the power boating scene. I'm behind the times

[Justin_NSA]

As this forum says, this has nothing to do with sailing. Some good friends of ours invited us down to their family cabin on Tablerock Lake in MO. They have a sweet Mastercraft ski boat. I had never seen this done before. He can fill some ballast tanks to drop the stern low and to one side, and create a wave, not wake at about 12mph. The "kids" got out on a wakeboard with a short tow rope, got in front of the wave and surfed behind the boat. They were able to toss the rope back on board and just surf behind the boat hands free! One of them got close enough that we could hand him a beer!
Tablerock is a nice lake but it is not for sailors. It's man made. Narrow, lots of fingers and sets low under the bluffs. There's no wind to speak of. It was a fun weekend nonetheless!

 

[Will Gilmore]

I tried wakeboarding in high school. Lots of fun and easier than single skiing, depending on the tricks you try.
My brother and I tried using them to learn barefoot skiing from, not enough power in his boat, but easy enough to start from. The worst part was all the water that ran back out of you after a whole day of trying, even with a wetsuit on.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Wake boarding and now wake surfing caused an explosion in the performance ski boat market. Where tournament water skiing stagnated and barefooting would seem to be a niche that is pretty small (difficulty & bodily harm is on the high side), wakeboards soon dominated. I think they cashed in on the 'skater' & snow boarding rebellion. The boats are highly specialized with the water ballast, "power wedge", and the "surf gate". They are no longer a "ski boat". A ski boat for 3-event skiing (slalom, jumping, trick skiing) is a totally different & traditional boat. The only thing they have in common now is the inboard engine. The price tags leaped accordingly. I think $75K to $150K is now a typical price for one of these new "wake boats".

I'd guess that the boat wakes are not so popular, though. A "traditional" ski boat would make a nice low wake at speed that can hardly be noticed. Now they go by at 15 mph with a 3' wave!

 

[Scott T-Bird]

The water ballasted ski boats probably first started to appear in the late 90's or so. I remember seeing them with the power wedge back then, too, when wakeboarding first became a noticeable event. I had a friend from Hawaii in the 90's and he brought out his surf board to surf behind my Malibu Skier (a traditional tournament ski boat). It was tricky to get started because your feet aren't locked into a boot. We also couldn't throw enough wake to surf without holding a handle with a short line. I think it was about 20 years ago when the whole thing just took off. The boats were being made for wake sports and the towers were built into the boats to get the line up high to facilitate jumps off the wakes. I could never get the height on jumps with my wake board when the line is attached to the ski pylon on my boat.

 

[jssailem]

The idea was so exciting that when the engineers in Bend OR were going to make the river safer for drifters, floaters, paddle boarders, kayaks etc. they manufactured a wave in the middle of the river. It is a perfect form and you can launch a surfboard from the concrete platform on the side. It starts at daybreak and runs well into the twilight hours, surfers surfing the river wave.

https://www.bendparksandrec.org/facility/bend-whitewater-park/#whitewater

 

[Benny17441]

Canoeing is fun too.

 

[Leeward Rail]

Yeah. A group of us tried it this spring on a relatives' big wake surf boat.
Cool technology. The ballast tanks could take on more water than our C22 displaces, and it has touch screen controls for adjusting how big and steep the wave is.
Cool from a technical standpoint, but like water skiing, for some reason I'm not really interested.
Kite surfing for some reason does intrigue me. Not sure why.

 

[Justin_NSA]

Y
Cool technology. The ballast tanks could take on more water than our C22 displaces, and it has touch screen controls for adjusting how big and steep the wave is.

My friend's oldest son has one of the newer boats with all of the adjustment tech. They are really expensive for what they do. My friend is content taking the time to wait and pump his 'manually'.

 

[FDL S2]

The water ballasted ski boats probably first started to appear in the late 90's or so. I remember seeing them with the power wedge back then, too, when wakeboarding first became a noticeable event. I had a friend from Hawaii in the 90's and he brought out his surf board to surf behind my Malibu Skier (a traditional tournament ski boat). It was tricky to get started because your feet aren't locked into a boot. We also couldn't throw enough wake to surf without holding a handle with a short line. I think it was about 20 years ago when the whole thing just took off. The boats were being made for wake sports and the towers were built into the boats to get the line up high to facilitate jumps off the wakes. I could never get the height on jumps with my wake board when the line is attached to the ski pylon on my boat.

