury backs their products. Most pod boats burn roughly the same per mile through a wide range of cruising speeds; conventional shaft boats typically have a narrow sweet spot. If you arent happy with the local dealer, you can call the concierge and get a tech in Tennessee. Initially, I too was surprised at the lack of trained techs in my area but once I realized you can use Mercury techs that have been to Mercury Diesel school, more options opened up. Zeus propeller shafts use a double-lip seal. If water is suspected inside any pod, get a mechanic aboard right away or risk internal damage. And if you have to ask about price, you really dont need one. If one engine vibrates in gear and the other doesnt, its probably caused by fouled or damaged props. Our white marlin came in hot on the teasers we fished up close to the boat. However, the patent on forward-facing props a feature that Volvo Penta claims gives its drives better traction by letting the broad blades and narrow hubs of their counter-rotating props turn in clean water well below the surface was not utilized. In that case, its not the pod; its our joystick-maneuvering system that does this, and we offer a joystick in a traditional shaft boat. You cant take the grate off to clean or paint in there. His solution is to spray Interlux Trilux 33 or Pettit Alumaspray Plus from aerosol cans inside the seawater intakes. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. Pods from all manufacturers have proven reliable and trouble-free, when maintained correctly. (Do the same with outboards and stern drives.) Featuring a patented design that provides the simplest solution for vaping on the go with your Zeus 3rd generation vaporizer. Running the boat for too long on break-in oil can shorten the life of the pods innards. Thanks to all.just the practical advice I was looking for. The biggest fear boaters have is not about running out in the open water. International service is also a concern for pods. Our best guess is it will take a significant chunk of the market. Pods are more prevalent in the pleasure-yacht category than in sport fishing. $44 MediaLight Mk2 Flex 4m D65 6500CRI98 Bias Lighting USB powered ComputersTablets & Networking Laptop & Desktop Accessories USB Lights & Gadgets But this was a first for the recreational segment of the marine industry, and there was a lot of buzz and excitement. Volvo doesn't offer the option of in-water service. The noise and smell from a diesel goes away with pods, said Bentley Collins, Sabres vice president of marketing and sales, and with joystick control, you dont have to worry about crashing into the dock.. I liked the ZF right away. We have a strong global network, says Robert Mirman of Cummins, who leads the charge for Zeus. How Fuel-Efficient Are Pods, Exactly? When you back down an inboard, the rudder posts start vibrating, and the boat sounds like its coming apart. And the Zeus pods also came with a joystick. If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here: We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. All in all saves a lot of cleaning hassle and maintenance costs- cleaning is primarily focused on the mouthpiece and associated parts with a quick wipe of the chamber. Superior to bow thrusters, which can drain your battery and leave you stranded - Zeus Joystick Piloting for Pods is integrated with the pod drives, without relying on battery power. ZF also added a trick that has less validity in the United States than in the European Union; ZF pods can be mated with both electric and diesel motors simultaneously, allowing them to run on electricity to meet the European Unions emissions standards when in port. In fact, shafts and struts have been driven through the hull by groundings and collisions with floating debris. I was surprised by how light and long lasting these were. Whats another three grand, compared to the cost of a boat big enough and upscale enough for pod drives? These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us . Robin Buckley captains a SeeVee 39 with IPS 600s, named Kimbuktu. Sounds like another good option to me. Spencer Yachts builds an 87-footer with ZF pods, and Smith was integral to the development process. Controlling wind, waves and current. We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. Click to enable/disable _gid - Google Analytics Cookie. But pod-drive engines use counter-rotating props. But conventional wisdom no longer applies. We have, on occasion, sent oil out with no visible sign of water, but it showed up on the test. Oil analysis is inexpensiveusually under $200and worth doing at every change; finding a bad seal early will save thousands of dollars in repairs. Changes will take effect once you reload the page. Prior to heading out with the boat, there was a lot of talk on the dock about whether the new drives would raise fish or scare them away. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. Zeus ArcPods are finally here! As we have seen many times with sailfish, I am certain one of the marlin swam along with us between the teaser and the boat, looking at the wheels and not at the bait we had moved into position to switch him over to. Are they worth it? Care should be taken prior to using a vaporizer, as vaporizing will not necessarily eliminate any and all toxins found in vaporized blends. Arrogant factory leadership, poor parts fill, and high parts prices scared me off. Over time, fishing line will damage the seal, and it can score the shaft, too. The New York State Canal is just one of the many great scenic boat trips North America has to offer, and the numerous locks create a lot of tight-quarters maneuvering. That said, I have heard good things. The 42 Convertible is up to Hull number 10 but we are up to 36 hulls for the Open version, he says. In sum, with todays technology, the best combination might be a shaft boat, bow and stern thrusters, and the Cummins power plant with electronic joy stick controls. When you put a pod system in, you try to do more with less.. . Thats the biggest attraction and why [pods] gained acceptance among a lot of enthusiasts, who wanted a certain size of vessel and want to move from a 28 to a 34 to 40 but were not comfortable with maneuvering inboard boats. But then outboards are more powerful and more economical than ever. Eager to fish with them, I was along with Ed Szilagyi, then Volvos boatbuilder installation liaison and company captain, on that same Tiara demo. We