Gutted versions of newer boats

[schnipdip]

I really like the new boats. I think it's a common complaint among the outsiders of the "1% of the 1% of the 1%'ers" that new boats are insanely expensive. Boats have always been relatively expensive, that's a given. But todays market is a bit out of control. I often hear, "water skiing is dying because people aren't interested", I would like to call baloney on that. Sure, it may not be AS popular, but it's still within the "water sport group" (wakeboarding, surfing, barefooting, and skiing). It has taken a back seat to the more popular sports, like wakeboarding, but it's still relatively popular.

 

To be blunt, the sport didn't die because of interest, the boat manufacturers killed it. They walled anyone from coming in to the sport or wanting to gain traction because of the buy in price (if you are inexperienced and don't understand the used boat market) is insanely high. They turn away potential prospects from ever attempting to join the sport. It's a giant snowball effect. As an example, lets say you're a first time car buyer. You know nothing about cars, but you know that buying a used car may be a money sink or have lots of issues. So you buy new. Same thing with boats.

 

I'd really like to see a new boat, like the Boomerang, that is pure analog. No fancy software or gearing. Just the nuts and bolts - engine, hull, pylon, steadypass. It's something I'd like to see. They would still retain their high end clientele, while satisfying the needs of the "poor".

 

Is it too unreasonable to ask for an affordable boat that has the latest hull design and a decent engine?

[Andre]

Dear @schnipdip

Ever heard of Carbon Pro?

[6balls]

It's been tried--people don't buy the price point boats new--they buy a used big 3 instead and have a higher quality boat. No money is made on a stripper boat by the manufacturer.

I get your situation--and I'd say find the best, lowest hour, used big 3 you can get your hands on at your price point.

[Horton]

@schnipdip

Is it too unreasonable to ask for an affordable boat that has the latest hull design and a decent engine?

 

Believe it or not there's just not that many bells and whistles in most ski boats. The engine itself is by far the most expensive single component. Then probably raw materials and labor.

 

The manufacturer needs to make some profit after paying for R&D, materials, labor and overhead. The dealers have huge financial overhead so they need to make some kind of margin. Unfortunately that means that boats cost a crap load of money. There are plenty of other reasons why boat prices are high but stripping out metal flake, seats, stereos and towers is not going to get you there.

 

If you can't afford a new boat there is a boat for every budget on the used market. At this exact moment the used boat market is a bit inflated but when we get out from underneath the cloud of covid I would expect use both prices to fall 10 or 20%.

[jjackkrash]

I suppose it is about time for the bi-annual why-don't-they-make-a-strippy-ski-boat-that-everyone-would-buy-like-crazy-cause-ski-boats-are-too-expensive-and-its-killing-the-sport thread.

[schnipdip]

@jjackkrash is it that common?

[MichaelWiebe]

Maybe check Alibaba for a Chinese made ski boat. That could be a disrupter. We see some Chinese made taxis in America already. I'm pretty sure the price is right. The rest, quality and performance, if not ok yet, will sort itself soon. Their cars for the general public are coming too. I see them in other continents already.

I too believe there's a place for a lower price disrupter ski boat. I'm not sure I'm right though, since someone would have already done it.

[schnipdip]

@Horton I would expect the prices to, relatively, reflect car model pricing. I guess there isn't enough demand to justify offering a more trimmed down version.

 

I'm not necessarily looking for a new boat at the moment. This was more of a reflection post criticizing the manufacturers, and the sport itself, for why the sport is "dying". It's like the Eric Andre meme... *Boat manufacturers outprice everyone* oh my god the sport is dying :0

 

I'd be interested in knowing how much their (boat manufacturers) gross profits are. This is just a pet peeve of mine. You can't grow a sport when you are only marketing to the .0001% of people who can afford it.

 

I am interested in the growth of the sport because it's difficult to get new members for our club. Our club used to have 50ish active members back in the day. Now we are lucky if we have 5. Out of the 5, two are under under the age of 50. Average age in the club roughly ranges from 55 to 65. Our area used to have boating competitions, competitive skiing events, ski shows and fundraisers! Now we are lucky to get out on the water.

[Horton]

@schnipdip ok what would you take out of a ProStar, Txi or 200?

[sgregg]

Hard to go wrong with something like this for an “entry-level” analog, simple to work on ski boat

 

 

https://www.ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Boat_3Event&postid=56087

[Horton]

@jjackkrash yeah I need to find the best one of the old threads and just make it a perennial.

 

@MichaelWiebe I considered giving you a panda for your post but just don't have the energy to do it.

[dchristman]

C'est la vie.

[ResponseSkier]

@schnipdip

I'm not necessarily looking for a new boat at the moment. This was more of a reflection post criticizing the manufacturers, and the sport itself, for why the sport is "dying".

