Tige/Rossi

[rodltg2]

I noticed in the Rossi thread that he was what looked like behind a Tige. I checked out the Tige web page and they indeed still build a ski boat. I'm curious as to why they would build a ski boat, sponsor slalom pros , but not do much else to promote the boat or 3 event. I know it cost tons of money to get aswa approved and the whole bit , so maybe the juice just isn't worth the squeeze.

[ForrestGump]

Some people in the know claim that Tige will overtake Malibu as the 3rd member of the Big 3 before too much longer. They have hired some strategic people away from Malibu lately. Scuttlebut is that Tige's 20i will get submitted to the boat test next year.

[rodltg2]

Wow. That's a big claim !

[A_B]

Well, he has a pic of his new Tige on his Facebook page:

[Wish]

I skied behind his boat this past early spring. They would have to make some hull mods to compete with the big three and Carbon Pro. No one would want to ski at a tourny behind it if the others are there.

[ForrestGump]

The 20i has no worse a wake than some of the MC197s that are out there. And yet people still ski behind them.

[Wish]

Skied behind 2012 MCs. MCs better IMHO. Graphics are better on the pic above.

[MattP]

@wish there are other boats that others do not prefer but have to ski behind if that's the boat being used for the round thats what you get stuck with.

Graphics really...?

[liquid d]

That carbon pro is a great boat. Looks sharp and skis shortline well.

[tfriess]

that Tige looks sick!

[Wish]

My point= surprisingly poor wake for todays standards. Thought I hit a curb at 28. Do not feel that behind anything else. Reminded me of a Sanger closed bow I skied behind. Once you get used to it and are aware of it it's doable. They have some work to do.......just sayn. And I meant the boat in pic looks better then last yrs.

[Texas6]

I have to agree that the Tige is a good looking boat, and having been in many of them, they make a good boat. With manufacturing from the great state of Texas, I'd love to see them make the improvements necessary to challenge the big three. But I agree they do need to make some improvements

[A_B]

@Wish, maybe they have some mold deviation on that curb you hit. Hydrodyne was like that. Two of my friends had them, and one had a real hard bump, not high, but like a curb as you say, and the other one was butter. I think the big 3 have more consistency in mold replication.

[Wish]

@AB. That sounds reasonable but it was his boat I was behind. He told me I'd get used to it. And i did. One would think if there was a butter soft one, it would be on his lift.

[Ed_Obermeier]

That pic makes it look a little bit like my '05 LXI, especially the windshield. With former Malibu people taking over there, if they'd put out a near copy of the '03 - 06 LXI, particularly the wetted half of the hull, and price them a few thousand less than the current TXI they'd likely sell a ton of 'em.

[Razorskier1]

Unfortunately the slalom boat market isn't very big and over the years it has been largely saturated as more and more promo boats get bought and the total population of slalom junkies with a wallet big enough to buy a boat isn't growing. Hard to see how another boat company makes any money in the slalom market. No surprise that all of them have gone to building "family boats", aka V-drives, and big wakeboard rides.

[MattP]

@razorskier1 I dont care how many "family boats, aka V-drives" are sold as long as it keeps the 3 event boats in production.

[Razorskier1]

@MattP -- I don't care unless they are sold to people on my lake!!! :-)

[Horton]

My understanding is roughly

 

Promo boats are bad for dealers but help the factories with cash flow during the months when dealers are slow.

 

Promo guys get boats at about dealer cost so factories get paid the same but faster.

 

Tige has a mold that they believe could hang with the other 3 for slalom but is unsure if it is worth the trouble.

[Ed_Obermeier]

If they already have the mould, if it truely is up to par with the Big 3, and if they're already building some slalom boats anyway, what do they have to lose?

 

Another thought. The family boat market I would suppose is more impacted by the economy where slalom although a small part of the market is perhaps a more stable part of the market? If true and if they can carve out a bigger chunk of that market, is that not a net positive for their bottom line?

[Horton]

There is a hard limit on the total number of slalom focused boats that can be sold every year.

[Ed_Obermeier]

But they're already building some, how many are they selling with their current reputation for wake quality or lack there of? IF they have a competitive wake quality hull mould ready to use they've apparently already invested the R&D money. Put it in production and see if you can steal some market share from the others. Seems to be working for Centurian.

[bogboy]

How is this for out of the box. A light weight cat piercing hull with almost no wake. Might not go round the islands very well though.

[Waternut]

Heck I think the slalom focused boats are already more family oriented than slalom oriented but that's just my opinion.

[BraceMaker]

+1 jfw432 - but I think that's the only way to sell em.

[Wish]

I did find the 20i to be very very family oriented. The bow seating is generous and very deep compared to other "toss your kids overboard" bows of late. The seats sit high so your knees aren't stuck in your chest. The gunnels stand very tall giving a great sense of safety. Tall functional windshield that does not require yoga positions to see past the frame. For the length, the boat feels very roomy. IMHO if the running surface is on par or gets there like the Carbon Pro or SN then this will be the boat for the family of skiers to look at. Get it a few grand, as said above, and it would give them a run for their money if marketed along side the runabouts.

[ForrestGump]

There are a LOT of new people at Tige with a lot of high end marine industry experience that came on board in the last 12-18 months. Chris Chrysdale came over from Malibu and is adding new dealers like crazy. Rick Correll took over as president and was named the top mover and shaker in the marine industry by Boating Industry Magazine. They are primed to make a big jump.

[Horton]

One of the things I learned from the little Malibu R&D I helped with 2 years ago: Weight is a huge deal. Simple things like upholstery add up really fast. You can get 500 pounds out of a boat really easy if you take out all the carpet and upholstery. No one but the most hard core slalom skier will want that boat so the factories have to add back all the soft stuff. Open bow is even worse.

