MD 180 - a must have on Islands

I'm brand new to Islands, but have had my Outback for 4 years doing everything in from lakes, rivers, bays to open ocean. I've used it to camp, tour, fish, surf launch, crap, etc. The MD 180 seemed cool for the Outback and I'm sure I'd use it, but didn't seem like a huge deal.

However, when I decided to get a TI, I thought long and hard and absolutely wanted a 2017 with the MD 180s even though there were several 2016's available at a discount.

I've only had the TI out twice and I am so glad I got the MD 180 drives. Backing an Outback out of a tough spot with a paddle is a trivial task. A TI with tramps and 4 people on it would be a nightmare. Clicking it into reverse and backing up a fully load TI was a piece of cake with the MD 180s. It was also nice to use it as a brake if we were approaching land a little too fast.

In case anyone else was in the same predicament deciding what to buy, I thought I'd share this here.

Yes the reverse drive is nice. However, the fwd and rev cables break easy if you pull to hard.

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Our TI is our family boat (the only boat we own now) so we use it for anything and everything. We tend to go to a lot of harbors and docks (basically if we pass any place on the water that serves drinks and food we stop). Negotiating around crowded harbors is a royal pain ( the TI has a. Teeny rudder), so we typically reverse one of our mirage drives when in that situation, (lol those million dollar yacht guys get really mad when you bounce off their boats). On dead calm days it's not a big issue but when windy with my 20 ft long, 13 ft wide TI with 3 masts (all furled) the boat can be quite a handful in tight places. I am visualizing how nice the mirage 180 drives would be in our situation, my next TI will definately have them. Hopefully the will have some high performance fins for them by the time I need them.
FE