Crownline 225 LPX

When your mission is to beat the heat, the cool Crowline 225 LPX delivers.

August 1, 1999

Adventure is where you find it. Take that Steve Irwin guy, the Crocodile Hunter. His everyday life is more adventurous ' at least judging from his TV show ' than mine and all my friends' lives combined. I've gone 36 years so far without once diving out of a boat and giving a croc a bear hug, but every time I turn on my TV there's ol' Steve doing just that. And if he doesn't get chomped, he acts like the whole thing's been a big yawn.

I, on the other hand, can get my adrenaline pumping like mad by simply floating on my back in the middle of a lake for hours risking one hell of a sunburn. Some say it's pure madness. I say that a life untested is a life unlived.

You see, for me, pushing the limits is a way of life, so for the last half-hour or so, I've been testing my bravery alongside the new Crownline 225 LPX in Lake Travis.

I'm in the heart of the Texas Hill Country about 30 minutes outside of Austin. If I'm not careful, I could be peeling like a lizard come tomorrow, but I'm not afraid. It's what I do.

I won't be able to keep up this pace for long though. The sun is a red giant today. The parts of me that aren't submerged are sweating. I can feel the SPF 36 Bullfrog I wear as body paint beginning to fade. To open my eyes would be to invite serious retinal damage. I must concentrate.

At 45 minutes, I can't take it anymore. I dunk myself to cool off and swim back to safety, the Crownline 225 LPX that's been pressed into service as the DaveBoat' for the day. (Trademarks are de rigeur for us adventuresome types.) Fire-engine red, the 225 LPX is a particularly apt choice for today's envelope-pushing. After all, what's the fun in going to the edge if nobody sees you do it? I can guarantee that nobody on the lake is overlooking me today.

This is where I'd usually launch into a spiel about how massively powerful the 225 LPX is, how it handles 50-foot seas with utter nonchalance, how it pulls 15 Gs in a full-throttle turn, how it accelerates on par with the Space Shuttle and how driving it up to the lakeside bar led to a wild weekend with Elizabeth Hurley. I'd be lying, of course.

In real life, this LPX is pretty muscular, with a 350 Magnum MPI Bravo III in the box, so it accelerates well, albeit nowhere near Space Shuttle speed. In fact, it goes from 0 to 30 mph in a shade more than 7 seconds (7.11 to be exact), on the way to a top speed of 54.1 mph.

I know these things because I figure that since I'm out of the water anyway, I might as well dry off by putting the LPX through its paces in a fairly secluded cove. One thing about Lake Travis is that even on a crowded day ' which this most certainly isn't ' there are so many coves along its 65-mile length that you can almost always find a little privacy. Since it's a midweek afternoon, I don't have to look far to find a safe place to see how well the LPX handles.

Adventure is where you find it. Some might think a slightly wind-blown cove on a spring afternoon is something of an adventure-free zone. At the wheel of the LPX, I see that same cove as my personal amusement park. It's okay ' I'm a professional.

I push the LPX up to about 40 mph and crank the wheel all the way to the right. The hull doesn't disappoint. It's a semi-soft turn, maybe not as hard as you'd expect, but the hull doesn't try to slide or hook as it arcs around. I kick it up a notch. At 50 mph, the turn gets a little violent, but no more so than I antici-pated. The hull hooks a little, and there's a little outside roll, but it's pretty much what happens whenever you turn that hard, that fast.

One complaint I do have is that the LPX helm seat doesn't have an armrest near the throttle. If you spend most of your time cruising or pulling an inflatable, this won't be an issue, but pulling a skier or wakeboarder, when you really want to hold a steady speed, you need that arm rest. Using the side of the helm's bucket seat sort of works, but I'd still rather have a real armrest.

I say this because I'd be doing a lot of wakeboarding behind this boat. The hull's 18-degree deadrise does a good job of dealing with the little bit of chop kicked up by the wind, while still delivering a good recreational-level wake for wakeboarding.

I wouldn't be going alone, either. With an overall length of 22 feet 5 inches, and a 102-inch beam, the LPX has room for everyone. The S/S interior (one of three cockpit layout options) has twin buckets for the pilot and copilot that swivel to turn the cockpit into a sort of conversation pit, easily letting you talk to the three guys sitting on the rear bench. Another couple of folks can fit in the bow seating area.

Adventure, even if it's merely manufactured adventure in a semi-calm cove, has a way of making me hungry. And thirsty. So I leave the safety of the cove for the craziness of Carlos 'n' Charlie's, one of Lake Travis' waterside watering holes. Normally, I avoid places like this like I avoid playing with guns, but in the interest of adventure, I'm going in.

A $15.00 shrimp po' boy (made with frozen popcorn shrimp) and a $5.00 side salad later, I'm getting the hell out of there. Okay, the people watching here is amazing. And I'll admit that Carlos 'n' Charlie's has some great live music on the weekends (then again, everywhere in Austin has great live music on weekends), but I can do without the $6.00 beers and $7.50 frozen margaritas.

