Mercury's four-stroke stunner

The collective wisdom of ski-racers that their boats must be powered by two-stroke engines is in tatters after Mercury Marine stunned competitors with the performance of its boat Silent Black in the Feros Hotels Sydney Bridge to Bridge ski race.

Silent Black, a LAB sports powered by a stock 250 supercharged Verado outboard, was the first four-stroke run in an Australian SMOC competition. Mercury's director of Service and Quality, Guy Williamson, says the boat's outstanding performance could herald the start of a major shift in ski racing.

He says Mercury Marine knew its supercharged Verado engines were capable of mixing it with the fastest boats in the highly competitive SC racing.

Silent Black started the race in a conservative manner but once past the first bridge it started to move through the field. David Aggar, the boat's driver, says he was just about to pass the second place finisher, Stalker, when his propeller failed. "We were gutted," Aggar says.

Williamson says Mercury Racing was confident throughout the secret development process that the four stroke Verado would be highly competitive. "At the point we lost the propeller, Silent Black had exceeded our expectations and we were definitely competing for a podium place -- which would have been the ultimate debut."

The concept of Silent Black started at this year's Sydney Boat Show when Troy Wood from Sea Quest Performance and boat owner David Aggar approached Mercury about running a Verado in the SMOC class. Over a six week period, Mercury worked closely with Sea Quest to develop a boat they were confident would be a potent package and meet all their expectations.

"We had to throw out everything we knew about setting up a ski racing boat and start again," says Williamson says. "We had to write some new rules to optimise the bboat with the engine. But when we got it right we knew we had a racing machine."

"We learnt a lot from the Bridge to Bridge and we are going to come back faster and stronger."

Silent Black is scheduled to race at the Southern 80 and Williamson is aiming for a podium finish.