back it up with a concierge service. Then forward-thinking builders (Tiara, Cruisers, Regal, and Sabre among them) redesigned their boats for pod power and the technology became mainstream. Not a lot of guys know pods yet. Painting pods will cost a bit more too. But downward-pointing conventional shafts lift sterns, negating, or even reversing, that fuel-economy advantage at slower speeds (0.92 nmg shafts @ 15.9 kts. For those first 25 hours, we use a break-in lube, said David Fessenden, a marine applications engineer with Cummins Atlantic. JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. Thats not me talkingits Bob Petzold, who has as much experience as almost anybody selling, servicing, and repairing pod drives. Lets have a look. Ten years ago, many old-timers predicted that complex pod systems, with their computer-managed guidance, fly-by-wire controls, and inaccessible drive units tucked under the hull, would need constant repair and maintenance. The sport-fishing world has seen builders such as Spencer and Winter Custom Yachts introduce several pod boats. Those anodes shouldnt dissolve like zincs do, but both systems should be checked annually. To me the unit as a whole is way to complex than it needs to be. Unless I lived/boated in the same area where existed the Mecca of Zeus Service Centers (wherever that may be) I would steer clear (no pun intended) . Bottom Line. (I know you're supposed to replace each use for both the other companies, but it is possible to get more than one sesh out of each pod). Marlin Magazine may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site. That smooths out some of the minor gear asperities and grinding marks, improving the life of the gears. After break-in, pods are serviced every 250 hours or 12 months, whichever occurs first. ZF 63A with 4BT, flywheel torsion coupler issue??? (Stranded in Guaymas, Mexico, I watched a guy true up a dinged prop using just a single jack and anvil. Its hard to tell if sport fishermen will take to it. Spencer Yachts was one of the first to embrace pod-drives, including Volvo Pentas IPS and ZF Marines pod-drive system with Caterpillar engines. With IPS Ill run out to the Corner and fish the tide for wahoo, then head over to Gingerbread and get some yelloweye before heading home. I rarely say this but if your dead set on a pod option I would put Volvos in. Both throttle and steering. Cummins uses aluminum-gallium anodes to best protect bronze drives. Siebert removes all loose paint from the drive, sanding down to shiny metal with 100-grit sandpaper, and then applies primer and two thin coats of Trilux 33 or Pettit Vivid copper thiocyanate anti-fouling paint. Exhaust fumes are emitted into the prop wash. Its a whole new world of boathandling out there, one all of us can enjoy. They get people excited about buying a new boat.. Zeus offers dramatically improved high-speed handling and delivers up to: 30% improved fuel economy 15% faster cruise speed Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. The biggest thing marketed to promote the system was its efficiency compared to a regular shaft and prop system, as well as joystick maneuverability. For more information and/or quote, please complete the contact form below. Then Zeus offered Sky Hook, a station-keeping device that combined data from a GPS and an electronic compass to keep the vessel perfectly still within a yard or two. That said, the pods are a bit more in annual maintenance. Dont compare them to stern drives. There arent many external mechanicals, no rubber bellows or other components to fail, he added. But tick them off and its hard not to conclude that the trend is undeniable: More boaters prefer them every year, and while theyll never completely replace inboards, they are the future of boating. pathfinder kingmaker river's justice . Naval architects have also gotten better at maximizing the efficiencies of pods at all speeds. Best of the old and the new.maybe. Still, many boaters werent convinced. Those meridians are not as over propped as other boats in the Brunswick family, based on my reading of boattest.com performance tests, but you will need to change out the prop set eventually and that means 4 different props for the ZEUS. Once you go to 3 or 4 engines or pods, I'd rather have shafts as the fuel efficiency with triples is only 10% better and not worth the maintenance cost and in a 4 engine/pod installation they tend to burn the same amount of fuel AND much more maintenance of 4. Capt. are zeus pods still being manufactured. Sensors and things like that. Interestingly, the most notable early prop-forward applications were in ice-breaking ships launched in 1990 an interesting defense to the argument that forward-facing props were too vulnerable to debris. Plan on replacing the anodes at least annually, using the correct alloy: Most pods use aluminum anodes, not zinc. It might save the cost of a divorce on cruelty-while-docking grounds, too, a way bigger budget-breaker than pod drives. are zeus pods still being manufactured. That boat was an agile-handling rig for sure. Take the props off, grease the shafts, and check the seals, Fessenden said. All told, figure $500 per engine annually, plus haul-out fees. I had seen massive tugboats using a similar pod-drive system for their tight-quarters work, pushing huge container ships into the wharf. Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. Todd Anderson recently ran a 50 Viking powered by ZF 4000 pods. Sabre seems to be moving more and more towards the IPS units over Cummins especially since Cummins and Mercury parted paths several years ago (both still support Zeus drives). In short, I love my Cummins 6.7 units and I am getting happier each day with the Zeus pods as I learn them and how to care for them. Check them just like you check zincs on a shaft, Petzold said: Swim down and have a look. Richard estimated an average annual cost of about $2,500 for scheduled maintenance on twin pod drives. Smooth, incremental low-speed control. A Bonnier LLC Company. Rob makes a very good point about service network and availability of skill in your intended cruising area. (Volvo Penta soon followed suit.). Hang around a boatyard, and youll hear at least one horror story about some unfortunate soul who was stranded, or worse, because his pods failed. Zincs every year, costing a few bucks, a new Cutless bearing every once in a while, and a couple of brushfuls of paint for the struts and rudders.