42 Degree South BoatWorks

42 Degree South BoatWorks Providing performance tuning, corrosion management, tuition and advice on all makes of trailer boats.
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Located in Tasmania, but touring all over Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific North West. I have 35+ years of experience in the boating world, and live for the ocean. My belief is that safety and reliability are paramount, and that every boat owner deserves not only peace of mind, but a boat that is set up correctly and performing at its optimum. I believe in a science based, holistic approach

rather than guesswork, and working with the client as an educational exercise - greater understanding of your boat leads to greater safety and enjoyment. I will rarely diagnose an issue immediately, preferring to view the whole picture of the issue prior to making determinations and wasting your time and money. I guarantee my work and will go to any length to ensure you have the boat you deserve. Services:
- Performance optimization including re-propping,
engine height and boat balance (National and
International)
- Diagnostic consultation of engine, wiring and boat
performance (National and International)
- Fit-out and repair work (Tasmania only)
- Corrosion diagnoses and correction, as well as
preventative maintenance and maintenance schedules
(National and international)
- Transducer and head unit installation, setup and
tuning to your hull for optimum performance. (National and International)
- Diagnostic advice and advocation on your behalf in
dealer disputes/warranty claims
- Custom fabrication work for trim tab/anchor winch
and transducer installations
- Trailer setups and customization

I specialize in Stabicraft, Mercury, Suzuki, Yamaha, Garmin and Simrad, but work on all makes and models of boats and engines. I am not affiliated with any brand or dealer, so have the luxury of remaining impartial in my judgement. I will not name and shame, preferring to solve the problem rather than blame the cause.

Good old AI....I somehow managed to create "Pirates of the Penguin" and have no fu***ng idea how I did it......Looks kin...
04/06/2026

Good old AI....I somehow managed to create "Pirates of the Penguin" and have no fu***ng idea how I did it......

Looks kinda cool though for a re-build idea!

02/06/2026

Nothing clever, just the joyous sound of a Suzuki v6 being thrashed testing camera angles for an upcoming series.

Turn it up and enjoy!

I said in the previous article I had two short consumer advice bites of info to pass on. Well, here is number two. I rar...
24/05/2026

I said in the previous article I had two short consumer advice bites of info to pass on. Well, here is number two. I rarely mention brand specific shortcomings, but this one has occurred enough that it merits posting. Hopefully it saves some of you money down the road. It is a tricky one to identify unless you are slightly odd and left of centre, but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

It is relevant to Mercury engines, but only the specific ones below, all post 2023 build:

- 115 4-cylinder FourStroke
- 115 4-cylinder Pro XS
- 200 v6 FourStroke
- 250 – 300 v8 Verado

I’ve written much before about bonding wires on engines and their importance, but a quick refresh; The bonding wire does not carry current as such but is designed to equalise the electrical potential of your engine. They also connect to your anodes to disperse that potential, so the anodes can take the punishment. Break one, and soon you will be having corrosion issues not just on the motor, but the hull as well for alloy.

There’s been a trend on some of the above models to start corroding rapidly on the lower unit with very low hours. Bolts melting, props rusting, pitting on the skeg in some cases.

When a bonding circle is connected, it needs an unimpeded and clean connection to do its work. Fitted dry, they are next to useless. I’ve now worked on a combination totalling 30+ of the above models, and the cause of corrosion every time was an incorrectly fitted lower unit bonding wire as shown in the photo.

Bu****it you say? Nope. Removed, cleaned, coated with carbon grease and reinstalled stopped the corrosion on every single engine. I’ve been tracking the first one I found for over a year now, and the boat/engine is clean as a whistle.

To check yours, do the following:
- Inspect the mounting nuts for the lower unit. No corrosion should be present.
- Check the prop for rust. Enertia props run the best stainless alloy on the market, and should never rust (unlike Yamaha, but that’s a different story). Rusting means current is reaching the prop.
- Look at your anodes. They should be pitted and wearing. If you are not getting even wear across the leg and steering unit, you’ve likely got this issue. No wear at all means more is probably going on. There are 4 to check – one above the prop, at the bottom of the steering/mounting unit, 2 on the leg.

