H
ang Ten seemed like a fun phrase to toss around as a kid, even though I’d never
been to Hawaii to see surfers compete. Thank goodness for Saturday afternoon
ABC Wide World of Sports features.
When Four Winns invited me to Hang Five or see if I could pull off a Fire Hydrant —
placing one hand on a wakeboard and taking your front foot off — behind its new TS222,
built to accommodate the wake surfing movement, being the hip guy that I am I naturally
booked the first flight to Miami (the only place in the dead of winter where the water doesn’t
resemble the bottom of my cocktail) and eagerly opined, “Got a wet suit in a 2X that’ll fit?”
Like so many dads, my glory days are all legends in the mind. We buy boats for our kids
and secretly bribe our grandchildren with a promise of boating so they’ll spend more than
a weekend at the cottage. But darned if I want a neon orange tow boat tattooed with skull
and crossbones graphics to tool around in the rest of the year.
Apparently engine builder Volvo Penta and Four Winns heard enough similar thoughts
and decided to steal the tow boat thunder through what they’re calling 180-degree thinking.
In the simplest of terms, they turned around your typical sterndrive, facing the duo-props
forward, added three ballast tanks and created a boat that produces a darn nice wake, or,
at the flick of a switch, becomes your quintessential family-friendly lake boat for your less
radical boating days.Drive into the future
The Forward Drive Propulsion System debuted at the Progressive Insurance Miami
International Boat Show in February, 10 years to the day since Volvo brought IPS drives
to market. Some 17,000 units later, mostly on larger yachts 35 to 70 feet, the brain trust
figured out how to capitalize on the hottest trend in watersports: Wake surfing.
A fast primer, ocean surfers experimented with Hawaii-styled surfboards behind
motorboats in the 50s and 60s. Gimmicky and dangerous, it reemerged with the wakeboard
trend of the 80s and 90s. Advances in technology led to fierce competition between
tow boat builders who make a superbly designed product. The only knock is that these
boats are singularly purposed: They have a well-earned niche in the marketplace, but as
I discovered, there’s never a 2X wetsuit when you need one.
There are many advantages that the Volvo Forward Drive Propulsion System offers.
Four Winns has deftly morphed the technology with its patented Stable Vee hull to create
a platform that steers true in the tightest of turns, rides smoothly at all speeds, offers an
interior mixed with amenities we’ve
come to expect, and gifts extra seat
room we wish the airlines would offer.
A typical, rear-facing sterndrive
pushes the bow up when power is
applied. The forward-facing Volvo
directs the thrust down. Now add
1,300-pound standard ballast, water, and
optional wake enhancement tabs, and
the result is an endless symmetrical wave.
Like IPS, Forward Drive is designed
to pull the boat through the water rather
than push, and it allows water to
reach the propeller undisturbed by
the skeg. In IPS, this design has
increased fuel efficiency and improved
acceleration and responsiveness. In
reverse, and when maneuvering close
to a dock or trailer, I found that the
boat handled better than a typical
sterndrive and required only a slight32 april 2015 | laKElaNDBOaT i NG.COMBT_FourWinnsAPR15.indd 32 3/2/15 12:00 PM