Eklund Family Showcases Extraordinarily Re-Fit Velocity During Florida Keys Adventure

Maryland performance boater Nick Eklund, who owns NRE Performance, never intended to build the “nicest Velocity on the water,” but after two-plus years of updates to his family’s 41-foot V-bottom from Velocity Powerboats in Sanford, Fla., Eklund and his wife, Kimi, may have done just that with help from the teams at Maryland Offshore Performance Marine Center in Ijamsville, Md., and Waves and Wheels in Camdenton, Mo.

Maryland couple Nick and Kimi Eklund enjoyed running their completely revamped 41-foot Velocity to Key West earlier this month. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp/Helmkamp Photos

Although he—and many others—might describe the two-a-half-year project as “expensve,” Eklund, who knows a new Velocity would easily be triple the cost, admits he still can’t believe the 2005-built boat is really his and really finished. Add in the fact that he was able to run the boat from Miami to Key West as part of the Florida Powerboat Club’s season finale earlier this month, and he’s still on cloud nine.

“I had a bit of a ‘pinch-me moment’ when we were running through the mangroves on the way to Key West,” said Eklund, who owned a 32-foot Velocity before purchasing the 41-footer in 2020. “I looked at my buddy and first mate, John (Long), and thought to myself, ‘I can’t believe this is real.’ The first night we were in Key West, I turned on all the lights in the boat and we just sat at the dock staring at it, in awe. First of all, it was hard to believe it was sitting there in front of us; and it was just as hard to believe how amazing it looked.

“At one point, we were deciding if we should sell the Velocity and move into something like a Nor-Tech center console, which in my opinion is kind of the best of both worlds because it’s a speedboat with a lot of space and options,” he added. “But I realized the Velocity—with its twin Ilmor Marine MV-10 625-hp Viper engines—was unique and a good fit for the family thanks to the cabin, the handling characteristics and how much our young daughter loved riding in it. She spent the first three summers of her life on the boat so for sentimental reasons we decided not to sell it and rather spend a little money on it.”

Eklund said a “little money” turned into “more money,” but that he was fine with that after everything was all said and done. Originally, Eklund added, he set out to mend one of the Ilmor engines that was giving him some trouble shortly after a local poker run on the Chesapeake Bay in 2023.

“I was having a problem with the port engine when it was in idle—it kept shutting off when we were coming into a dock or trying to drop anchor somewhere,” Eklund said. “So I did, you know, all the basic stuff: plugs, wires, fuel pump, air filter; but it didn’t fix the issue. I ended up taking it out to Maryland Offshore and they did a compression check and determined that one engine was hurt pretty bad and the other one wasn’t far behind.”

After Eklund took the multi-colored Velocity to Andy (Imhof) and Mitch (Kramer) at Maryland Offshore, the crew pulled both motors and sent them to Ilmor to be rebuilt. Once the engines were out, Eklund decided it would be a good time to update a few things in the boat, including custom SeaDek for the floor and red carbon-fiber dash panels with new Garmin displays and larger gauges.

“We started with the engines, but after re-wiring the boat and changing the floor and dash we were still waiting on Ilmor so I asked how much it would be to redo the interior,” Eklund said. “I figured since we didn’t have the motors back we might as well make the boat how we wanted it since we weren’t planning to sell it.”

That’s when Imhof reached out to his close friend (and his partner in Graphix 1 Paint), Justin Wagner, who owns Waves and Wheels, as well as Doug Wright Powerboats. But before letting the Waves and Wheels team loose on the 41-footer, Kramer and Maryland Offshore’s Brandon Lyon spent several hours rigging the boat so it was prepped before the engines came back from Ilmor.

The Velocity before and after—thanks to teams at Graphix 1 Paint, Maryland Offshore and Waves and Wheels.

Eklund liked what he saw from the Waves and Wheels team and ended up selecting a dark gray/light gray interior combination with red accents that was designed by Wagner and his upholstery manager, Anthonee Coleman. While they were at it, the guys at Waves and Wheels upgraded the lighting package inside and out, and installed a new Bluave Marine Audio system that Eklund described as incredible.

Once the interior was complete, Eklund figured why stop there so he got a quote for a new paintjob from Graphix 1 Paint—Waves and Wheels’ sister shop at Lake of the Ozarks.

The boat, which Maryland Offshore wrapped up about a week before it left for Miami, was a huge project, according to Imhof. Unfortunately, because Eklund planned to use the rebuilt V-10 Viper engines before deciding to forego a complete rebuild of both engines that he said was going to cost significantly more than the original estimate Ilmor provided, Imhof and Eklund came up with a new plan.

