jercrane

@6balls Its pretty damn nice. 350 hours, MCX, immaculate interior and exterior, Zero Off. I got it for a steal. I felt a little bad about it after in fact. Guy orders a new Prostar every 8 years so he didn't seem to mind. Here she is during my last set of the year in the course. Sigh ... she really is a nice boat.

@Moffattra in the works ... shhh I have some friends with courses on some of the surrounding lakes as well.

Thanks folks for the thoughts. Not sure where the 11 people threads came from. I have no need for 11 people. Occasional 9 for cruising. As I said in my original post. I never ski with more than 3 in boat and a skier. Also if the water is rough I’m not taking 9 out in the boat. We’re talking sunset cruises on calm water. We sort of got a whole bunch of issues conflated in this thread. Oh well. The need for 9 is really about marine patrol not giving me a ticket. I’ve actually taken 9 in the 197 cruising and it was fine. Our marine patrol will ticket you based on placard limits though. The 200 solves this problem. The rough water questions were just potential side benefits. If I don’t solve that problem that’s fine. Not willing to trade off slalom wake for that. Also I don’t think I’ll ever own a boat without ZO, at least until something better comes along. It’s game changing in the course and just so damn easy to use. Thanks

Is the freeboard in the bow of a SN 200 really lower than a MC 197? That doesn't sound right but maybe ...

@Ilivetoski Thanks for the answers ... I knew I'd get them eventually. We don't have a super rough lake its just not private so occasionally I'm out in some chop 6-8" chop kind of thing, running to the ski hole. Squam lake in NH for the curious. I generally have pretty good drivers in my ski crew but I need to teach my wife how to drive one of these days so that does sound nice. It sounds like I'll have just as many issues with swamping the bow so thats a wash. Tubing abuse won't be any better either. Man I hate tubing. Factors for selling the 197 and buying a 200 OB +1 for better wake +1 for driveability +1 for capacity (even if it doesn't mean less swamping) 0 pts for improved rough water -1/2 pts for bow swamping since it sounds like it might be slightly worse than the 197 -1 cost since after poking around and values I think I'll be out of pocket another $5k or so So it seems like it's not a home run but if I could find a 2010/11 200 OB it might not be a terrible swap. As for the pontoon suggestions. I mean that sounds great and all but not really an option as we have limited dockage space at the lakehouse. Also it's just one more boat to deal with (already have a small Whaler for the kids in addition to 197, and neighbor pays us to dock his boat). Although if I got the pontoon I could tell the kids thats the only choice for tubing. :D Did I mention I hate tubing?

I got a sweet deal on a beautiful 2009 Prostar 197 last spring. It is my first real ski boat I’ve personally owned. I had an absolute blast skiing behind it all summer. Loved every minute of it. Installed Zero off and man that was just a game changer. God I love this boat for skiing. Here’s the rub. I didn’t consider one important aspect of my boating life when I pulled the trigger. We regularly have a need to have 5 adults and 4 kids in the boat. Not for skiing mind you but cruising and such. The PS 197 capacity is 7 and roughly 1000 lbs. This was an issue all summer. Constantly having to have people stay behind when we went out in a group. We bumped past the capacity a few times and it was near impossible to keep the bow from swamping if anyone was up there. In addition to this the MC gets pretty beat up in the open water in our lake when we need to go out on rougher water. This is less of a problem than the capacity issue but it’s something. I am now kicking around the idea of trying to find a 2010/11 SN 200 OB. The capacity is 9 and 1400 lbs on the SN 200 I believe. I’d be in much better shape I think at that point. I also do a decent amount of tubing with the kids. God I hate tubing but I hate whining more so I always give in. I kind of feel like I am punishing my poor little PS 197 every time I take the kids tubing. I’m not willing to move out of a true slalom/3 event boat so don’t even suggest it. Here’s my questions. Wake expectations on the switch to the SN 200? I read all the posts about the 28 off debatable hump. Sounds subjective. Rough water handling? Better or worse than the PS 197? How about with the dreaded tubing? Think the 200 can take more abuse? Anything else I should consider before seriously pursuing this?

@JC McCavit Mastercraft says 27” for bareboat.

My buddy and I did some experiments this weekend with my boat and I thought I’d share the data. We did the experiments because I haven’t really found this info anywhere else on here or Mastercraft forum. I’m on a lake in NH where knowing depth is pretty important. I’ve always kind of wondered how to think about depth readings and when it’s ok to do what. This is all for a 2009 MC Prostar 197 Experiment 1: straight static measurement of draft - buddy in water with mask and measure stick - Me in boat, full tank of gas, a few skis, 4-5 jackets, anchor, a few other random bits of gear. Not a lot though - Calm lake 25 inch from surface to tip of bottom prop blade Experiment 2: hole shot - rigged a pvc pipe with two balls on either end attached to poly line strung through pipe and set to allow pipe to sit at depth of 4 feet. This served as reference point for driver above and swimmer below. - Buddy in water with mask and measure stick sitting just outside a buoy - Me driving same boat with same load - Started at about 10 feet from buoys at idle - Buddy dove under as I began idle run - When the tip of bow crossed the plane I went full throttle - Ran this one two times to confirm measurements 32 inches from surface to prop tip on pass 1 34 inches from surface to prop tip on pass 2 (Super sketchy I have to admit, even though I could see my buddy the whole time and made sure he was on driver side) Here’s my buddy waiting for me to come back and pick him up. :D Experiment 3: depth gauge measurements. - both of us in boat for this one - 10 foot pole with increments of 2 inches marked out. - Pole placed in water at roughly halfway between the engine box and swim platform - Pole measured actual depth of water at 9’8” - Depth gauge (MC factory) measured 8.6 feet or roughly 8’ 7” Depth gauge delta = 13” negative. Meaning the actual depth from surface is 13” more than the gauge reads. We verified this at several depths and it was consistent. So the two take away from all of this ... If I subtract 1 foot from depth gauge reading that is my actual clearance from bottom of prop. If I am in 3 feet of smooth bottom water I technically will be fine pulling out of the hole. In all practically I’m going to add an extra 6 inches to this in my head. Hope this is sort of helpful to someone else.

