As a fellow Gekko owner, I think we need to rethink the argument of the sport is too expensive....or at least the boats. The reason why less boats are being made is because they can sell MORE EXPENSIVE boats. Indmar just served me an ad today saying they are going to start building boats...the ad looked like a wake boat, and jet powered at that.
So, you have manufacturers making the decision to make more money...because they can, and who can blame them? The demand for Malibu...the value priced boat...which hasn't been touched in a few years design wise (and imho has massive variations in quality from hull to hull) is PROBABLY getting out of the niche market to sell more profitable boats...but what is the REAL difference between our sport and wake boarding and wake surfing?
Because of the latter, you can't do the former on public lakes. It isn't the boats...it is the venue. A public lake can have hundreds of people on it at a time tubing, wake surfing, pontooning, etc. A private lake can have 1,2,maybe 4 at a time. Give me a learn to ski day at a private lake and I can turn people into skiers all day long. Give me a learn to ski day on a public lake and MAYBE I can get them into show skiing or something similar, or recreational slalom skiing...but to run the course from 3am to 5am? Well...that is going to be pretty limiting.