Mercury's Zeus Drive System Promises to Make Boating Accesible to Beginners

Representatives from Mercury, the world's largest manufacturer of watercraft propulsion, have introduced a cutting edge drive system that will revolutionize boating.

Zeus, a system with the name of a greek god, but controls so user friendly a six year old can use it.

So what exactly is Zeus?

 " It works off of a joystick control...there's several computers that will control it from the joystick that will enable the boat to go sideways forward, back, twist the boat. It makes docking easier. It just makes the overall running of the boat a little better." Tracy Green Erwin Marine Sales.

If you're in doubt about the system being easy to use, little six year old Landon Deal isn't docking a ski boat.This little guy is at the helm of a 45 foot vessel...in close quarters.

The Zeus system is a technological wonder, the props are placed on the bottom of the hull.

Each has an independent pod that can turn either prop at a 90 degree angle.

So these huge boats can be maneuvered with pinpoint precision.

Not only does zeus make maneuvering a snap... because the props aren't mounted at an angle it also greatly improves fuel efficiency by pushing the boat forward instead of up like with a traditional drive system.

So it seems the age of the video game has infiltrated the world of boating...

 " I tell customers sometimes that actually the things you're seeing, the control sticks the steering wheel, those are really put there to make you feel good because they're kind of artifacts...with the technology you have here you could easily do that with a play station 3 controller. But most people buying a boat like that probably wouldn't feel comfortable with it, but it could be done very easily."-Robert Grantham,Mercury Representative.

Clearly, Zeus combines Mythology with Technology.

In Chattanooga I'm Tobias Parrish for WDEF news 12.