Like you, we are boaters. Many special moments in our lives with family and friends have been spent out on the water. But boating is neither low maintenance nor inexpensive, and while fiberglass can be buffed, wires replaced, cushions re-upholstered and a new GPS installed, once engines start to fail, a boat becomes an endless source of misery, both mental and financial. So, what are normal people to do? Those of us who cannot spend half a million bucks for a new 35 footer every decade, or who love our 20 year old boats just fine? We repower of course.
If only it were that easy.
Until now, repowering meant one of two things. There is the dreaded “rebuilt” or “refreshed” option, where we can buy old engines with a few new gaskets and a messy paint job, the wonderful work of mechanics who have “been in business for 40 years” and seemingly never once cleaned their shop, or their fingernails, during that time. Unsurprisingly, their workmanship isn’t any better than their hygiene, and the result is a stew of worn out and mismatched parts that are bound to go Boom soon after installation. Which they do.
And then there is the “remanufactured” or “bob tail” route, where manufacturers sell us a detuned version of their base engines at a price not much lower than their current models’. And though they come with a limited warranty, those engines are both underpowered and built with low-end components, so as not to compete with their newer counterparts, leaving us with the feeling those nice manufacturers just took us for a ride. Which they did.
Considering what you get, both options are definitely overpriced. But quality and price aside, in our opinion, the biggest drawback with current repower options is that they do not improve on the power of the old models they are replacing. Those boats were not “slow” because their hulls were poorly built but because their engines were severely underpowered. In fact, basic hull design has mostly remained unchanged for the past 60 years, so why nobody has bothered to fit those perfectly good hulls with powerplants that actually allow them to reach their full potential defies comprehension.
Until now.
We knew there has to be a way to build a world class engine, with all brand new, top-of-the-line components, achieving the performance to match, and beat, anything else out there. And to do it for a logical amount of money. After all, internal combustion isn’t rocket science, it has been with us for almost 130 years, and in that time, thousands of millions of engines of every kind have been produced. So by now, for the committed engineer, it is fairly straightforward to build an engine to serve a specific purpose, like the marine environment.
And Medusa is the realization of that dream. Intelligent, reliable design matched with 21st century manufacturing. An engine that delivers more power than any other gasoline powerplant ever out a boat, with features found nowhere else, at a price we can truly afford. Because a beautiful boat deserves a second chance.