Started out with water ballast bags that wakeboarders would put in the stern, they would also add an extended pylon to get air on their jumps. Correct craft was the first company to install fixed ballast tanks and a wakeboard arch on the Sport Nautiques to make them the first factory specific wakeboard boat -the Air Nautique in 1996 or 1997. Malibu added the wedge to push the prop wash down to make a bigger wake. Source- I worked for Correct Craft in the late 90's and worked on some of these first boats.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Correct craft was the first company to install fixed ballast tanks and a wakeboard arch on the Sport Nautiques to make them the first factory specific wakeboard boat -the Air Nautique in 1996 or 1997. Malibu added the wedge to push the prop wash down to make a bigger wake. Source- I worked for Correct Craft in the late 90's and worked on some of these first boats.

How much did sales boost when they started producing these boats? When I bought my Malibu Skier in 1987, it was a pretty small target market for 3-event water skiers (and a huge expense for a 32-year old guy with 3 kids and 4th on the way!). That all seemed to change in the 90's! I didn't have the imagination for the wake sports and besides, I moved to New Jersey and devoted all my (self-absorbed) time to windsurfing. I left my waterskiing venue in Illinois behind. I always wondered what triggered that because my friends and I (in Illinois and Wisconsin) were so focused on the slalom course and barefooting for the after-slalom thrills. Of course, we loved boats that made no wake for the type of events we liked. I'm guessing it was an evolution of the skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding culture (I can't imagine it was the trick skiers that turned to wake sports - they just don't seem like the type ). But what is a mystery to me is that these types of boarders & surfers were typically dirtbags! Where did the money come from for these guys to start buying at the souped-up boat prices? It did seem like every lake-house dad needed to buy these boats for their kids, though. Now, you're not cool if you don't surf & every moneyed family along the entire coast line has embraced the surfing culture.

It also was forward-looking of Correct Craft to get into that market. Their reputation was so conservative, it seemed to me. Malibu was the upstart in the 80's that really took off in that new market. It is amazing to see the line-up of boats devoted to wake sports, vs the small selection of traditional ski boats.

 

[Scott B]

The water ballasted ski boats probably first started to appear in the late 90's or so. I remember seeing them with the power wedge back then, too, when wakeboarding first became a noticeable event. I had a friend from Hawaii in the 90's and he brought out his surf board to surf behind my Malibu Skier (a traditional tournament ski boat). It was tricky to get started because your feet aren't locked into a boot. We also couldn't throw enough wake to surf without holding a handle with a short line. I think it was about 20 years ago when the whole thing just took off. The boats were being made for wake sports and the towers were built into the boats to get the line up high to facilitate jumps off the wakes. I could never get the height on jumps with my wake board when the line is attached to the ski pylon on my boat.

So we were ahead of our time 40 years ago towing the windsurfer boards behind the boat when the wind died. Only problem was the gyser coming up through the dagger hole.... but it was fun.

 

[FDL S2]

How much did sales boost when they started producing these boats? When I bought my Malibu Skier in 1987, it was a pretty small target market for 3-event water skiers (and a huge expense for a 32-year old guy with 3 kids and 4th on the way!). That all seemed to change in the 90's! I didn't have the imagination for the wake sports and besides, I moved to New Jersey and devoted all my (self-absorbed) time to windsurfing. I left my waterskiing venue in Illinois behind. I always wondered what triggered that because my friends and I (in Illinois and Wisconsin) were so focused on the slalom course and barefooting for the after-slalom thrills. Of course, we loved boats that made no wake for the type of events we liked. I'm guessing it was an evolution of the skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding culture (I can't imagine it was the trick skiers that turned to wake sports - they just don't seem like the type ). But what is a mystery to me is that these types of boarders & surfers were typically dirtbags! Where did the money come from for these guys to start buying at the souped-up boat prices? It did seem like every lake-house dad needed to buy these boats for their kids, though. Now, you're not cool if you don't surf & every moneyed family along the entire coast line has embraced the surfing culture.