The wind has come up during my lunch break, so I decide to take advantage of the conditions to see how well the LPX handles at docking speeds. I've come to believe that the key to good docking, especially in windy weather, is to go as slowly as the boat will allow, instead of trying to ram it in hard and fast. Some boats don't handle very well at low/idle speeds if there's so much as a hint of wind. The LPX isn't one of them. At 3,600 pounds, the LPX is heavy enough to put up a little resistance to the wind, just enough to make idle-speed docking easy even in 25-mph gusts. To make it even easier, the LPX is equipped with an optional flip-up captain's seat, something I highly recommend purchasing.

Docking, even in a gusty breeze, isn't anybody's idea of real adventure, so I point us back out to the open water. Once we're cruising, I pass off the helm for a minute to get a feel for the rest of the boat. I like the cushy twin bucket seats, although I wish they were repositioned a couple of inches toward the boat's centerline. As they are now, they swivel just enough to let you converse with the folks in the aft bench, but the buckets don't have enough room to do a full 360-degree pivot.

The aft bench is pretty comfy, too, but what I like best about it is that it converts to a nice, big sunlounge in about 5 seconds. Just pull the seat bottoms (it's a two-part seat) forward, drop the seat backs, and voila! ' you're ready to take a nap.

The full-length carpeting is something my bare feet always like, and it's expected on an upgraded boat like the Crownline LPX. Also expected are touches like the pop-up cleats all around, the hideaway boarding ladder and the integrated swim platform. And the standard Bimini top is more than welcome when the sun is high and the clouds are few. Today, in other words.

So I put the top up and cruise. And cruise. And cruise some more. At 40 mph, the LPX cruises smooth and easy. I wish either I was a few inches shorter (I'm 6 feet 2 inches tall) or the LPX's windshield was angled a few degrees more sharply, because my head is sticking up just enough to catch too much wind noise to converse or hear the optional CD player easily. Aside from that, though, I'd be happy to do nothing but cruise up and down the lake until the sun goes down.

But I don't. Instead, I go from cove to cove, seeking shelter from the wind ' and finding it, thanks to the hills and cliffs that surround the lake ' so I can stop the boat, pull off my shirt and go for a swim. Or a float. I thoroughly test the boarding ladder and swim platform, and can report that they work extremely well. As do the engine cover/sunlounge and bow-filler cushions, although I'm a bit too big to stretch out in the bow area, with or without the fillers.

Floating aimlessly alongside the LPX, a cold drink in hand, I wonder what the serious boat testers would say about me just now. After all, I'm not trying to find the absolute limits of the LPX hull or the breaking point of the MerCruiser engine. I'm not spending hours measuring the space between the twin bucket seats or the width of the walk-through section of the windshield. Other than looking at it, I really haven't messed with the engine at all. I haven't even cut a hole in the hull to make sure the lamination schedule is really what it claims. All I've done is bring my best friend and a couple of overloaded ice chests out for a day on the water, where we've spent as much time as possible just hanging out on the boat and doing a little cruising and a little swimming. Come to think of it, though, that's pretty much exactly what the 225 LPX is designed for. And it's done it quite well, thanks.

Adventure is where you find it. Already today I've risked a wicked sunburn (floating shirtless in the Texas sun), motion sickness (testing the LPX's handling at speed), acid reflux (those shrimp were BAD), embarrassment (docking in the wind) and drowning (swimming a mere 10 minutes after eating lunch). And I'm ready for more. Unfortunately, I'm running out of daylight. So I climb back into the LPX, fire the motor and head for home. Steve can have his crocodiles. I have Lake Travis. I also have an ice chest that's still pretty full, a half-hour of sunlight and the LPX. That's adventure enough.

LOA: 22'5"
Beam: 102"
Weight: 3,600 lbs.
Fuel: 58 gal.
Hull Warranty: 5 years
Base Price: $31,764
(w/250-hp, 5.7L MerCruiser)
Price As Tested $38,192
(w/300-hp MerCruiser 350 Magnum MPI Bravo III)

Crownline Boats
11884 Country Club Road
West Frankfort, IL 62896
(618) 937-6426
www.crownline.com

Test Data: Performance data was gathered with a 300-hp MerCruiser 30 Magnum MPI Bravo III, 2 passengers on board and 1/3 tank of fuel.

Standard Features: Premium Clarion raio/cassette player /speakers, in-floor lockable ski and kneeboard storage with movalbe liner, automatic bilge pump (manual override), courtesy lights, insulated cooler, engine hour meter, fire extinguisher, full fiberglass bow liner, full instrumentation, grab handles, hidden stainless-steel pull-up cleats, welded railes and ski tow; tilt sterring wheel, walk-through cabin, carpeting, curved tinted safety glass walk-through windshield, removalbe mesh towel bags (2), removable vinyl sotrage bag under ski storage lid, 2-tier drink hooders, integrated swim platform pressure treated wood w/ transferable lifetime warranty.

Options: Bow filler cushions, CD player w/6-disc changer, extra speakers, solied color gel-coat, flip-up bucket seats, bow cover, cokpit cover, bowrider cable, Bimini top, full canvas package, U-wrap cockpit seating, stainless-steep prop, compass, Corsa Captin's Call side or transom exhoust, Corsa thruhull exhuast w/mufflers or thru-transom exhaust w/ mufflers, depthsounder, dual battery switch, trim tabs, wood-grain kit (dash insert and steering wheel), hardward package exchange (indlueds pop-up cleats and white folding boarding ladder), LPX package.