“The guys at Maryland Offshore, who were downright amazing to work with the entire time, found a set of Mercury Racing 700SCi engines that were ‘brand used’ because they had very little hours on them,” Eklund said. “I was all in on that idea, so we moved forward with the new power. I wanted it to be a rock-solid package so we got rid of the NXT drives and hung IMCO SCXs drives on the transom. I already had the negative-two lowers, so that worked out. We just needed a new steering assembly and we were good to go.

velocity41keywest1

velocity41keywest2

velocity41keywest7

velocity41keywest3

velocity41keywest4

velocity41keywest9

velocity41keywest5

velocity41keywest6

velocity41keywest8

velocity41keywest10

Check out the slideshow above for more images of the Eklund family’s updated Velocity in the Florida Keys. Photos above and below courtesy Nick Eklund.

Of course Kramer and Lyon had to rewire the boat for a second time to accommodate the Mercury powerplants.

“We changed directions on the power because it was just getting out of hand with those Viper engines, and we found a set of 700s that had about five hours on them,” Kramer said. “It was double the work, but well worth it. Pretty much everything you could possibly do this boat was done—between paint, interior, electronics, hardware, rigging, power, drives, you name it. Nick even got a brand new MYCO Trailer for it, too. I have to say it’s probably the nicest Velocity in the world now.

“It is one of the biggest transformation projects we’ve done—the before and after pictures are dramatic,” he added. “We called it the ‘Skittles’ boat, especially after Tony and the guys at Graphix 1 stripped the whole boat down and it seemed like every single color in the rainbow was on the floor of the shop. I also like the fact that it doesn’t look we just painted an old Velocity.”

Removing the side railings from the bow and the stern helped—so did installing new black hardware, cleats and a steering wheel.

“The boat is much more modern-looking now,” Kramer said. “To me it looks like it’s a 2026 model. Nick is going to bring the boat back here and we’re going to adjust a few things before the boating season starts to see if we can get a little better performance out of it.”

When asked about his maiden voyage in the stunning 41-footer, Eklund said the boat ran great.

“We found some pretty rough seas early on—like threes and fours out there,” he said. “I remember seeing an (outboard catamaran) much closer to the shore and thinking it looked really smooth over there. Then I thought to myself, ‘I didn’t come all this way to ride in smooth water; we came to run in the ocean.’ So I decided to stay out there and let the boat do its thing.

“That was my first time really driving in the ocean—and there were some pretty big waves,” he added. “At one point we were running next to an older 43 Black Thunder, and you know that thing is like a small house on the water. And still it was coming out of the water and the bow was getting wet anytime it hit a big wave. We can get some big water in the Chesapeake Bay, particularly on days where you get the wind blowing a certain way. And, because the bay has so many different rivers that flow into it, when it gets windy, it can get pretty snotty and hard to predict. That’s one thing I liked when I was out in the ocean—after a couple minutes, we’d start to get a rhythm of what was happening and it became easy to feel what was coming.”

velocity41progress1

velocity41progress2

velocity41progress3

velocity41progress6

velocity41progress4

velocity41keywest11

Check out the slideshow above for several work-in-progress images of the Velocity.

With Imhof leading a five-boat fleet from Miami to Key West in early November in his canopied 36-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran called Teasers, Eklund said he had a great time running his boat offshore—the way it was intended to be used. He also said he can’t wait to get out on his home waters where most of his friends enjoy boating.

“A lot of people are going to think we bought a new boat,” he said with a laugh. “I can’t wait to tell them ‘Nope, that’s the same boat. We just redid it top to bottom.’ I’m also looking forward to taking the boat on some road trips. We’d like to go to Lake of the Ozarks for the Shootout and to Lake Lanier for the charity run with the Maryland Offshore crew. I don’t consider this a ‘poker run boat.’ I’m someone who likes to go out to a sandbar, listen to music and let the kids swim and have fun. This a family boat that I also can take to poker runs.”

Eklund added that the performance is rock-solid, but that there is room to grow.

“The boat ran 92 mph when Maryland Offshore tested it with 34”-pitch five-blade props,” he said. “We ran a smaller prop for Key West because of all the fuel, equipment, luggage and people and we still ran 88 mph. My end goal is to tune it, bump up the rpm and add a little bit more boost. That way we can run 93-octane fuel in it.”

Overall, Eklund and his wife are beyond pleased with the end result, especially how much different the boat looks with its incredible paintjob and interior, and how much more reliable the power is going to be with the 700-hp Mercury engines.

“Working with Andy and Mitch and the guys at Maryland Offshore was a blast,” Eklund said, adding that the boat has a new name, Alter Ego. “It was such a fun experience—an expensive experience that I’ll likely never do again, but we don’t regret the decision at all. Justin and the team at Waves and Wheels were super cool, too. They killed it in every way possible. “