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Archive for Volvo Penta

MerCruiser adds Bravo Four S forward facing drive

Brunswick’s Mercury MerCruiser announced a new Bravo Four S forward-facing drive 24 August 2020. The drive obviously targets Volvo Penta’s FWD drive’s success in the wake surfing market. Mercury paired the drive’s introduction with a new control system called Smart Tow controls that aids in creating specific waves for wakesurfing, wakeboarding, and other tow sports. […]

Cioban-Leontiy v. Silverthorn – houseboat case: part 1

The Accident About 12 people took a 4 night houseboat rental Lake Shasta (California) in the summer of 2015. The 56 foot 2001 Waterway Houseboat (Canadian manufacturer) Mirage was powered by a Volvo Penta stern drive. Note – this is Part 1 of this post, Part 2 is our commentary on events on this page. […]

Cioban v. Silverthorn: part 2: Our Comments

We previously covered the status of Cioban-Leontiy v. Silverthorn Resorts & Volvo Penta rental houseboat propeller injury case in PART 1. As of 13 May 2019, negligence as described in part 2 of Plaintiff’s Second Amended Claim is the issue remaining in this case. Thus rental boat training, warnings, rental agreements, deficit safety features, rental […]

Volvo Penta FWD Forward Drive: safer or not?

Volvo Penta unveiled their new FWD Forward drive at the Miami Boat Show on 11 February 2015. It is a companion to their successful IPS forward facing diesel twin prop through hull drive (similar to the Brunswick / Mercury Marine Zeus drive). The new FWD drive bolts to the transom like a stern drive, but […]

Angelopoulos v. Volvo Penta, Grady-White et. al.

Konstaninos Angelopoulos filed a $30 million lawsuit against Volvo Penta, Grady-White, Norfolk Marine Company, and Richard Harris (boat owner and operator). The suit is for injuries his daughter, A.E. Angelopoulos, received in a boat propeller accident back on 30 June 2011. Then 12, she was entrapped by the Duoprop twin contra-rotating propeller stern drive on […]

Boating Industry Provides Misleading Propeller Accident Statistics

The boating industry has a long history of misleading the public and authorities by providing recreational boat propeller accident counts much lower than the official accident statistics provided by the U.S. Coast Guard. Several of these instances result from the industry falsely using Event 1 only statistics to represent the total number of propeller accidents, […]

Volvo Penta Patents Virtual Propeller Guard System

On June 5, 2012, Volvo Penta was issued U.S. Patent 8,195,381 for a Safety System for Marine Vessels. The patent focuses on detecting people in the water in conjunction with digital anchors. UPDATE note – on September 18, 2012 Volvo Penta was issued another patent, U.S. Patent 8,271,155 for technologies surrounding this same concept. GPS […]