I see this rationale a lot without much to back it up. If prices dictate who enters the sport, then explain the wakeboard/wakesurf boom to me. More people are taking up that activity then ever before, and spending 2x, sometimes even 3x, what it would cost to enter waterskiing. If you want to tell me wakeboarding/wakesurfing is 3x the fun, get lost. To me, this point isn't valid unless you want to argue that the income of waterskiers is significantly less, but remember, this is the same community that spends $$ to build private ski lakes.

 

Additionally, a well optioned F150 is 60-70k new and a house on a lake is 500k+ in most areas of the U.S. It sounds like some people pick and choose what they perceive to be pricing that is out of line. Price levels have went up across the board since the 2000's.

 

I'd be interested in knowing how much their (boat manufacturers) gross profits are.

Lets break this down; Engines, raw materials, and labor are not getting cheaper by the day, and there are corporate tax hikes coming. The manufactures know this and plan accordingly - the consumer will pay the increase in wage/material/tax cost, not the corporation. Their prices reflect their input costs (same reason why raising the minimum wage doesn't raise buying power). Now lets move onto supply and demand - currently, demand is working above equilibrium while supply is "fixed". Manufactures are sold out, and you'd be lucky to get a boat by the end of summer if ordered right now. We should be thanking the manufactures for not charging more than they are currently. Think about the opportunity cost of using a production slot for a ski boat vs. wake boat.

 

Just because you don't see many people running out and buying new ski boats doesn't mean they aren't out there. If I recall correctly, all three manufactures sell out of their ski boats each year.

 

If you're not running shortline, anyone who tells you that you have to get a new boat to have the same experience is lying. An early 2000's nautique/malibu/mastercraft will get the job done. Buy one and move on.

[bishop8950]

@schnipdip i don’t like how expensive new boats are either. While this isn’t helping grow the sport, it isn’t killing the sport alone.

 

A counter point is that the wake and surf market is booming and those boats cost 1.5-3x what a new ski boat cost. You can pay more than $300k for the top of the line surf boat and I believe all of the top manufacturers are selling every boat they can make. So, price of the boat isn’t a problem there.

 

Therefore, As many in this forum know, it makes more sense for boat companies to build wake vs ski boats. Combine that with the shrinking market for ski boats and there is little incentive for the boat companies do anything differently. A few have tried to make a run at an affordable option (Carbon Pro!) and didn’t make it for different reasons.

[APB]

conceptualize it, design it, r&d it, manufacture a proto type or two, make design changes then take it to kickstarter. easy breezy..... :)

[jjackkrash]

@schnipdip, I am fairly confident I could bang out the next 50 or so posts in about an hour and have it look pretty close to the thread you will see 3 days from now, but I am too lazy to prove it. And this thread can the therapeutic for some people so I don't want to short circuit the process.

[slow]

The price of wake surfing boats has not killed off wake surfing. Just saying.

[braindamage]

Buyers always control markets in the end. If there’s enough buyers, then the makers will figure out a way to supply them.

 

This is a buy problem...not a supply one.

[Broussard]

Lake of visibility (the private lake dilemma) is a much bigger issue IMO than price of boats.

 

As many mentioned, you can buy a used boat to ski with and wakeboarding and wake surfing are the rage despite utilizing a much more expensive towboat.

[Clydesdale]

When I was a kid in the 80s there was ONE nautique on our lake, and there were 10s of three event skiers-most of us young. We slalomed, tricked, and jumped behind anything that would pull us; mostly outboards and I/Os. Then we’d attend tournaments for a reality check behind a real boat. My point is that although cheaper boats would be great, I don’t think it’s a legitimate roadblock to skiing. Where there is a will there is a way.

[Wish]

Skiing can be done on the cheap relatively speaking. Hard work, ingenuity, patience and creativity gets it done. Living proof. Fixer-upper lake home, 1997 SN, 2001 truck, self built dock and boat house, used ski gear. I have multiple state titles in FL as well as National showings and can still run into and occasionally past 38 off. Expensive is not the barrier...the thinking that you need those things is .

[chrislandy]

Take a listen to "The Water Ski Podcast" by @Luzz there are a couple of interviews with @Horton and @MarcusBrown that go into quite a depth about affordability and accessibility in the sport

[6balls]

Same as @wish.

$17k 2000 Nautique bought in 2010 with 84 hours. Lake home bought for under $300k in 2002. Skied on a public lake seldom used 10” away with 2 courses for my share $375/yr. Nothing but nice used cars. Lots of new skis and gear on a regular basis. Best tourney score into 39.

U can have a great wake and a high quality boat on the relative cheap without sacrificing all of your other financial goals.

[tjs1295]

No matter what's happening with boat prices, it sounds like the club @schnipdip belongs to has REALLY changed!