It also was forward-looking of Correct Craft to get into that market. Their reputation was so conservative, it seemed to me. Malibu was the upstart in the 80's that really took off in that new market. It is amazing to see the line-up of boats devoted to wake sports, vs the small selection of traditional ski boats.

I think the lake house dad was the key. I think it was a continuation of the skateboard/snowboard breakout of the late 80's - as the kids got older they were more into wakeboards than skiing. I don't know how much sales increased from it because I was in production but we produced about 9 boats a day at that time and the ratio of Ski Nautique to Air and Sport Nautique changed from about 7-2 to about 5-4. Ski Nautiques were the tournament slalom boats at the time so we were still making lots of them.
Correct Craft was at the front of it and sponsored a few of the early pro wakeboarders like Scott Byerly, but I don't know if they stumbled on it or if it was an active, conscious decision.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

the ratio of Ski Nautique to Air and Sport Nautique changed from about 7-2 to about 5-4. Ski Nautiques were the tournament slalom boats at the time so we were still making lots of them.
Correct Craft was at the front of it and sponsored a few of the early pro wakeboarders like Scott Byerly, but I don't know if they stumbled on it or if it was an active, conscious decision.

So, I doubt the overall number of Ski Nautiques sold dropped off. If you were producing 9 ski boats before the wake boats were on the market, either production would have to pick up or your sales out-paced the ski boat production because you started to build the wake boat models. If you were producing 4 wake boats for every 5 ski boats then your overall sales maybe was nearly doubled and production either fell behind or production increased with the increased sales. My guess is that the ski boat market stagnated but didn't necessarily decline (it was a small, stagnant market to begin with). Wake boats had to have been a boom time for them. I'm sure they sell far more wake boats than ski boats now. In the past, there probably always was a market for Ski Nautiques that weren't necessarily looking for a tournament ski boat - they just wanted a high-performance boat. Now, I'd bet that segment of the market chooses the wake boats almost exclusively over the ski boats so there probably has been a drop-off in the market for 3-event boats. There was a time when they specialized in Barefoot Boats, hence the "Barefoot Nautique". Flightcraft was the Australian specialist in that market, later bought by Malibu. Those boats were unbelievable in handling and performance.

 

[FDL S2]

So, I doubt the overall number of Ski Nautiques sold dropped off. If you were producing 9 ski boats before the wake boats were on the market, either production would have to pick up or your sales out-paced the ski boat production because you started to build the wake boat models. If you were producing 4 wake boats for every 5 ski boats then your overall sales maybe was nearly doubled and production either fell behind or production increased with the increased sales. My guess is that the ski boat market stagnated but didn't necessarily decline (it was a small, stagnant market to begin with). Wake boats had to have been a boom time for them. I'm sure they sell far more wake boats than ski boats now. In the past, there probably always was a market for Ski Nautiques that weren't necessarily looking for a tournament ski boat - they just wanted a high-performance boat. Now, I'd bet that segment of the market chooses the wake boats almost exclusively over the ski boats so there probably has been a drop-off in the market for 3-event boats. There was a time when they specialized in Barefoot Boats, hence the "Barefoot Nautique". Flightcraft was the Australian specialist in that market, later bought by Malibu. Those boats were unbelievable in handling and performance.

Back then the only way we could increase production was to work Saturdays. We didn't have the physical space for more boats in production, so we would work a Saturday to produce maybe 6 more boats that week (I am pulling these numbers from the back of my memory bank after not thinking about it for 20 years, so don't hold me to specifics). I imagine we increased our gross because wakeboard boats were more expensive.
Also, after thinking about it Correct Craft under the Maloons was always kind of an innovator-the original Ski Nautiques were the first fiberglass ski boats and theMustang put the market on its head when it was introduced. They were the first boat company to go with completely wood free construction on all their boats. And who canforget the Fish Nautique?