If you identify any of the above, send me some photos and I’ll be able to confirm. No charge.

The fix is easy, no need to take it to the mechanic. The side covers for the leg need to be removed, and the unit as pictured is on the Port side of the motor. Clean all the connections well, grease properly, reattach. While you have the grease out, give each of your bonding wire connections the same treatment. I’ll put up a video on YouTube and Patreon on how to get the covers off.

Doesn’t make Mercs ‘black anchors’ again, so please don’t start with that! They are brilliant engines, but I suspect a batch went out without proper quality control. Mine own personal Merc and many, many others don’t have this.

If you think you have this issue, please get in touch as I would like to make Mercury aware of it so it can be fixed via warranty.

Cheers,
Dave

It occurs to me that it’s been a fair while since I jacked out a consumer advice piece/mild industry crack. Here’s two i...
20/05/2026

It occurs to me that it’s been a fair while since I jacked out a consumer advice piece/mild industry crack. Here’s two in a row for you.

The Boat Show scene is in full swing, with Hulwitchco in NZ just done and dusted, Sanctuary Cove with its oiled flesh and ‘buy the boat – get me’ vibe (both male and female). Sydney to follow, then finishing with what I used to think of as the greatest of them all – Melbourne – later in the year.

I love boat shows. I love boats. I love chatting with industry folk and sharing info. I love seeing new things, doing my best to keep up with the zeitgeist and shmoozing with clients. It’s like a warm bath with boats on top. Here’s the thing though – I never buy anything.

Not. One. Thing. Why?

Consider this the 42 Degree top 10 boat show ‘things to remember’.

You’ve been warned.

1. You’ve agonised over it, googled it, gone back every day deciding whether to put your coin down on that sexy plate boat. It doesn’t have max power, the sounder could be better, and the trailer is a brand you’ve never seen. Damn, the price is so good though! Don’t buy it. Please. It’s been bombed together as a ‘value’ package, and a year from now will be worthless and your worst enemy. Trust me on this. Experienced buyers will sniff it out for the turd it is.
2. It helps to think of the show as a ‘try now, buy later’ affair. Go look, poke and prod, then wait for any one of 100 sales per year where you will get better value for money. Every engine, every major hull, Black Friday, End of Year….all of them will be on sale at some point. Wait.
3. Between shows, drive everything you can. Make a list, seek them out and really get to know them, then use the show to really take time looking at the build quality, fitout, the representation etc. The good builders and dealers at the show will put their best foot forward – pay close attention. If it looks iffy at a show, imagine the real deal.
4. If you are homed in on a boat brand, seek out the company owner/dealer owner. They will be there. You’ll see them – they won’t be wearing short skirts or tight shorts, and they know their product inside out as opposed ‘oh, it’s a premium brand, super deep-v and soft riding’. They will be proud of their product and genuinely want you to have the best experience. Wring them for knowledge.
5. You may well get a serious turn-on by the triple 600hp Yank Tank, and perhaps you can afford the $1000 per week repayments. Do you know how to drive it? Will you use it? Think about it….big step up from the 4.2 Quinnie you have currently. Drool, then walk away.
6. A ‘Boat Show Special’ is just that. Almost certainly it is less than you will get cheaper at the dealer outside of show-time and will have a bunch of useless s**t on it you don’t need. Better to design and build your own platform for your wants and needs, not shiny things designed to fake ‘value’.
7. It’s a business model. Dealers and builders need to make money. Doesn’t make most of them evil. It makes them smart. A turd polished for a show is still a turd. Big discount means big late-night smash-together. I’ve seen it leading up to a show, and it ain’t pretty.
8. Read that last sentence again. It DOES NOT make the dealers/builders bad people. They have families to feed as well. If you buy what they are selling, it’s on you, not them. No point getting fu**ed off about it. Would be more useful going and kicking a salesperson at Myer on Boxing Day for not having your size shirt.
9. Study up in advance, and take every single opportunity offered to experience new technology. Most of the good show folk will be demoing, and it is priceless to get aboard and let them show you their wares. You will learn a heap, including that likely you don’t need the product, you want it. Big difference.
10. My biggest pet peeve for last – the international brigade (AUS/NZ I consider the same). Stepped hulls, plumb bows, see-thru hulls, varieties of glass boats that feel like the are made of tissue paper and suspiciously are all fitted with Mercs and have a Brunswick Corp sticker somewhere. No, they are not designed for AUS/NZ conditions. They are designed to cruise the Scandinavian fjords and the Med, and will financially fu***ng ruin you if you fall for it. They look hot (so do the salespeople) but they are not.

