Hydraulic Jack Plates on Tin Boats, worth the money? Safe?

[AH64ME]

Surprised to hear that you had a fishing trip planned for next week to Michigan since Ontario is still colder than my ex-wife's heart. Yea, we are dealing with the same issue in NY, but not in my area yet, since no deaths have been reported other than down in NYC.
I don't know of Merc having any objection to 4 blades, since they have made a few special 4 blades like Trophy plus, Fury 4, Bravo just for HP bass boats. I am sure that if their gear setups are not strong, manufacturers may worry or people not pitching down for correct RPMs. I run 2 different Trophy Plus and a Tempest Plus, but the low to midrange performance and handling of the 4 blade is by far better than the 3.
However, my Tempest Plus was worked by Croxton for my set up, and has great performance with plenty top end speed for a big rig. I am sure with time you will get it worked out, just like the uncontrolled fears from this virus that has cost me plenty of monies so far.

I had to laugh at the first part of your reply, yes it's still cold no doubt, but I have a friend that served in the Army with and around me for 26 years, he's never let me down. When he calls I load up the boat and truck and head north as fast as the constabulary will allow. Last year we hit the pre-spawn for smallies, had a blast, and also found a canal full of large mouth in the three to five pound range, best four hours ever.

I called a Merc maintenance center (Near Lake Fork), the guy I talked with was speaking in tongues, he knew everything or had access to all the data of every Merc ever built. My take-away was that the Merc guys have a lot more options then just about everyone. He did mention that the Evinrude guys had created a monster with their new machine. I would have to call that pretty high praise from this guy. He was willing to talk four blade set-ups by type motor but I stopped before he turned my brain to jello. He did say that Merc spent a lot of time and money working the hole-shot issue for the B.A.S.S community for many years and are still trying to perfect it. If there is a four blade built for and by Merc then it has been tested to the extreme. He couldn't or wouldn't say the same thing about Yamaha or any other manufacturer, not his area of expertise. This has been a fun journey and education so far, can't wait till the hysteria ends and life returns to some kind of normal.

I just traveled across the middle U.S. due to a family death, it was interesting to see the difference of attitude from region to region. From Texas to the Cumberland Gap of Tennessee it was like another world in every major metropolis, from hysteria to who cares, it would have been funny if it wasn't so serious. Nashville has a huge red spot over it and no one who lives there cares, not one person I talked with, from a distance of course. And the eastern hill country of Tenn was even more fun, from if the moonshine pap makes doesn't kill me nothin' will, to stay ten feet away and don't breath on me. I was glad to get home to Texas, not that the craziness is any better, but it's better in your own home. I hope the madness stops soon, the Governor of Texas is going to close everything down soon, no fishing, no fun to be had by anyone. It's going to piss me off if I miss the smallie spawn up north!

[digthemup]

Well, I am glad to hear that you got to talk with a Merc tech, and yea they can get pretty detailed at nauseum. I used to run Evinrude/Johnson many years ago for outboards, but then they got fancy with injection blowing up heads like hand grenades, so I moved to Yammie at the advice of a trusted friend. Excellent motor the OX66 150 I had and ran a Yammie T1 prop 3 blades on my Skeeter, and sold that rig in less than a week after I bought my current set up cause I needed something little bigger not to get too beat up by the big lake and St Lawrence River.
I love my '03 Merc 225 EFI HO that has been properly worded scarring some of the 250 out there, and their techs have been to notch any time I called for info or parts details. I hear alot of good things about the Yammie SHO line and the 225 HPDI Series2 late models, but some serious issues with their 250.
Like I said, once you get your WOT data on your boat final set up, send your prop to Mark Croxton so he can work his magic on it once it is blueprinted and balanced.
I am in Western NY area, and we have the stay at home reg for distancing, since we have 13 deaths in my county and 1100 people sick. People would change their minds if they would see the body bags pile up like NYC with 2500 deaths and climbing daily.
Please do all you can to stay safe and keep yourself and family away from idiots. Things will get better at some point, and life will go on with a 'new normal' for a while.
Be well and be bless.