Hi all. First post-
Trying to figure out which boat to get. 8 years ago bought an older 1999 Supra Santera with a couple other families thinking all the kids would want to wakeboard... Lo and behold all of them ended up skiing almost exclusively. So now we have a fantastic wakeboard boat, with a fantastic (large) wakeboarding wake. You can slalom behind it, but it's far from ideal. Most us older guys have been skiing for 30 years- not regularly but are all good skiers, so are the kids. Currently we ski with about a 68 foot rope, from 32-35 mph (I ski at 35, just to get the wake down). Will probably go to a shorter rope if we get a new boat.
Anyways, trying to sell the Supra and get a more ski friendly boat. The Supra is honestly perfect for our needs in every way except for the wake size.
Will pretty much always be on public lakes, so it has it handle open water decently. Open bow is a must. Budget is around 25K, don't want to go any older than 2000 models- 2005 and up would be a better age. Just depends.
After browsing this forum and other for a while pre-2005 (diamond hull) Malibu Sunsetter LXI seems perfect, although very hard to find. The Response LXI also seems like a good fit, though I'm a tad concerned about dunking the bow in rougher water. I think 2007 and up the bow was raised a bit, but finding a boat in budget might be hard.
No specific preference to Malibu, maybe one of the MC Prostar models would be good as well? Any advice on good boats to look for would be greatly appreciated. We're located in Colorado which makes finding a boat harder, though I wouldn't be against bringing one home from MI or IL this summer, will be there for quite some time.