Your boat will always be balanced, granting better performance and lower consumption: here’s the promise from Mercury with their new Active Trim.
Active Trim has been designed by Mercury both for the amateur and the expert boater. The aim is to simplify the management of the setup, increasing the performance or (seeing from the other angle) reducing the fuel need. Active Trim will compensate the changes due to acceleration, uneven load, or movement of people aboard during navigation.
Active Trim, like an automatic shift
Using Active Trim is like moving from manual gearbox to automatic. Several tests, on different boats, compared navigation with manual trim – full down to navigation with Active Trim enabled: the fuel saving has been 14% to 54%.
The secret is in the patented GPS control: different from the systems that just monitor revs, the Mercury one keeps an eye on the speed as well.
Perfect for keeping the boat balanced while reaching the plane, Active Trim is designed also for the sportier boats, as it grants an immediate switch from automatic to manual mode when needed.
A further feature is the five setup profiles, made for most of the boats out there: runabouts, pontoons, bass boats, cruisers, high performance. You don’t need to manually insert the setup parameters for each engine speed: it’s enough to start the engine and select the right profile. Drivers can further customize Active Trim according to their feeling, change in the load, and even mutated weather conditions, still keeping the auto mode. But if they want to get top performance, the system is disabled touching the usual setup controls. The automatic mode can be engaged again at the touch of a button.
The Active Trim panel is compatible with analogue and digital gauges, and has been designed to be fitted on a wide range of boats. Unlike other systems, it doesn’t need a multi-purpose instrument, and it’s easy to install: a 54mm round hole is everything you need to saw off the dashboard.
Active Trim is compatible with any Mercury or MerCruiser engines with SmartCraft interface. This means outboards 40 to 400 HP and inboards 115 to 430, even if already installed. To install Active Trim you just need to wait next Spring: launch on main markets is planned for Spring 2016.
