28 JUNE–JULY 2018 | International Boat Industry http://www.ibi-plus.com
Markets & Regions
to the Gen-X, Gen-Y and Gen-Z future boaters who
strongly inf luence the sales. “The reality is that while
wake surfing might be attractive to millennials,
most millennials can’t afford to buy a tow boat,” says
Heyday Boats president Keith Yunger. “They’re trying
to pay off a school loan, and trying to figure out if
they’re going to buy a home. They have a car payment
and they might be starting married life, so they’re
at a life stage where a boat payment’s just not on the
cards for most of them. Yet they’re the ones that grew
up with a boomer parent who might have skied or
tried wake boarding, and who sees surfing as a way to
spend more time together as a family.”RIDING A WAVE
If anything has helped push wake surfing squarely into
the mainstream, it is the burgeoning popularity of
so-called surf boats powered by Volvo Penta’s Forward
Drive system. With its forward-facing propellers safely
tucked away under the boat hull, the Volvo Forward
Drive provides a path for manufacturers of traditional
fibreglass runabouts to easily retool an existing
product and jump into the watersports market. These
sterndrive-powered surf boats are said to provide all
the benefits of a traditional runabout with the ability
to surf, while coming to market at a much lower retail
price than a traditional inboard-powered tow boat.
One might imagine that the appearance of a lower-priced alternative would be seen as a competitive
threat by tow boat manufacturers, but the reality is
quite the opposite. “We were thrilled to see the Volvo
system come to market,” says Terry McNew, CEO of
MasterCraft Boats. “The sterndrive-powered boats
are generating a lot of excitement and introducing a
lot of people to wake surfing, people who wouldn’t
necessarily have any exposure to it otherwise. They’ve
done a lot to bring new people into the sport.”
The quality of the wake generated by sterndrive-
powered surf boats varies, and is impacted by factors
including the boat’s size, weight and hull design.
Although most models include a variety of wave-
enhancing features such as ballast tanks and trim
tabs, tow boat manufacturers insist that the system
soon reveals inherent limitations. “I spent 23 years at
Brunswick working in the sterndrive business, and I
can tell you, you can’t drag a sterndrive underneath
the water and get the same kind of wake that you can
with an inboard. It’s just a matter of physics,” says
McNew. “That benefits us, because people get hooked
on surfing and they want to have a better wave.
Their answer is to move up to a purpose-built tow
boat that gives them a crisper, bigger, longer wave.
The Volvo-powered boats get people into the sport,
they start enjoying it, but they want bigger, they want
more. And once they figure out what they want, they
migrate into our segment.”
Malibu Boats, which has licensed its patented Surf
Gate technology to Chaparral for use in its Volvo-
powered surf boats for years, also offers a sterndrive
product of its own under the Cobalt brand. “We
believed that sterndrive-powered surf boats would
become a feeder system to tow boats and that seems
to be the way it has worked out,” says Springer. “With
our acquisition of Cobalt we now have an opportunity
for further expansion in that market.KEITH YUNGER, PRESIDENT
HEYDAY BOATSThe reality is that while
wake surfing might be
attractive to millennials,
most millennials can’t
afford to buy a tow boatSXCorrect
Crat’s Super Air
Nautique GS 24
model, a top-end tow
boat built for running
at 10mph pulling a
wakeboarder. The
boat is renowned
for its electronic
integration and
features a 12.4in
touchscreen that can
be custom configured
to give the helmsman
complete control.
The Nautique
Awareness camera
means the driver
never has to take
their eyes of the
action and can keep
adding another view
of the vessel right on
the screen
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