[Golfguy]

Maybe ask once again, did the boats need to get bigger, heavier requiring larger more expensive engines? If so why? I think most people would agree the SN 197 was a pretty darn good tug.

[Horton]

@Golfguy there's no such thing as a SN 197.

 

the physical width difference from 10 years ago of the boats is not a significant factor in the price. The older 5.7 L engines literally no longer exist as OEM.

[slow]

They’re pretty anal here. You were off by an inch

[MDB1056]

@Wish and @6balls are spot on. Expensive is not the barrier

[Horton]

@slow

197 is a MC. 196 is a SN.

[Broussard]

* MasterCraft SportStar, Malibu Sportster, and Centurion Carbon Pro have entered the chat *

[Bulldog]

Don’t forget the Malibu Sportster.

[MarkTimm]

https://thehustle.co/03232021-pandemic-boat-sales/

 

This article sums up the current boat market very well.

 

 

[Kelvin]

@Broussard Ski Nautique also had the 176. All of the manufacturers have tried the budget ski boat before and none of them sold well. It seems people preferred an older real deal on the used/promo market if they were looking to save money.

[whitecaps]

I blame Zero Off for this.

[Horton]

@whitecaps that is sarcasm? Right?

[whitecaps]

Well maybe not totally. It seems the creation of zero off made non zero off boats not adequate in the minds of serious skiers which provides a mindset (as the OP may or may not have) that he must speed a lot of money.

[Fastguy888]

I blame the now common 15 year+ finance option that drove up watersports boat prices. A friend of a friend is 32 y/o makes 60k/year financed a 150k Nautique Wake Boat for 26 years. It has a head and was considered his second residence.

[ReallyGottaSki]

I do remember those 80's budget centurians flying off the shelves for a few years. little pad on the bare fiberglass engine cover, PVC exhaust that sounded like Blue Man Group... Average ski families wanted them, not so much the dyna-drives with 5-color gel and real upholstery.

 

 

regarding the 176, if memory serves...had they not detuned the rudder and made only a 240hp carb available(may be a few exceptions) , so its hard to tell how it would have went if they at least offered FI when it was becoming all the rage people were fedup tired of carb rebuilds and gas on their hands, why pay for new without FI nor something better besides new some boat smell that lasts 1 season

 

 

I suspect at no time has it been easier to make the boat you want.. With message boards, parts availability, youtube instructionals, easy shipping, adds up to an enthusiast/hobbyist playground.

Find an old hull you like, if you don't like the engine add engine you like, add pp if desired, configure the insides to how you see fit.

 

[klindy]

I agree with @wish @Broussard and @6balls it's not the price that's the problem. The boat companies make a limited number of tournament ski boats and sell them all. They allocate the rest of their production time to make MANY more, MUCH more expensive boats and sell them as fast as the resin cures. The money exists to pay for the toys.

 

It's a viscous circle, the ski community shrinks which means there are more used boats than buyers (than there were a year earlier). There are some of more affluent in this community (or clubs or ski schools) that keep the used market flush with decent boats that are a couple years old. The "high end" used boat group buys those up and sells their slightly older boat down the line to the next guy.

 

To drive boat sales, we need people interested in the three event boats again. Kind of a "chicken or the egg" scenario but you can't have one without the other. I can partially agree that the "access" (or visibility) issue is a problem. Our private lake mindset is pretty much just that - it's private, go away. There are a few club scenarios that work for people who don't own property on the lake which is awesome but if someone isn't exposed to skiing somewhere first, there's no need for a club membership. All of us know that if your a mediocre slalom skier and you get a taste of a slalom course, it's almost immediately addicting and the challenge them becomes how and where can you ski a course again. Obviously that drives demand.

[BraceMaker]

@whitecaps I do somewhat agree on that originally - now is probably mostly mitigated. But the combination of PP losing the contracts I feel like lead to the struggles with the early stargazer systems. I don't think PP really recovered from that and for years I don't think they had the resources to really fix stargazer. I don't know what their current volume looks like but lack of competition in any market I think is a poor idea.

Now 13 years later the oldest zero off boats are many years beyond their utility in tournaments, all generations of hulls that were sold with PP are superseded.

 

This is the place where electric ski boats excite me the most. Does anyone have the patents on lock for electric motor controllers?

 

Beyond that I think if you wanted to make older ski boats very viable to the ski community with ZO Econtrols just needs to make essentially a Sniper EFI bolt on carb/throttle body replacement with a cable driven throttle. I don't think anyone would rebuild a carb or rebuild fuel injectors on their speed boat if you could bolt one of those down hook up the power and the throttle cable and drop in a ZO head unit. C'mon Econtrols! The whole sport is tied up b ) In addition, Class C tournaments may use an “older boat” (2016 or earlier), USA Water

Ski Approved Tournament boat equipped with Zero Off, with the approval of their Regional

AWSA Towboat Committee member, or Chair(s) of the AWSA Towboat

Committee. Primary consideration will be given to the condition of the boat, speed control

version, etc.

