Phantom 25: Modern Outboard Power for a Classic Offshore Sport Boat

One amazing thing about Wave to Wave has been connecting with performance boat enthusiasts from all over the world. We have readers from all over the globe and quite a few from Norther Europe; Norway, Sweden and Finland. As a result, I connected with a reader from Norway named Toffen who owns a beautiful original Phantom 25’, white with sharp red and black lines. He has owned the 1985 Phantom since 1998 and has run multiple setups with it and currently runs a Mercury Racing 400R. Let’s take a look at Toffen’s amazing boat and see how different engines ran on it over the years. 

I wrote about Phantom Boats a couple months ago, Phantom is the work of Steve Baker and Melvyn Richardson of the UK. They started racing small 16’ and 18’ narrow beam boats with deep V hulls and later progressed to larger hulls. The 25’ Phantom is amazing because back in the eighties you would probably run twins as big singles were limited. Now we have incredibly powerful single outboards that really turn this original sport boat into a performer. 

Toffen has kept this 1985 Phantom like new. Got to love the narrow cockpit and nice dash layout. Interior was redone recently.

Toffen’s Phantom 25 started with a big 3.6 Johnson 300 V8 GT, with no setback mounted on the transom, the beast ran 75 MPH at 6100 RPM with a Raker prop. That’s pretty good, but as Toffen told me “I have tested numerous set ups with it, and used far too much dollars upgrading it.” So he moved on to a Mercury Racing Promax 300 with SVS Brucato intake; 75 mph spinning a Tempest 25” prop at 6,150 RPM, 5 inches setback using a CMC jackplate. With the Torque Masters propshaft 2.5 inches below the bottom. Again, quite good for a big 25’. 

Here is the power of lightweight twin though; with twin Mercury 2.5 EFI SS engines, featuring  Brucato PCU; 85.5 mph spinning Chopper 26” props at 7,300 rpms. No setback. Propshaft even with the bottom and CLE lowers. That’s really good and you can imagine the Phantom would handle really well with twins, these are rough water machines. 

Running twins has advantages but on a boat this size I like the efficiency of a big single. This is a nice setup though with twin 2.5 Mercs.

Toffen went back to big single with the new modern Verado engines. Before the 400R he ran a 350 Verado and it did 80.5 mph with a REV4 25 short tube prop at 6,500 RPM, 5 inches setback and propshaft 2 inches below the bottom with the big HD lower. Now, the 400R with a 10 inch Gorilla jackplate runs 89 mph with Max5 25 prop at 7,060 RPM. “Potential for 90 mph in better conditions” which I’m sure is there. 

The 400R looks at home here. Love the lines of the Phantom.

Here are some notes from Toffen: 

“As you know the Phantom 25 was originally rigged for offshore racing in the 80-ties typically with twin RX2. Dry weight is approx. 2,000 lbs without engine. The original Phantom 25 is made for running high seas. They won around Britain several times. There are boats out there being faster, but I am 100% sure it’s very few boats of that size that can hold up with it running hard in 3-5 footers. The boat acts as a much bigger boat than its 25 feet. It loves to be run aggressive, a little negative trim and just kick it through the waves to waves! And it cuts through corners as a F1 cat. Especially with the twin set up. Just unbelievable.

My boat is original with its foot throttle, ballast tank (mechanical), interior and color scheme. I have blueprinted the bottom, Nor-tech in US has upgraded the seats to Shelby inspired design, the transom is new incl all electrical harnesses and the front deck is strengthened with Divinycell. The latter made the boat heavier, and the balance different, but now everyone can walk over the front deck. Before you almost went through. So the boat its much stiffer and in better shape than ever.”

I love this boat and Toffen is a true enthusiast constantly making upgrades and keeping the classic Phantom looking new. He did inform me he was planning on bringing it to Florida for the Key West Poker Run next year. That would be amazing. And Toffen is considering the new 450R eventually. Thanks to Toffen for sharing his boat with us, it’s a great one.