I am on my way back from a visit with the engineering guys to CMD (Cummins marine Diesel) down in Charleston, SC. First of all summer travel in the Eastern USA really bites. Hot humid weather creates thunderstorms and the whole system shuts down and tonight we are sitting in Washington waiting for our flight that will get to Portland at 3:00 AM. But it’s all worthwhile. We had a really great visit to Cummins and spent half the day today on the water sea trialing their new and innovative Zeus propulsion system. This stuff is amazing. No more rudders and no more shafts just pods attached in the most efficient axis at 90 degrees to the water it is pushing. A Joy stick operates the boat up to 1800 RPM. You can go sideways, you can even use the Skyhook feature to put the boat in a position and hold it using the Zeus system and a GPS receiver. Autopilots are now part of the system as are automatic trim tabs. It is very cool stuff and we are trying to decide when we will start using the system or one like it from another engine supplier. More to come here this is very cool stuff
