Page 40: of Marine News Magazine (March 2011)

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40 MN March 2011 the term “town” was stretching it. An-Thoy was only a vil- lage of a few hundred people. He was stationed there from 1966 to 1967. “I think you’ve heard of swift boats because

John Kerry, who ran for president, was also on swift boats.

He was actually at the same base I was two years after me.”

Konrad spent two years in the Navy before getting out and returning home. “I started the business back in 1967 and after a few years I wanted to do something more than just being a machinist. So I went back to the University of

Minnesota under the GI bill and got a degree in

Mechanical Engineering.”

After graduating from the University in 1973, he worked for a Minneapolis company as a manufacturing engineer. During this time he continued his own business on the side. “I still had some of my machinery from prior college and I picked up some work from steel mills and I developed the company out further doing steel mill parts.”

THE BEGINNINGS OF KONRAD STERN DRIVES “In middle of 1976 I went full-time in my own compa- ny. I actually went from wearing a jacket and tie everyday back to wearing a set of coveralls. I did everything from janitorial to machining to sales and paying the bills. It was a year before we got our first employee and we’ve grown ever since then. Presently we’re about 45 employees.”

Konrad had his sites on more than steel mill parts. “It was about 1990,” Konrad said, “and I wanted to start something else. I wanted to get another company going and I really wanted to have a product. We started out making parts for Mercury Alpha drives and we displayed our product at the boat shows. At the Miami Boat Show several diesel manufacturers approached me about pro- ducing a heavier stern drive to go with the diesel engine.

I said ‘sure, we can do that.’”

As a result, Konrad developed his own stern drive. “I think it was about 1997/98 when we came out with the 520 stern drive and we’ve been selling to the diesel com- mercial market ever since. Once we came out with our own drive we stopped making parts for the Mercury

Alpha drives,” he said. “In the mid-90s when we were first designing the drive we looked at all the drives on the mar- ket” up to that time. Konrad said he put in the largest gears and bearings and heaviest castings he could. “Our drive is heavier than any other product on the market.

Most stern drives on the market had a design life of about 400 hours back then. Some drives today are probably good to 800 to 1,000.” But Kondrad said when the 520 stern drive came out, it was designed for a minimum life of 3,000 hours. “So we were almost 10 times over what products were on the market.”

In U.S. Navy applications, Konrad said, “We have had some drives last in excess of 10,000 hours. I asked them ‘why did you run this drive so long?’ They said it was the only drive that could keep going, so they had to use the boat all the time.” “But that’s the gist of it. We made a heavier drive with the idea of longer life and one of the design requirements was to take the tork and the impulse load that comes from a diesel engine.”

MORE KONRAD STERN DRIVES “The 520 stern drive took up to a 20-inch diameter prop. Since then we’ve added the 540 stern drive which is

Market Report

Hong Kong Police Interceptor with Konrad Marine stern drives.