Don’t. Do. It.

So there you have it. Go and enjoy, bask in the glow of shiny pretty boats, take it for what it is – a show. When you actually buy a boat, get it from a reputable dealer/manufacturer at a different stage, specced to what you want, and having done your research.

Trust me on this.

Not a bad lineup in the yard for a Sunday morning….
10/05/2026

Not a bad lineup in the yard for a Sunday morning….

The Captain recently posted one of my short editorials on the horsepower race that seems to be all the rage now. Since I...
06/05/2026

The Captain recently posted one of my short editorials on the horsepower race that seems to be all the rage now. Since I wrote that my opinions haven’t changed, so here is the mildly elongated version. The full version with comparison figures on identical hulls will be available soon on Patreon for subscribers.

Full disclosure – after my original engine on the Penguin was damaged, I’ve overpowered her by 25HP. Not, repeat, NOT for the power, but for the balance and handling as they no longer make the motor she had.

This will be short and sweet, so bring out the popcorn and let’s get into it! Whatever the arguments that went up on that article, all can be shot down via a very simple word.

Physics.

The old term nicked from displacement and semi-displacement hulls was “maximum theoretical hull speed”. This applies to every trailer boat and planing boat you’ve seen as well and is both an immutable fact as well as a physical reality.

A lot was mentioned about racing boats. Sorry guys, they don’t fit into the category I’m talking about. They are not a ‘planing’ hull, they are a ‘skimming’ hull. They are expressly designed to run on an air cushion generated by speed and design, and it’s almost always only the prop in the water. They too have their own maximum speed – how fast the prop can spin, and how long the hull can hold that air cushion for. After that you are on your own in the air.

In your average trailer/fishing boat, the wetted area even on the plane causes drag. It is an exponential curve of diminishing returns adding more than the designed HP, and again, one word.

Physics.

Let’s take the Bugatti Veyron vs Chiron as the perfect example. The original produced a nice round figure of 1000HP, and an unrestricted speed of 268 m/ph. The Chiron required an additional 500HP to gain just 7 m/ph of top speed. The other figures are much the same.

The reason? You can only push something so fast before the natural drag of air turns it into something like treacle. Water is significantly more resistant, akin to driving through and over concrete the faster you go.

So. What happens when you do join the horsepower race? Well, it’s a series of simple answers:

- Your p***s will get smaller. This is a necessary by-product and cannot be avoided for males.
- Your boat may return slightly better cruising fuel figures but hit that throttle and all you will do is turn fuel into exhaust, not speed. In today’s thirst for and battle to actually get fuel, it’s lunacy to stick that big block on for an extra 2 knots.
- Your torque will increase, meaning less intervention on the throttle in seas, but at the same time will be happily twisting your transom into tinfoil or a mess of broken glass strands (you want evidence? A well-known demo boat with 800HP was cracking the transom at 20hrs……think on that).
- You will gain a couple of knots top end. Can’t dispute that. Heavy emphasis on ‘A couple’.

How do I know this? Because this is what I do. I’ve done it to my own boat. Talk to any physics teacher, and they will confirm what I’m saying. Because I didn’t Dr Google, I spent time spent learning from a naval architect who does these calculations and applications for a living.

I mentioned The Captain. Do a YouTube search on their page and watch the Cootacraft with the racing 400hp, or the Edencraft 255 in its original guise before changes were made. Watch the chine walking, the nose diving, the total out of control handling. They are not fast; they are fu***ng dangerous.

