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Old     (BennMarine)      Join Date: May 2019 Location: Maine       07-12-2020, 4:25 PM Reply   
Looking at getting into a boat sometime next year hopefully and its been a while since I was super plugged into the wake scene and just still getting caught up. What are all the new budget wake brands? Here's what I figured out so far, what am I missing?

Malibu --> Axis
Nautique --> Supreme
Supra --> Moomba

Are there any other budget lines? Does Mastercraft have a budget line? I know they have the NXT20, but anything outside of that?

What are ya'lls thoughts on new vs used? Some of the used boats are sooo super expensive it almost seems better to just get a new Axis or Moomba, curious your thoughts on that? Any tips as I start my search?
Old     (moon)      Join Date: Oct 2008       07-12-2020, 5:18 PM Reply   
Tige-->ATX

Mastercraft has a nxt22 also
Old     (hal2814)      Join Date: Feb 2006       07-13-2020, 1:16 AM Reply   
Supreme is not a budget Nautique. It’s very much it’s own thing. They have some of the same suppliers now due to Correct Craft owning them but they have their own hulls and their own completely different wake and surf systems. That may change over time but so far the biggest benefits to Supreme and Centurion being under Correct Craft ownership is the quality of the materials they’re sourcing these days, especially vinyl. They’re still great boat. They’re still definitively not Nautiques, even on a budget.

As far as new vs used, my only advice is if you buy new make sure you’re really comfortable with your dealership. You’ll be spending time there.
Old     (joshugan)      Join Date: Apr 2005       07-13-2020, 12:15 PM Reply   
The best budget boat is a used boat, imo. You can get an incredible "discount" Nautique by getting a used one.

I recommend that you shop around and go sit with your family in different boats at dealerships or even from craigslist and onlyinboards. Bigger is not always better. I miss the handling of my smaller boats.

What are you primarily wanting to do on your boat?
Old     (BennMarine)      Join Date: May 2019 Location: Maine       07-14-2020, 3:28 PM Reply   
Oh whoa, good to know about Supreme being its own thing. So does Nautique have a budget option boat? Honestly probably mostly will be wakesurfing and wakeboarding with it but I want to make sure my fam is comfortable in it, would love to comfortably be able to bring my parents, brother and sister in law and their two kids all out for a fun comfortable day on the water.
Old     (juniorhawk)      Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: New England       07-23-2020, 1:34 AM Reply   
Still somewhat applicable, as a loose guide.

Old     (juniorhawk)      Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: New England       07-23-2020, 1:40 AM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by BennMarine View Post
Oh whoa, good to know about Supreme being its own thing. So does Nautique have a budget option boat? Honestly probably mostly will be wakesurfing and wakeboarding with it but I want to make sure my fam is comfortable in it, would love to comfortably be able to bring my parents, brother and sister in law and their two kids all out for a fun comfortable day on the water.
As much as it hurts to say it, absolutely don't hold your breath on Nautique ever doing anything close to a budget boat. No no no. In fact signs I've been seeing say they could be moving toward selling the Paragon/Maybachs as their main thing. It's already their flagship, but with a Denali/Escalade set of electronics upgrade on a somewhat more basic boat. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is where their marketing outlook plans are. Paragons only by 2025. They have absolutely brilliant designers and top-class management. The fact that the Paragons sell at all, and often above sticker, is very telling. Paragons are doing great, and Correct Craft has the midas touch. It puts them in the range of owning a Lamborghini for me, versus owning a Tahoe. But that's where they want to go. Some people are like, "OK!" Some people have a heart attack with what they're doing. They're working hard to become not only a premium brand, but an elite brand. That part does make me really sad but it's what their Board wants and they're doing what the Board wants, and people are responding with their money. Simple as that.

Last edited by juniorhawk; 07-23-2020 at 1:46 AM.
Old     (joshugan)      Join Date: Apr 2005       07-23-2020, 5:58 AM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by juniorhawk View Post
As much as it hurts to say it, absolutely don't hold your breath on Nautique ever doing anything close to a budget boat. No no no. In fact signs I've been seeing say they could be moving toward selling the Paragon/Maybachs as their main thing. It's already their flagship, but with a Denali/Escalade set of electronics upgrade on a somewhat more basic boat. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is where their marketing outlook plans are. Paragons only by 2025. They have absolutely brilliant designers and top-class management. The fact that the Paragons sell at all, and often above sticker, is very telling. Paragons are doing great, and Correct Craft has the midas touch. It puts them in the range of owning a Lamborghini for me, versus owning a Tahoe. But that's where they want to go. Some people are like, "OK!" Some people have a heart attack with what they're doing. They're working hard to become not only a premium brand, but an elite brand. That part does make me really sad but it's what their Board wants and they're doing what the Board wants, and people are responding with their money. Simple as that.
Love that graphic, Juinorhawk. Are you still rocking your SS/SAN?

I too would prefer Nautique to be more affordable instead of going for the elite market.

I bought a 2000 SAN 210 for $19,500 in 2011 and sold it in 2018 for $21,500. I had not done anything significant on the boat to increase the value. Pretty crazy that I can use a boat for 7 years and make money on it. I was certainly thrilled to make money but I want out sport to be accessible. Maybe the whole used boat market is going that way?
Old     (Bret)      Join Date: Nov 2013 Location: Santa Rosa, CA       07-23-2020, 6:21 AM Reply   
Someone needs to make a new budget boat graph!
Old     (SoulSurfer)      Join Date: Oct 2016       07-23-2020, 12:38 PM Reply   
I just have to laugh at the so called "budget" boats, which still are $75K - $100K+. A couple more to ad to your research list - Sanger and MB Sports. May be trickier to come by in your area, though, which could be a non-starter.
Old     (juniorhawk)      Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: New England       07-24-2020, 2:43 AM Reply   
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoulSurfer View Post
I just have to laugh at the so called "budget" boats, which still are $75K - $100K+. A couple more to ad to your research list - Sanger and MB Sports. May be trickier to come by in your area, though, which could be a non-starter.
Even when I made the original chart I was SUPER conservative. The boats you mentioned were out by then. MB, Sanger, Calabria, both Epics (Toyota Epics and Chris Anthony's Epic Boats). I left them off this chart pretty consciously, even though I acknowledge they make nice boats. Extremely nice in some cases.

