Own Fred Kiekhaefer’s Project Dolpin Nor-Tech – Speed on the Water
In a couple of minutes, my phone will light up with up with either a call or a text message from former Mercury Racing president Fred Kiekhaefer. We’ve been good friends for the better part of two decades—no one was more sorry to see him part ways with the Fond du Lac, Wis., company in 2012 than I was—and he does not hesitate to reach out when he feels the need.
Even Fred Kiekhaefer’s now-for-sale personal boat was dialed in at Lake X in St. Cloud, Fla.
Especially when he’s annoyed. The guy actually walked away from me at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris 15 or so years ago when I said something that pissed him off and didn’t speak to me again for three weeks.
What I imagine he will be reaching out about is the headline of this brief story. But trust me, Mr. Kiekhaefer, I am trying to get this story read—a novel idea in media—so someone steps up and buys your 2015 model-year Nor-Tech 39 SV powered by triple Mercury Racing 450R outboard engines.
OK, outboard-powered V-bottom sportboats aren’t exactly flying out of factories these days, but this one is special. It comes with history, that of being the test-bed for the first and only K-Labs variable-pitch stern-drive designed for diesel power applications. Kiekhaefer isn’t just a savvy businessman with an MBA from Kellogg, he’s a visionary engineer. (That made him the perfect leader for Mercury Racing.)
A brain like Kiekhaefer’s requires regular exercise or it atrophies, and after he left Mercury Racing he was looking for something to do other than out-ski everyone his age—as well as most of the young hotshots—in the back bowls of Vail Resort in Colorado. So he started K-Labs at his home in the Rocky Mountain foothills. He began working on the drive dubbed Project Dolphin in 2013.
Why a variable-pitch drive? Because you cannot switch propellers while you’re underway to accommodate engine rpm and load variables without losing your arms or, at the very least, your hands. Most propellers are of fixed-pitch design. Pitch is the theoretical distance a given propeller moves a boat forward with each full rotation. Lower-pitch props are great for coming on plane and acceleration, but not so great for top speed. (For the record, this is greatly simplified Propeller Science 101. There’s lots more.)
Project Dolphin would have worked. The only thing missing was demand for it.
The same applies to aircraft propellers, but in that realm savvy engineers figured out how to work with adjustable blade angles and lengths to change pitch on the fly, pardon the pun. Kiekhaefer knew this and believed he could adapt it to the diesel powerboating propulsion market.
And off he went. He event taught himself to use complex engineering/3D-design software call Solidworks.
For the sake of comparison, imagine trying to teach yourself Latin.
Eight years and $1 million later, Kiekhaefer called it quits. The problem wasn’t the concept. The prototype drive worked and he even redesigned it to address gremlins he uncovered. Further refinement and a sale to a company willing to produce it on a large scale would have made Kiekhaefer’s variable-pitch drive a viable option for diesel power packages.
The problem was one of the few forces he’d never considered in his project. Market force.
“Nobody was ordering diesel boats,” Kiekhaefer explained. “Cummins had let its Florida field reps go. Everybody was buying outboard center consoles. The market had moved away from my target. I spoke to several performance-boat builders and they confirmed my fear.
“The technical issues of Project Dolphin were solvable,” he added, then sighed. “But consumer preferences were not.”
And that led to the 39-footer’s triple-outboard-engine repower in 2021. The boat was “dialed in at Lake X” and reached an impressive 94 mph.
Once a test bed for a variable-pitch drive, Fred Kiekhaefer’s 39-foot Nor-Tech sportboat is now for sale and powered by triple Mercury Racing 450R outboard engines.
But Kiekhaefer has a nagging problem, at least as the Project Dolphin Nor-Tech test-bed is concerned. He still lives in the Colorado foothills. The area is lovely and close to his beloved Vail back bowls, but lacks—you know—a good place to run a 39-foot Nor-Tech V-bottom. So now it is for sale through Terry Sobo, a longtime Nor-Tech representative who lives in Southwest Florida.
“Someone should enjoy the fruits of my labor,” Kiekhaefer said.
I suspect Sobo’s phone will ring soon. But I flat-out know mine will.
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