Owner/ Operator opinion?

In my part of the world, a license is required and there are two popular ones, under 40 GT and under 300 GT. Pretty much anyone who is into boating has the < 40GT, fewer people have the <300 GT. On a typical 2-3 week trip, you would have 2-3 friends who have the license and we take turns who is the designated captain (then even I, as the owner and a qualified captain cannot take over). However, in reality, the deciding factor is how much time you want to spend with friends vs. managing the boat. Most of the professional captains are friends first and it is more fun to have them come over and join the socializing. Then it is always helpful when then deliver the boat to the next destination while you have to fly out for work or something.

Speaking of pods...yesterday I stumbled across a 2008 Lazzara 75 LSX and it says it has 4 Volvo IPS 600 engines. I've never looked at Lazzara and I've never heard of a smaller yacht having more than 2 engines (maybe a trawler with a 3rd wing engine). Seeing all of the features the boat offered, it made me wonder the following:

Is Lazzara a good boat?
Is the Volvo IPS 600 a good engine?
Are they efficient?
Are they difficult to maintain?
Are there known/common issues with them?

I agree with Pascal's observations. Surprisingly, the quad installation isn't as quite as tight as one would expect. There's an engine room pic in our review of the LSX here... https://www.yachtforums.com/review/lazzaras-lsx-quad-75.5867/

Not at all expert in either Volvo or IPS, but... I did do some research (with some of our local Volvo techs) a few years ago when considering a boat that had 3x IPS 600s... so relying on memory (which never has been all that great)...

Seems to me in the early days of IPS, Volvo hadn't yet made a version large enough to have only twins in bigger boats. Builders compensate by installing three or four (D4s, IIRC) with IPS. Volvo later developed larger IPS systems, so it might be bigger boats could now instead be driven by 2x engines/pods.

Volvo claims that prop angle effectively harness horsepower/torque better than angled straight shafts. Volvos naming convention for IPS seems to use numbers that sorta kinda represent what available horsepower would have been if it were a straight-shaft driven system. One version that I think I remember was that IPS 600... which used 435 hp D4s.

Early models needed annual haul-out simply to service the IPS drives. Service from inside the boat gradually became available in later IPS versions (and generations).

Overall, IPS seems to have had some growing pains. OTOH, there must be a boatload of installs by now. Online reading suggests only the disgruntled complain, whereas the majority seems silent. Close quarters handling is said to be nifty, since the pods can rotate independently.

-Chris