OK in case anyone else comes across this I finally found this excellent resource for learning ZO http://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/7944/everything-you-need-to-know-about-zero-off-for-2013

On a related note, now that I am up and running. Has anyone ever put together a Zero Off for dummies manual? The writing in the manual that comes with it is god awful. The pull type settings for instance are baffling to me.

Yeah I can clear -22 at 34 on a good day. Sounds like 67" would be the call. Thanks

Now that I'm finally getting on the water more regularly I think its time to retire my ancient Connelly Concept. Have my eyes on the Carbon V but the length options have me stuck. My Concept is a 66, which they don't even produce anymore, just 65 and 67. The V comes in 65 and 67. Connelly says the 65 is for up to 160 lb skier and the 67 is 160 and over. Here's the rub. I weigh 160. I know the answer is go demo them both but I have no option to do that since I'm in NE and shops simply don't stock them. Gets in the way of selling Tubes I guess. I'm a 34 mph old guy (44), skiing about 70% open water/30% course. 22 off is my sweet spot but I'd like to start pushing myself more. Any guidance?

Ok so I thought I'd drop a final post in here and let you all knows I got her up and running today. For posterity here's what I did. #1 I finally understood that not every connector on the eci harness was actually going to be plugged into something. Under dash. There's a black triangle open connector in the middle there. Comms plugged in there. The other weird thing for me was that the harness plug had 3 wires and this plug in the boat only had 2. Whatever... See the female grey connector in upper right. That got the square power connector. Then the antenna plugs into two of the mess of connectors coming out of the main harness about half way down the length. After all this I had 5 connectors still completely disconnected with no obvious mates but I decided to turn the battery on and see what happened. Voila head unit powers up. Next test let's take her for a spin. Boom locked in to 34.2 mph. (Err well close enough anyway. Tough to take a pic as it's bouncing between 34.1 and 34.3) So then after that I drilled and mounted the puck up front of the dash and used a fish tape to pull the connector through. That freaked me out drilling the hull but it looks great now and working like a charm. Sorry forgot to take a pic of the puck install. Thanks for the help

@gregy so which of these connectors will I not be using? And do I need to use this other harness that came in the package that says "GPS puck retrofit"? Thanks

Ok @gregy that's what I was thinking but I haven't been able find the appropriate connectors to splice into. Might be out of my league.

Ugh so apparently this is a lot less plug and play than I thought. I can't for the life of me figure out where to plug all the connectors in. I'm guessing I need to know a lot more about the electrical system to do this but any ideas? Diagram somewhere? Any way for me to figure this out that y'all can think of?

Last question. Does it matter how flat it is? That area I am looking at mounting is slightly curved so there's really no way to mount it perfectly perpendicular to the sky. I'm guessing this is fine given the attitude of a boats hull is constantly changing anyway but thought I'd check anyway.

Would it effect performance if it was behind the glass on the flat part of the dash?

Ok so it sounds like I want it in front of the glass? Hmm so on a 197 where would you put it? Right here? And any idea how I access that? Do the front seat back rests pop out somehow? Man that's gonna be a big ass hole.

@gregy looks like you have a related question to one I just posted but maybe a little more advanced. I would love if anyone could simply tell me the basics of the puck install on a single puck system. Like where do I physically put the antenna after plugging it in.

I just got my new 3 event kit from zero off for my 2009 MC PS197. After talking to the dealer I am fairly certain it will be plug and play on the software side. So I'm thinking of doing it myself today so I can get a ski on it tonight. I found instructions on the site to install the main module in the dash but I can't for the life of me find instructions for installing the antenna. Any guidance anyone can provide? Does it just sit under the dash? Do I need to drill a hole so it can be exposed? It's the single puck antenna btw. Help a noob please!

Thanks gregy. I think ideally I'd like to get the single antenna version. I'll check with inboardfix. Thanks

Ok so does this mean I am golden? Next question assuming I am good to go here. Which zero off kit do I want to order? Standard 3 event or standard wakeboard? http://www.zerogps.com/kits/ I basically only slalom and don't get into a course more than a couple times a month unfortunately. Really all I need is the speed control. I'll never drive for trick or jump. So is the wake board kit going to be fine for me or should I just suck it up and get the 3 event for another $300?

Gregy I am in NE. Live in MA and have lake house in NH where the boat is. I only have access to my boat on the weekends when I go up to NH. I am headed up this morning and will take a look at the ECM. Will post update when I have it. Thanks