mmskiboat

@Horton I'm sure you have thought of this but when I have worked under water I wear gloves to reduces risk of cuts. Also after years of white water kayaking water cuts from rocks would get nasty fast it not cleaned well. Here are some amazon ones: Gloves 1 Gloves 2 I also would protect your feet.

Thanks guys and I agree I tend to overthink things a lot, part of how my brain is wired. @tru-jack I would love to have a marine railway setup and it would solve a bunch of my concerns (valid or not). I did reach out to rjmachine to get some pricing before your post. @BrennanKMN On another thread a reply talked about how he had talked with a gel-coat repair guy he had seen a lot of boats with damage from lifts. Maybe he was wrong but it was enough to make me want to ask around to get a better sense if it does happen.

@Cnewbert I asked MC for trailer bunks specs when I was looking at an older PS that did not have a trailer. I thought easy ask MC and then have a trailer made for it. They would not release the specs to me. I think this is the same case with lifts. I think it would all come down to the tech that is setting up you lift, if they are very good and know what they are doing and have done it often no problems. But if they just think the boat just has to go up and out of the water you could have problems. @BraceMaker Thanks for the information. I 100% want to get the bunks right as the boat will be spending more time on the lift than anywhere else during the season. I did find it odd that lifts do not have an option to match the ski boat trailer setup, sure it would have to be an option and could cost more just seems odd to me.

@WIRiverRat HH does have a front mount option but recommend the u shape when possible. I have reached out to get pricing from, Hewitt. Why would someone switch from HH, I get buying new used from Hewitt but switching seems odd. @skimtb 100% this for me the most important thing and I noticed that the bunks on the trailer had 2 sets and were angled and most lifts only had one set and did not look like they would fit well. Thanks for the note will track down the threads. I was thinking I would use the trailer as a template of sorts. @BrennanKMN I agree that trailering is harder. But the boat will be on the lift way more that on the trailer. I also agree that if they did cause damage they would have either been updated to fix that design error or would have been discontinued. But I also see a lot of these units in protected slips and in place they will not get much wind/storm waves. Just want to start the life of the boat right and not get into a routine for years that is causing minor damage over the years.

@WIRiverRat I had not heard about Hewitt will check them out. At first look it looks more like the E-series from HH. I would think that it would be the same stability as a HH based on looking at it. @BrennanKMN The difference is it will be a floating lift so will get a lot of movement that a trailer would not have it in storage. Thank all for the comments.

I'm have reached out to see if I can do a vertical lift that would take away the concerns, most that I see do not support this amount of the difference in water level. In the spring the water is 15+ feet I have seen some floatation bags that mounts under your lift so it is easy to move around as required but I think that would be a pain to deal with and hard to make sure it is level, etc. Boat Direction: Looking at the lake the waves come from the left so I wanted to point to the boat that direction rather that with the existing dock. We are in a bay of sorts and the wind and waves come more across our dock that at it. Very little boat traffic so not many hit the front of the dock. The direction of the wind is between 15 to the hour and 10 to the hour on a clock.

@skibrain yes the whole dock system is floating. It is attached to the land dock with the pencil but I have cement anchors that prevent prevent movement. I just have to adjust the chains as the water drops. I will be building a new end dock that will be a floating slip to replace the existing one. This will be 34' long and have 22' long slip for the boat. I'm going to be building a wider end section of the slip that faces the water to help break the waves and direct the energy along the dock and not thru it. I will also be adding many more cement anchors to prevent movement. I currently have 2,280 lbs of anchors. I will be adding some spring/elasticity to the cement anchors chains. With the current setup the dock and move and hit the end of the chain. This did not matter with the wake watches as they would have some slack. Since the HH will be part of the dock system I want to eliminate any of the jolt.

@Clydesdale I had the same thought about trailering but again the amount of time is what I was worried about. I was also worried that the ski boat trailer has additional bunks in the front that most lifts do not have so was not sure if just two bunks would be an issue. Over on MC TT a guy mentioned that he heard a lot of gel coat guys had to fix damage from boats on a lift from movement. I'm going to ask around at a few shops to see if this is the case out not. I do agree that I should be able to help manage the waves. I also think it would be much more of a common complaint. @dvskier thanks for the information. I have only heard good things about HH and FloatLift but the HH setup is cheaper and looks a little cleaner. We are not allowed structures so I do not think I will be able to cover the boat with a solid top. Looking at waterline covers to protect from sun damage.

@dvskier in your setup did you have wind that would cause waves? We are in a bay and can get some good waves breaking on the dock. Enough to get white caps. I still think that I can build a breaker wall of sort but the HydroHoist will get some rolling movement for sure. @96SNEFI If I could have a lift into the ground I would not be worried. It is the floating nature of the lift and movement that bothers me. To give you an idea of the drop here are pics of the start of the season and end (end pics is missing the last dock as we are pulling them to the end of the bay (I'm on it). We do not get much boat traffic just waves from the left side looking out to the lake. Last pic is the updated dock I will be building.

