I think I was first with electric cooling by a few years.
This was around 1994 or so:
I needed to get to Annapolis to pick up a date and my cooling pump died. Not wanting to risk the wrath of a women scorned (or at least left waiting at the seawall), I did a quick hose-monster conversion of the anchor washdown pump to a cooling pump and off I went
It actually worked fairly well, but you had to watch the temp. The pump seemed to have the right flow for about 2/3s power.
Also don't forget to turn it OFF after shutdown or
BTW - anyone using an oil cooler?