New boat on the lake

[Dave R]

Originally Posted by DickR

The only practical reason I can think of for having four outboards on the back of that boat is the raw low-end pulling pulling power it ought to provide for, say, yanking a dozen water skiiers out of the water in a ski show. Any other practical reasons?

Salt water use at high speed would be the #1 reason to have outboards on a boat. I/Os are not very good in salt water because they are high maintenance and the engines that power them are typically truck derived and made of iron. They also typically remain full of water at rest. You can tilt those outboards out of the water at the end of the day and the engines (which were built to handle raw water cooling from the start) will drain and be completely free of cooling water. Inboards are good in salt water too, but are not meant for really high speeds.