Watch my own videos on the Midnight Gambler (Whitepointer 263 with 900HP). This boat was built expressly to handle this power. We tuned it as far as it could go, and while astonishingly fast and able to handle the power putting on more would be an exercise in futility. Again, powering to the builders rating.

To conclude this, please read the following paragraph carefully, put your wallet away and your ge****ls back in your pants:

Manufacturers know what they are doing when they rate a boat. Trust them. Spend your $ on more beneficial and fun things, like putting on the best prop, making sure it has the cleanest water and correct surrounding water pressure, and learn how to trim and balance the hull. Adding extra HP is just smoke and mirrors.

There you have it. If you are drooling over the quad engine setups at the boat show, enjoy, touch, then go try and talk up the handsome fellas or hot chicks trying to sell this lie to you. You’ll have more luck with that than making your boat faster in any meaningful or useful way.

Last week the Penguin, my best mate and I headed round the bottom of Tasmania into Bathurst Harbour. Not a typical trip ...
03/05/2026

Last week the Penguin, my best mate and I headed round the bottom of Tasmania into Bathurst Harbour. Not a typical trip for a 6m boat, akin to jumping out of a plane with used hankies as your parachute for the inexperienced.

You want offshore? That’s offshore.

Sitting watching the sun set on the roof of the Penguin I thought deep thoughts and did some numbers out of curiosity, right from the inception of 42˚and prior before I went legit, all the way back to my teens. Kind of brings it into focus…..(and made me incredibly nostalgic)...

- 826 boats tuned or diagnosed standing on deck and driving, plus the fuel, handling and performance data of most of them kept on file
- 102 diagnosed remotely as far away as Denmark
- Almost 700,000km travelled in Australia and around the world
- 400+ articles written and posted free
- 200+ videos posted free
- Ongoing consultation with 14 dealers
- 12 manufacturers engaged for design consultation, including some real doozies
- 3 individual hulls designed from scratch and still in commercial use

Most importantly of all, met countless incredible and generous people who have enriched my life beyond measure.

Not bad numbers for an old fart.

Am I bragging? Hell no. Does it make me one of the more experienced around at what I do, like it or not? Yep. Lucky as hell? 100%. The people met have made the experience.

I have mentioned previously about moving over to Patreon and offering a subscription service, and this is precisely where I will be taking this experience and offering it for a small fee. I’m working on making it as cool as possible as we speak.

I’ll be offering the following, along with some weekly treats to keep the tastebuds tickled:

- Boat buying advice (new and secondhand)
- Basic ‘how-to’ vids
- Complex videos on operation, maintenance and diagnoses
- A weekly video chat about all things boats both for Aus, NZ and US (we are unbelievably lucky to have expert and old-school mariner of the highest order Jon Ramos facilitating the US chats as well!)

In addition (although this will take some time), I’ll be creating a library of reviews of every boat, engine and combo I’ve worked on over the years. Unbiased, no sponsorship, just honest opinion and fact. This will also include sounders, radars, autopilots, hull design, wiring…..basically everything I’ve been privileged enough to learn over the years as fact not hearsay.

Every 42˚ article I’ve written will be up as a reference library, and I’ll be taking subscriber requests to cover special areas of interest plus much more.

This will be a peaceful place, a place of sharing, of knowledge, of encouragement and inclusivity for all who want to be involved. No trolls, no bias, no sponsorship, no sales. Just the distilled ramblings of a guy who has spent his life in love and wants to share.

DON'T SUBSCRIBE YET!!

Stay tuned and give me the time to make it perfect, and I’ll announce when it’s up. It’s going to be a blast!

My latest article over on The Captain Click on the photos and the story appears
30/04/2026

My latest article over on The Captain
Click on the photos and the story appears

Address

Hobart
Hobart, TAS
7020

Opening Hours

Monday 7am - 5pm
Tuesday 7am - 5pm
Wednesday 7am - 5pm
Thursday 7am - 5pm
Friday 7am - 5pm

Telephone

+61409075386

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