 

 

 

[RAWSki]

It's obviously "that time of year again" people inside chompin' to get out and thinking about boats + skiing!

There have been great basic ski boats one even @Horton endorsed ....but sales didn't..... OH Never mind. Bottom line-- Ski boats are the sport sedans of the industry ....niche. Surf boats are the SUVs and Luxury SUVs. They sell more and make more money.

I need a Hazy IPA and a Whiskey back. Now!

[CBR51]

Yes. Too bad Zero Off isnt compatible with the older engines. A lot of awesome hulls out there that need new engines (when their current engine is still perfectly good) just to be able to upgrade to zero off

[aupatking]

Access is the number 1 issue. Not boat price. It’s not just course access too. Find someone who knows how; that will pull you. I try to be as obvious, outspoken, and welcoming as possible. I also maintain 2 courses on public water that I pay for, as well as about a third or more of the cost of our lake course. We need people to see us, AND JOIN US. Also, boat prices aren’t going down. (No whisper font)

[BraceMaker]

@CBR51 it isnt compatible because there is no commercial pressure for them to do so. If tomorrow I started a marine engine brand using cable driven throttle bodies and got Malibu to use it instead of PCM then it won't be ZO compatible and I couldn't get a stargazer and get it awsa certified. Monopoly.

[Broussard]

@BraceMaker FYI Malibu marinizes their own engines now and no longer uses PCM engines.

[Wish]

I will add this. Having an understanding wife that does not need the half a mil house and the latest automobile helps greatly. ZO to me is another excuse to not get in the game or bail out. I have been skiing PP classic since PP came out practically. Yes it is a diff pull. BUT if you have the opportunity to go through all the ZO settings, I can say with confidence, you will find a setting that goes with your ski style and it will feel good. Don't let anyone tell you what setting you should choose either. Horrible advice to give. Best way is to do a blind study and let the driver pick the setting, keep track of it and what you thought of each. I found C1 to work better for me then my PP. My ZO scores match or are slightly higher than PP do to a blind study done with my driver. I have a ZO tournament best of 1.5 at 39 with 100% practiced behind PP Classic.

[BraceMaker]

@Broussard yes I am aware of that. Picked on Malibu because they used PCM(correctcraft) engines so long. Still uses econtrols ecms. Even Merc is using econtrols in their towboat engines despite having their own products. See varatti.

[Golfguy]

Sorry SN 196. True the 5.7 L is no longer available, but Im not sure that is a full accounting of the need for bigger more expensive boats, if one is just talking about pulling a skier through the course. Now to be clear, the newer MC's are the nicest skiing tug.

 

 

[jpwhit]

Wow, if folks would put as much effort into solving whatever issues are limiting their skiing situation as complaining on threads like this every year....

 

The sport isn't dying, it's just changing. Boat prices aren't the primary cause of any significant issue with the sport. It's clear now ZO is a net benefit to the sport overall, but yes we had to get through a rough transition period....

 

My personal philosophy, stop looking backwards at excuses for how you ended up in a less desirable circumstance than you desire. Put your efforts towards working towards the situation you desire for your skiing and life in general. The only thing you can truly control 100% is your own thoughts and actions.

 

Now time to slip on my Kevlar suit. And like virtually anything posted on a public forum, this is just my opinion.

[DW]

As noted by 'experienced' posters on this forum, the stripper / gutted / bare bones ski tug experiment has been run numerous times with little long term success. Carbon Pro is a great example of a boat getting rave reviews but not getting the sales success expected.

 

This site clearly caters to a small niche element of the sport, hence we will be biased and have a unique view. If I look at a more mainstream site, lets take the Malibu owners forum for example (it is the volume leader so should be a reasonable data set) I have seen a clear trend. Current postings / topics are overwhelmingly wakeboard, surf related with a small percentage on skiing and even smaller on barefooting & foiling. If I go back 15 years the topics were much more evenly distributed. Hence, the popularity of the sport could be related to posting percentage. If one dives in to the postings, it is pretty clear the wake / surf posters have 'invested' a hefty sum of hard earned (or borrowed) $ on their boat of choice. Scrolling through the skier postings, one can come away with the realization that a high percentage of skiers are enjoying the sport behind older, PP equipped boats.

 

One could draw the conclusion that the boat or 'tool' cost to enjoy ones sport of choice is not a major barrier to entry of the sport of choice (ski v wake/surf) and older PP boats aren't a restriction for a majority of the population to enjoy slalom. More likely decline in popularity is a combination of other factors which have been discussed previously.