Hamburg, Germany – Wouldn’t it be great to steer a boat as easily as your car, so that even novices can quickly berth large motor yachts? With joystick-controlled pod drives, this dream has now become a reality. And Caterpillar is already on board, combining its well-proven, electronically-controlled, high-speed, Cat® C9 ACERT® marine engines with the Zeus® Pod Drive System developed by ZF.
Marine propulsion systems making use of steerable pods have been around for some time, particularly in offshore vessels and cruise ships. The Zeus Pod Drive System powered by Caterpillar is a new approach, based on experience gathered with both conventional drive systems and pod systems. The development target was to leverage the principal advantages of a pod drive while resolving the challenges observed in existing pleasure craft applications….more at Cat.com