Shakedown 2025 - With Videos

At our marina we have a hydraulic trailer that is used to pull and launch boats... so when it's your time to go in, you do a quick check, fire the engines up, and head off to your slip. This is different from our last marina where the marina tied up a john boat to your boat and took it over to the travel lift, or to your slip... Anyway... to make a long story short, our first run of the boat just to take it to the slip and tie it up was a short one. This past weekend, we were able to actually go out after a little bit of maintenance (adjustment of the reverse band on our starboard transmission).

You might recall that over Labor Day weekend in 2023, we hit something in the river. We nursed the boat back to our marina (about a 50 minute ride on one engine in a downpour the entire way). At the end of the season we pulled the boat only to find that the starboard strut was bent, and both props were curled a bit - starboard more than port.

Over the winter I got a new strut and had the props refurbished. When we went in last spring we had engine issues (turned out to be a carb as detailed in a post on our site), but once we got that figured out... I had a vibration. Not good, and obviously I wasn't happy as we had just had the props done. Our marina said that "well, you know, old boat, and tolerances were not as tight as they are today". Right. But I know how my boat ran prior to the props getting done and... yeah... they're not right.

To maintain the boating season, we would stay under 2k rpm for the year - nice to cruise, but man... seriously slow. Over the winter, we found out that the shop that had done the props closed (retired), and so our marina was sending the props up to a place in Minnesota that used Prop Scan. Perfect. I was told that my 22x22 props were actually 22x18.xx and 22x19.xx, and weren't balanced... After some negotiation, the props were fixed and this spring along with our exhaust work, the marina put the new props on. I was eager to get the boat out on the water.

So, here are two videos taken... one by me, and one by my awesome First Mate. In my video... no, I'm not WOT, but I did do WOT on a second run after realizing my error. It was amazing... smooth as silk, and the 427's purred.

ABOVE: About 3800 rpm as you can see... so not WOT, but it was close.

ABOVE: View from the bow. I know, it sort of looks green-screened, but I assure it, it was all Commander bliss up there, and back in the helm seat!

Cheers to the 2025 season!

C.

1967 42 Commander

"What If..."