The main reason that I'm worried about a lift is that because I would need a floating lift. I'm concerned that the movement from waves and pressure on the bunks could cause damage that would not happen when the boat is just floating. Most of the places that offer storage for the winter include a chemical wash to clean the boat. I do not think there is one boat on a lift in our lake, some have marine railways but that is more for protection and storage, they are typically old boats and the railway setup is old. I'm still leaning towards a HydroHoist and building a slip for it as this is going to be a long term commitment. I'm hoping to find a way to build a wave attenuator setup for the part of the dock facing the lake to try and mitigate any wave movement.

Thanks for the replies. I did read in the manual at the back to use a lift. In our past two boats we have not had issues and I do not think there is a boat on our lake on a lift, some are on marine railway to protect the boat and most of these are old bow riders. There is some scum formed but nothing that bad. We are not allowed structures so I do not think I will be able to have a permeant cover over the boat. I'm looking at a water line cover to protect from sun damage. I'm still leaning towards a lift so probably will get one start of next season once I build a new dock with a slip.

We are looking at floating boat lifts due to the water level changes on our lake. I have some pricing now and will probably go this route next season. But at the same time I was wondering is a lift required and could it actually cause issues over the long haul. We are located in Canada so our season is about 6 months give or take, the rest of the time the boat will be out of the water in storage. I would think that a boat can handle being in fresh water of a deep lake without a lift when it is pulled each year and cleaned. I even was thinking that it is better for the boat it be supported in water to reduce pressure points from bunks. Lets assume you have a secure way to tie the boat up to prevent damage from the dock (wake watches in my case) and have created a safe harbour of sorts with a slip what advantage is a lift giving you? Is boarding the boat going to cause stress points on the bunks if it is lifted. If it was a floating lift would the movement of the docks/lift not cause more stress on due to the bunks? I do find it odd that a boat (made for water) is recommend to be out of the water. I get it from a damage point of view or if for salt water or water that is really not clean. Or if you could keep the boat in the water year round. Has anyone who has got a lift ever had damage from it? Anyone think that they should have not bothered with one?

@BraceMaker they do have a Ski Club option where the whole back of the boat is flat and covered in seadeck.

The boat configurator is really nice but the last step does not load for me. I also like the looks of the boat but have no idea of pricing or performance.

@jcamp thanks for the info.

@KRoundy Nice boat and I agree as we just bought our 1st ski boat and it going to storage before we get to use it....

@SkiRV What is at the bottom of the PVC tube. With the screw in it. Is the a bottom cap of sorts that the pvc rotates in?

@Clydesdale yes the idea would be to attend a ski school of some sort 100% but just might not be for the whole time. Reason for bringing the boat is we have to pay for storage up here anyways so could actually use it. Having said that might do a test run with a short trip to a ski school to scope an area and see what options are available.

Thanks guys, I imagine we are about 2 years away as we would setup our place here as a rental if we did more than a month visit. I think it would be a great way to get better at skiing, meet some like minded people and still be able to use the boat rather than have it sleeping in some cold dark place. Arizona could be smart as we are also into triathlons so could add in some training, much more fun being outdoors rather than in a basement on a trainer, treadmill.

Not sure if these exist or not. We are new to skiing, just got our first ski boat and in a few years might want to head south in the winter (we live in canada) and bring our boat down to spend time on a ski lake. Are they places that rent houses, or slips on the lake and houses near?

Glad this was bumped as I would have missed it. Great video. As a guy who is just starting down the water ski path (at 52) I can relate to how great the sport.

Are you seeing the other boats moving? Price will always move something for sale as someone else can just re post it and wait for the buyer. I do not mind the colors but not having rear seats would have been an issue fo us.

@skierjp Could that be that when this type of boat started to be for sale they started much higher in price so the differential does not seem as drastic. I'm new to all of this so wild guess. @sodbuster88 I had not heard this before that a 50% depreciation could be the bottom for a boat. Information like this is helpful. I still kinda agree with @herseyj that they should be able to build a ski boat at a reasonable price but perhaps they would have a hard time justifying the higher price for the other boats in the line. I do think there is a large market of people for a 60k new boat that would allow lots of people to sell and upgrade without having to sell and then come up with the sale price again to buy a new boat. But that would also bottom out the older boats...

@Cnewbert I do not see that many ski boats for sale compared to wake/surf boats , have been looking for the past month or so and the only thing that might drive some prices down is that not many seem to be moving to quickly so perhaps they are priced to high. But a lot of these sellers might not have to sell so can keep waiting. Having said that I'm based on Canada and there is a lot more ski boats in the US but still way less that the wake/surf.

As someone that is looking to jump into our first ski boat I do find the pricing high but there is not a lot of supply compared to say wake/surf boats. I think I know all boats that are posted in North America at the moment. There are old boats that I'm not looking at and then the 03-09 and then newer boats. There are not many in the middle (14,15,16) so looking for a used boat you do not have a ton of options. Being based in Canada makes this even harder as the choice is even less. Because of this I think that the pricing will stay high for awhile anyways. Still concerned that buying a high hour newer boat '17> could dump in price much more than an already older boat.