History of wakeboard boats:

Hey, I lived overseas for several years and before that, I lived in Chicago for a few years so I've been out of the hardcore boating scene since approx 1992. I remember "skurfing" back around '87 or '88 but that was pretty much it for me and wakeboarding until I moved back to the states and got heavily into wakeboarding last year.
Needless to say, back in the day we all dreamed of having badass ski boats (i.e. ski nautique) so I'd like to have an understanding of how and when the new brands for wakeboarding came about. All I hear now is x-star this, tige that (how do you pronounce 'tige' anyway?) but I don't really know which are considered to be the "original" wake boat and which are best (subject to opinion). For instance, I have heard several times that a Moomba has a crappy wake but I had thought it was made to be a wakeboard boat so I don't understand why it would "suck".

Can someone fill me in on the history that I'm missing from 1992 to present?

Also, did any of those old ski boat companies go out of business? (I've seen the air nautiques around...)

Mille Graz,

lach

I got started in '96. Friend had a Ski Supreme and we got an extended pylon. Then went to Malibu Sunsetter with extended pylon. I then got a '99 Malibu v-drive with a tower. The manufacturers were not offering towers then so the tower was after market.

nautique, mastercraft, and malibu have been around quite a while. I am sure you are familiar with them. Tige came around in about 1993 or 1994 i think with their closed and open bow ski boats and that was their only models. They where building boats in california then. Now are built in abiline. Back in 1992 ski brendella, ski ray, ski supreme, supras, hyrdrodyne, sanger and a couple other companys where around. Some are gone, some have changed hands. The early and mid 90's were pretty hard on boat companys and shut many down, thanks to wakeboarding things have since changed. Brendellas are now MB sports and only build wakeboard boats. Supra went out of business for a couple years and came back under new ownership. I'm sure someone else will fill in the rest of the details. by the way you say it " tie-ga "

like a guy from Boston saying "tiger".

Since when does MB only make wakeboard boats? They show ski boats in the '04 model line-up. First "wake" boat was the X-Star, I think in '96 built for the X-Games. All I remember was in was green I think and had the big side logo, looked kind of weird. The boat was just a 205V with different graphics. Nautique came out with the first tower, the FCT in '97 or '98?? They tried a new hull sometime during that period on the "Air Nautique", but it was considered a big failure by many. Moomba was an Australian company acquired by Skier's Choice with Supra. I am not sure that they were ever out of continuous production. Fineline now builds Centurion and Supreme in California and Centurion in NC. MC has been around for a long time under different ownership. They had some rough times in the 80's and 90s with some poor investments like Wet Jet jetskis and also during their time as an entity of the Coleman company. They have come back strong with the X-Series boats and the new EVO hull on the 190 and 197 boats. Nautique continues under the same Meloon family ownership. Malibu has been around since the 80s but didn't make much noise until about 1994 with the introduction of the Echelon. Tige started in 1991 I believe looking for the ultimate slalom boat, which I think is kind of funny, as now they are pretty much an exclusively wakeboard boat company, though have a couple slalom skiers on the payroll pushing the new Switch I. Many companies have thrown their hat in the ring between 1990 and now. Cobalt built a d-drive in 1997 and 1998, Toyota was in the market in the early 00s, and Regal has come on the market recently. Bayliner also produced the Ski Challenger series. There have been many others that have tried with no real luck. Tige is probably the biggest player to come on the market since you got out of the sport and have been pretty successful. I could go on for a long time, but this gives you a brief history. I'm sure others could go deeper into each company, but that would take a while.

my bad - i didnt mean to say mb sports only builds wakeboard boats, i guess i meant to say most companies like MB, supra, and tige are mostly building only wakeboard boats. Thats like the other day i was in the local mastercraft dealer and asked if they had a 190 EVO and they kind of chuckled and said that they just special ordered those, but of course they had an x-80 sitting outside. Just shows where the markets going or gone i guess.

the market for a closed bow slalom boat is very limited anymore.

Most hard core slalom skiers don't even buy closed bow. I can only name two promo boats that I know of in '04 that are closed bow, and they are both Nautiques. There is no reason to get the closed bow, as you get the same performance with the open bow. It's definately become a wakeboard driven market. Luckily there is still some innovation going into the 3 event side for us holdovers!

Yeah! Closed bows rock! They are the Ferrari's of the boating industry! Especially grey/black ones with a pink stripe!