Boating Industry Canada August 2016 - 4

INSIGHT Building Boating I'VE JUST RETURNED from a trip to New York City where including maintenance reminders and even locations of the Mercury held a press event geared to mainstream media. nearest Mercury service facility, right on a smart phone. We often talk about how to "grow boating" and of course it's As John Pfeifer said, it's all about making boating easy to great to support the Discover Boating program, the marine understand and easy to use. Actually running the boats out in media and all of the local shows and boating events that take the Hudson River quickly showed the benefits. The first boat I place every summer, but Mercury Marine did a very clever thing; drove was a Sea Ray 310 Sundancer with a pair of MerCruiser's they held a media event and invited mainstream media sources. new 4.5 L 250 hp purpose built V-6 engines. John Pfeifer The August 1 event held at the MarineMax dealership at emphasized that these are Mercury's own blocks, not sourced Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River, attracted writers from from General Motors and that they are purpose-built. Popular Mechanics magazine, Forbes, the Huffington Post, The Sea Ray accelerated smartly and with the Active Trim NPR and other media outlets. system engaged, you could see the drives trimming automatiI was the only Canadian media person and, in fact, only a cally, coming all the way in at low speeds but also trimming handful of conventional marine media people were invited. This was really Mercury's innovative initiative to reach beyond the marine industry and to share their amazing new technologies with the general public. While I was there I interviewed Mercury Marine President John Pfeifer and he emphasized that this event was very much in the tradition of Mercury's leadership role in the industry. He explained that the thrust of many of Mercury's most recent product introductions has been to make boating both more intuitive and more reliable for every boater, whether they are experiMercury president John Pfeifer leads their mainstream media event at Chelsea Piers in NYC. enced, or absolutely new to boating. The fleet Mercury assembled for the event showcased the full system of modular technologies that down in our high-speed turns then trimming out automatically they've developed. There was a big Boston Whaler with twin as the speed increased. Verado engines, a Cigarette with quad Verados, a Harris ponWith me for the ride was David Foulkes, chief technology toon with a Mercury FourStroke 150, a big Scout centre con- officer and vice president of product development. You could sole with twins, and a Sea Ray 310 Sundancer with twin see from the look on his face that he was very pleased with the MerCruiser 4.5 sterndrives. performance benefits that the Active Trim system delivered on Mercury's original introduction of SmartCraft and Digital the Sea Ray. Throttle & Shift (DTS) many years ago was probably the startThe Adaptive Speed Control adjusted engine speed to preing point for developing this new integrated technology that vent the Sea Ray from losing momentum in the turns and we brings drive by wire benefits to most Mercury products. were able to follow all the engine data on a smart phone as Engine electronics, GPS and sensors in the various systems we went. now facilitate such developments as Joystick Piloting, Hats off to Mercury for promoting intuitive, easy boating Mercury's Skyhook station keeping feature, Adaptive Speed and their latest products to the mainstream media. Everyone Control and now Active Trim that trims the boat automatically. should benefit from this! We also experienced the VesselView system through their new Mobile App so anyone can see all the SmartCraft data Andy Adams - Editor To read the digital version of Boating Industry Canada anytime visit www.BoatingIndustry.ca and click on Digital Magazine in the menu bar. 4 Boating Industry Canada AUGUST 2016 $!&&# - Mercury Engages Mainstream Media at NYC Event http://www.BoatingIndustry.ca

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