Latest prostar-worth the wait?

[Mastercrafter]

@Broussard so, DBW and using a shift solenoid? No cables to the throttle/shift control? That’s a winner.

[NameUnavailable]

I would say the 21 has the best slalom wake of all brand 21's.

However, it does not track like a Nautique. Maybe it's the two I drove this year? It is like they have a short attention span, and get board of going down the path you set it on...and drift off. If they fix that and still have a much lower price point...this boat could dominate the market....provided they can keep up on production.

[scuppers]

I disagree - we had a 2019 Nautique and now a 2021 MC can’t tell one from the other in regard to tracking

[slow]

They are the best looking ski boat on the water for sure.

[StrokerAB]

2021 engine noise is reduced due to spigot fit engine box.

Rudder linkage improved to spherical rod ends.

Engine flush port added inside engine box

Seat adjustment mechanism improved

Easier for less experienced drivers to keep straight in course

Battery moved to storage under passenger seat, subject to less bouncing around being forward

 

[usaski1]

I’m not a fan of the 21’s slalom wake in the 20’s.. it’s sharper with more kick to it. But I know it was engineered for the slalom wake at 34. When I was behind the 21, I thought, great! I’ll just keep my ‘16 MC, I just saved 40 grand!

[Cnewbert]

@StrokerAB I suspect they may have moved the battery forward to reduce some weight in the stern. The farther aft in a boat the less bouncy it is, not more bouncy.

 

Also, since they've increased the fuel capacity from 25 gallons to 30 gallons, and I assume the fuel tanks are still in the stern as with the previous Prostar incarnations, a full tank would add an additional 30 pounds of gas in the very back compared to a full 25 gallon tank. But since an Optima Blue Top battery (which mine came with) is 44 pounds, moving that forward results in 14 pounds less weight in the stern even with a full tank.

 

[Horton]

@usaski1 the 21 is better for tricks :-)

[A_B]

The 2021 was the nicest driving and skiing MC I have ever been in or behind.

This one might be for sale mid season if my skiing partner can snag a 2022.

 

 

[A_B]

 

[Cnewbert]

@Mastercrafter @skihacker Earlier in this thread I went off topic a bit to express my loathing and contempt for the placement of my ‘20 Prostar’s seat back adjustment lever, inexplicably installed on the left side of the seat and projecting into a space narrow to begin with, virtually guaranteeing frequent, sharp, painful, expletive generating ankle cracks, whereas it could have easily been placed readily accessible but out harm producing way on the right side. After my ankle’s most recent excruciating encounter with this hard Bakelite lever, I finally had enough. Out of some old 7mm wetsuit material I fashioned this sleeve to fully encase the lever. I’ll still hit it often with my ankle when stepping in or out of this space, but now it is soft and spongy.

 

 

 

 

[ALPJr]

That’s like those hinges holding the rear seat bottom to the floor on the mid 80’s Nautiques. Painful toe and heel crackers.

[The_MS]

Get someone familiar with setting up a boat to drive good and do some rudder work. It will track great

[jhughes]

@ALPJr now Malibu has those hinges holding the doghouse on. Multiple toe busters on that thing and the pin of the hinge rattles out on its own and rolls around the boat, lovely.

[Mastercrafter]

@jhughes yeah those Malibu hinges are the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a boat. Some workboat wearing engineer signed off on that one. I bled all over our club boat twice this year because of those.

[skiinxs]

@Cnewber I'm surprised they haven't starting changing over to lithium starting batteries yet, easy 30 lb weight reduction (not cheap, but in the grand scheme of overall costs.....)

[Cnewbert]

@skiinxs since I have a ‘20 Prostar, I wouldn’t mind saving 30 lbs in the stern where the battery is located in these boats. That’s equal in weight to 5 gallons of gas. But I wouldn’t pay too much for the weight saving as the wake is perfectly fine with a full tank as is and 5 gallons is less than a quarter tank. I’m not sure I’d even notice a difference. Do you know if there are any cons to lithium starting batteries? Isn’t fire a concern with lithiums? I know I often had trouble with the airlines when packing lithiums in my baggage when I traveled during my career. And the charging of lithium batteries is strongly suspected of being the source of the dive boat fire tragedy off Santa Cruz Island that killed over 30 people in 2019. Maybe safety concerns are why they are not being used more than cost.

[jpwhit]

@Cnewbert lithium-based batteries are quite safe if they are engineered properly. Most incident you read about in the media, where bad things happen, almost always are examples of where systems were not engineered properly.

 

That is also likely why you haven't seen any ski boat manufactures move to lithium based starting batteries. Any Lithium based battery that is packaged into what looks like a historical 12v lead acid car battery is a major engineering compromise right from the start. 12V lead acid batteries have charge and discharge characteristic that are dramatically different than lithium-based batteries. Companies that offer lithium-based batteries in 12V car batteries formats, must pack them with lots of electronics to try and adapt the charge and discharge characteristics between the two technologies. Those electronics introduce reliability and safety issues if not engineered and tested very rigorously. Net, that's not a very good approach right from the start. And I would never expect to see a major car or boat company adopt that approach. If they were going to adopt lithium-based starter batteries, they would likely engineer a solution that looked nothing like a traditional 12v lead acid starter battery. But quite frankly, the return on investment of that engineering expense simply isn't worth it.

 

Here a good example of a very similar situation. Until 2021, all Tesla's have a traditional 12v lead acid style starter battery just like a traditional gas-powered car. Most of the time when people learn of that fact, they think it sound crazy. But it's the same situation. For pragmatic reasons, it made the most sense from an engineering perspective. Tesla needed to leverage the huge market of traditional 12 automotive parts, they also needed to make sure in failure cases of the propulsion battery, that they could meet all safety considerations such as the brakes and steering still working. They could have engineered a new solution based on lithium battery technology, just like the propulsion battery, but from a business point of view that simply didn't make sense. The cost to develop a new technology for that problem simply didn't outweigh the benefits of just using the existing technology.

 

It's interesting that beginning with Tesla cars introduced just recently they did decide to engineer a different solution. But I'm fairly sure that's because volumes of their cars have now risen to the point where it does make sense to break the reliance on a traditional automotive 12v system from a manufacturing cost perspective.

 

[jpwhit]

@Cnewbert and I have experimented with moving my starter battery in my 2019 ProStar to the same location used in the newer models. And I can tell a difference. It's not just taking the weight out of the rear, it's moving that weight forward. And most people are aware that throwing 50-75 of weight towards the front of 14-19 boats does tend to improve the wake. One of my winter projects is to move the battery permanently to the forward location. I'm also going to move to spiral wound lead acid battery technology because that cuts the battery weight by about 50%.

 

I've already changed my fan situation to get rid of the fan noise issues like the new boat.

 

Another winter project to to replace all the steering linkage fitting to ball joints like the latest ProStars

[Cnewbert]

@jpwhit thanks! That is really interesting information.