WOW! WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had the priveledge of hitting Lake Zumbro this afternoon with Tim Mulvihill and Eric Vandal from Universal Marine & RV in a brand new Crestliner 2150 Sportfish powered by a 225 Mercury Verado. This boat just arrived this morning at 11:47 – we were on the water by 3:00 thanks to the excellent set up effort by the Universal shop team. Rumor has it that there were a few techs unhappy that I went out and not them.

The motor performed unbelievably – VERY quiet and an incredible amount of thrust. When you crack the throttle the RPM’s absolutely jump from 550 to 5000 – really sounds like a fourth of that. The power is smooth and quiet at all speeds. This is a good sized boat weighing 2050 lbs dry. The motor absolutely makes this boat jump up on plane. IF you haven’t run one of these yet – check it out! Like I said before – WOW!

Thanks for the ride! I will be back!

Another pic – most amazing thing about the Verado is carrying on a conversation in a normal tone of voice while riding at near wide open throttle

One more pic – Worst thing about whole experience is now I am going home and trying to be really nice – I WANT ONE!

Those Verado’s just plain look MEAN!! Almost like they are on steroids of something.

Only problem for Mercury is, they will have to change they’re slogan from “Can you here the water call” to “You can hear the water”, they are soooo quiet!

Did the gas guage needle move faster than the speedo needle?

Fuel economy is one thing I have seen no reports on at all. Somehow, I have a feeling it’s not too bad. No boggy spots in this motor at all – response is so effortless that it’s hard to imagine that fuel is being wasted. In any case, can’t be any worse than my I/O I have now – I know that’s not very good but I never really cared either – has a big tank!

I see C-Liner went back to the SST transom.
Tuck

is there room on the SSTtransom for a gas kicker?

You would have to go with remote steer I believe. The old Sportfish had a cut out for kickers. The SST may be for the short shaft Merc. It is probably an option. I warned everyone about this Merc VS. the World deal. What a bummer.I wonder what the price of that rig is as it sits? It has to be over $30k?
Tuck

Chris,

The Verados are about 4-5% over premium cost of the Optimax.

The initial pricing on the 225’s if I remember correctly, starts around $16,000. The 275’s top out just around $20,000. The biggest factor driving the costs up are the controls for those motors. Those alone are about $2,000. Neat thing is, there are only 8 wires that run from the counsel to the motor, thats all! 4 main wires, and 4 back up wires.

As for kickers with a Verado, you will need to use a tiller handle on the kicker. To use a connector rod to the main motor would require you to have the key “on” to have the power steering work. That would drain your battery before long, and as far as I’ve heard, there aren’t any kickers out there that can charge a battery as fast as it would drain.

Thanks for the info! I was shocked to see the cable cost for my 75 E-TEC was $450! And it is a tiller!
Tuck

I sometimes miss the old days when things were a lot simpler, and cheaper.

I was on the Crestliner pro staff for a number of years, and watched a number of changes being made. Recent happenings there played a large part in my resigning. This recent Merc deal is leaving a lot of people scratching their heads. The boat and sport shows should be very interesting this winter and spring.
Tuck

As far as the SST transom goes, this was special ordered on this particular boat. And yes it is set up for a kicker(LH side) It is available either way as I understand (tiller or hooked in with main motor). I would guess (didn’t ask specifically) that the steering can be activated with just the kicker on – most electronic gizmos don’t seem to take all that much power so I’m guessing that kicker has adequate charging output to keep battery up when you run the steering.

Please clarify for me. You’re saying the steering from the main motor when using a connecting rod, or are you meaning a different power steering system for just the kicker?

I found out that they use a remote steering for the kicker (separate from big motor) They are supposed to be coming out with one that has a small remote so you can steer kicker from anywhere in the boat. As far as price goes, this particular boat was ordered with everything (including full top, sides, bimini top, SST transom and lots more) The 225 came at the 200 price (pre season special buy) The price is more like pushing 50