AVIARA AV 40

Pair an all-out luxury boat with an all-out luxury performance outboard and maritime magic abides.

- Chris Caswell

My wife claims that a fine cabernet is the perfect complement to filet mignon. She may be right. Similarly, the new Aviara AV40 is an excellent match with two 600 hp Mercury Verado V-12 outboards.

Early outboard enthusiasts never envisioned pairing the then-tiny motors with such a large, progressively styled day yacht. Start with a V-12 block (think Ferrari or Lambo) of 7.6 liters, then frost this cupcake with a supercharger.

If you've owned a V-12 (and particularly one from Italy), you're thinking "maintenance nightmare." Au contraire. You don't even have to remove the cowling to change the oil; it goes in through a hatch atop the engine. And all the service points are clustered right up front too. In fact, the V-12 600 need only come out of the water for service every two years. Your mechanic might miss you.

But there's more. 

How about a two-speed transmission? An industry first, of course, it shifts without a clunk, solving what might be nightmarish fuel economy otherwise and trying to balance a prop that will torque a 12-ton boat onto plane with one that can run as fast as it looks. And that blower evens out the performance through seasonal temperature changes.

But wait, as the Ginsu knife commercials say, there's more. The contra-rotating dual-prop lower unit steers independently, so more of these big kickers can fit into the same space without needing the power heads to turn.

OK, I admit, both features were weird at first. Powering up for our performance tests and carefully monitoring the rpm, I noticed when they suddenly dropped. The engines were clearly more relaxed (and faster). It was like the overdrive on some cars I've owned.