 

I also learned that .1” change in the hull in the right place is the difference between a good slalom boat and a crap slalom boat. If you are not chasing balls you most likely do not know the difference.

 

So if you are Tige and you make money selling boats to none tournament skiers, is it really worth the trouble to re-engineer your boat for the slalom guys? My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the hull they have is pretty good but it is unclear if it is worth the trouble to build a boat on top of that hull that we want.

 

100% speculation

 

[Ed_Obermeier]

So if you are Tige and you make money selling boats to non tournament skiers, is it really worth the trouble to re-engineer your boat for the slalom guys? My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the hull they have is pretty good but it is unclear if it is worth the trouble to build a boat on top of that hull that we want.

 

My best guess is that the money Tige is making on non slalom skiers is in wakeboard and wake surf boats, not true inboards (or what we refer to as "slalom boats"). If they're selling a few full inboard "slalom" boats now with the current wake quality (however you want to quantify that), wouldn't tweaking the hull a bit to improve the wake to a competitive level without changing much anything else keep the non slalom skier, family boater-type skier customers they already have plus help them to sell even more of these boats to family boater/serious slalom skiers? Again, if they already have a mould ready...

[6balls]

A price point slalom boat is always a tough proposition. The question I ask myself is would I rather buy a new price point boat or a 2 year old big 3 if I'm going to keep the boat. The interior materials/guage clusters etc on the big 3 are usually better...and resale probably better as well.

Their mold is sunk cost, now have to decide if the project is worth it.

[Dacon62]

In its present form the 20i needs to shed some serious weight even if they get the hull right.

If I recall Charlie Pigeon revamped the deck on the Centurion Falcon and called it a Tige 2000 slm comp and started Tige that way.

Heard that the hull had an awesome wake. Maybe they will introduce an updated version of that?

I am a Malibu owner and this may sound biased but next time you see a Tige take a look at the waviness of the strakes/chines etc. There is some mold and quality control work to be done as well.

Competition is good. We all win this way.

[rayn]

That original Tige fslm 2001 had the best wakes. Quality was ok but not compared to the big 3.

[ToddL]

@Wish you got it right on the Sanger... That boat had the smallest concrete wakes I've ever hit. Dang, they were hard...

[gregy]

I was talking to the local Tige dealer about the 20i last year. He said he had only sold one and he's been a dealer for many years. Is Charlie Pigeon still involved in tige, I skied with him a few times in Houston back in the 80s? Nice guy.

[ForrestGump]

Yes, Charlie is still there,although he lives in Austin now full time. He promoted Rick Correll to President/General Manager about a year ago.

[Jordan]

There is a lot more than just having the molds in order to decide what and how much to produce.

 

The company has to decide the best use of its' resources. That includes labor, manufacturing space, production slots, capital. marketing, available margin versus other production choices etc

 

There are also likely unique parts made by outside suppliers for each particular model. These would likely have minimum order requirements.

 

A limited, dip your toe in the water approach appears reasonable enough.

[ejj]

It also seems that a few I/O manufacturers are starting to go after the family/ski/play crowd--Bryant is a quality builder that is going after the casual user that used to spend 70K on a V-drive. I think this is the real meat of the boat market. At Horton mentioned above, The money spent on dedicated ski boats each year is actually a pretty small slice of the pie.

[DW]

Good points, and adding to JTH's comments on hull effects, small variations in certain areas can be significant, couple that with the fact that tolerance control in the boat industry is not at the level of the automotive industry thus variations are significant as noted by numerous posts by qualified skiers on this site discussing the good and bad hulls from the top dogs in the biz. Hull storage and molds take lots of space, maintenance and time so it is a financial consideration to determine whether to produce a particular type/style of boat.

 

Weight is a very significant contributor to wakes, simple physics, mass = displacement. Unfortunately, for the mass market (not us) bling, creature comforts, heavy stuff is particularly important to them and the family, so, boats are heavy.

[usaski1]

I could be wrong, but that boat looks like it has a ton of freeboard. Look at the swimstep to the rail... While some freeboard is good, too much is not really a good thing in a tourny boat because your adding weight, which adds displacement, which wrecks your slalom wake.

[skierjp]

Horton, How can Promo Boats be bad for dealers? Most dealers are not connected with the Promo Team Member and the dealer that is will more than likely only have one boat. If one boat is hurting him he has bigger problems. It is up to the dealer to allow a Promo Boat out of his store. Many of my Team Members are responsible for multiple sales at their participating dealers. If the dealer is threatened by the Promo Boat sale he always has the right of first refusal option to buy it back from the Promo Team Member. Funny enough, the dealer rarely exercises this option. Remember, without Promo Boats there would be NO tournaments.

 

 

[ForrestGump]

We make ready 6 promos each season(3 CC and 3 MC). It's just something we have to do. Part of being a big dealer. I know some dealers out there hate having to make ready a promo. If you figure the demo and promo wakeboard boats, hell we do over 10 a year. Some promo owners are great at marketing. Some do absolutely as little as they can get away with. Would the dealership make 6 sales if those boats weren't there? No way. Maybe we'd get 2 hardcore skiers buying those boats. From a dealer perspective, it really doesn't make much fiscal sense to buy a 3 event promo back unless the manufacturer kicks in extra incentive to the dealer. On the wakeboard demo boats, at least, there's money to be made still on a demo boat with 100-150 hours. On a 3 even promo, not so much. BUT, the dealer does get credit against his contracted agreement with the manufacturer for a sold boat typically. That is one benefit to the dealer.