I still stand by this chart, so many years later. In fact it has hardly changed, even if I did a 2020 version. Some of the prices have come down, across some model years, but not by a whole heck of a lot.

Those boats were the ones I had personal experience with at the time and felt comfortable condensing like this to a wide audience. It's the advice I'd give to a stranger who I wanted to tell the truth to and I knew wanted a nice big wake and a nice experience owning the boat itself as an investment of sorts. I stand by it. There might be a few boats not mentioned that deserve being mentioned.... but none that could possibly be removed either.

I stand by it.

The only boats that give me a little tiny twinge of desire to revisit are the first run of Correct Craft SAN 220's and Nautique 236's but they are both so finicky and need to be bolstered with so many little caveats that it's defeating to the purpose. Boats like the Supra Launch (Worlds era etc) and X-Stars were already acknowledged to be good. Many companies did their best work, expressed in their first attempts at family-oriented big open-bow boats. These are the ones WE should be looking at. And thankfully many riders are.

I've talked about the Correct Craft 220 and Correct Craft 236/230 elsewhere, so I won't waste anyone's time but those are the only 2 boats I'd possibly consider adding. Truth is neither of those have come below the 30k range so they're not really budget boat are they. At the time I made the chart, 30k was a way high mark for a person who is really into behind-the-boat wakeboarding as I saw it and still see it. More than that is still, to me, ridiculous and won't make a person a better wakeboarder. This chart is a purist-to-purist bit of advice from an athlete-to-other-athletes and I stand by every bit of it, even if some cool boats have come along in the mean time. And they have! The G23/G25 are total dreamboats. But they won't make me a better rider like a Sport Nautique would, coming from a cable background or Larson/Bayliner sort of thing. That is and was the point. A 100% bulls**t free understanding of what's out there.

Last edited by juniorhawk; 07-24-2020 at 2:52 AM.
Old     (joshugan)      Join Date: Apr 2005       07-24-2020, 6:05 AM Reply   
I am biased but if someone wants a really inexpensive wakeboat then the Ski Nautique 2001 is the way to go. Provided the stringers have been redone and you reprop it, it can make a massive wake. I'd love to see what one can do with a suction cup surf plate.

But it's not a particularly good family boat.
Old     (juniorhawk)      Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: New England       07-24-2020, 7:22 AM Reply   
I am possibly biased too but you're quire right. If you want a boat that will provide the wake you/we need and will be a nice ownership experience, the Ski Nautique 2001 is exactly where to start. It's too bad the Correct Craft skunkworks project team never forced the open bow 2001 hull to become a reality within the lifecycle of the 82-89 Ski Nautique hull. I know prototypes were produced -- and they were proofs of good concepts which, much later, became the Ski Nautique Open Bow. But that was later down the road.

Correct Craft realized they had a great concept and a nice platform on which to build. That's exactly how the Sport Nautique soon emerged.

Around the same time, the Super Sport hull was under development. A V-drive configuration of a somewhat-higher-freeboard version of the Sport Nautique hull. The Super Sport hull was developed around the same time the 2nd generation of the Sport Nautique hull was being refined and soon we got the Super Air Nautique (Super Sport hull), Air Nautique (Sport Nautique hull) and other variants.

All of this has worked out really nicely for them and for serious riders.

Last edited by juniorhawk; 07-24-2020 at 7:27 AM.
Old     (BennMarine)      Join Date: May 2019 Location: Maine       07-24-2020, 5:05 PM Reply   
It's kind of wild to me how out of control the prices are on these boats, but to your point, they are selling like crazy. Maybe the wakeboard market is bigger than I realized?
Old     (hal2814)      Join Date: Feb 2006       07-25-2020, 1:53 AM Reply   
I wouldn’t change the budget wake boat chart. It’s still pretty close to right. If anything it might be worth starting a budget wake surf board chart that goes to like $50k and is short like the wake boat chart. There are a lot of wakeboard-era v-drives out there that just don’t throw a good surf wave. Yeah, you can go ropeless in a short small pocket but that’s about it. There are a few that throw amazing surf waves like the 220 and 236 or the Centurion Avalanche or a Tige 22v. Just like with wakeboarding there’s a difference between doing the best with what you have and looking to get something new (to me) on a budget.
Old     (onlyinboards)      Join Date: Oct 2014       07-25-2020, 7:58 AM Reply   
One boat that i think is super underrated for being an amazing wake boat is the first gen MB Sports B52 21 Widebody and F21 Tomcat. Circa 2009-2012 i think. With the stock gravity ballast and a 400 sac in the nose the wake on those boats were stellar.
Old     (juniorhawk)      Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: New England       07-28-2020, 8:33 AM Reply   
Not underrated - I've liked almost all versions of the B-52 going back as long as I can recall (2002? or so?). That has always been a boutique kind of boat but certainly an awesome model and a solid builder. I'd maybe argue it's not something that has enough data to support it being thought of like a Sport Nautique or ProStar V205 but I've really only heard positive things about those MB B-52s, so I get where you're coming from Mister. I also don't think they're in that 'budget' space but I hear you.

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