wake boat capital of the US??

I was kinda curious as to what regions in the US have a more dominant population of wake boats. I ask because I am currently in the market for one and it seems where a certain product is more used and more plentiful there is obviously more choices and more competition for pricing. So what state is the "wake boat capital"??

MC, Malibu, and Skier's Choice are all made in TN, so I would say TN is the wake boat capital.

I would look regionally at your bigger cities or areas of population density that are near water. For instance, in the Southeast, there are a lot of boats in the Atlanta area. Also, there seem to be a lot of boats in Florida, Texas and California, again focusing around the bigger cities in each of these states.

A lot of the wakeboarding scene began in Florida and then made its way to Atlanta. However, it is getting to be more and more popular in areas where large bodies of water are, like towards the West coast there is a big scene now. If this economy would turn around I think that the wake industry would start booming, due to the fact that some of the legendary wake hulls are getting more and more affordable. Anyhow, try boattrader.com or inboardsonly to begin your search.

I contend that the original ski and wakeboard lake is Lake Sammamish. Currently I would say the 2/3 of the people that live on the lake have ski or wakeboats. This is a lake with probably a thousand or more houses on it.

I would say the biggest areas would be the SE(Florida, Georgia), the Bay area/Sactown, Seattle/Portland and then probably parts of Texas.

I would say Washington state is the ski/wake capitol of the US. HO/Hyperlite, Connelly/CWB, Radar/Ronix, O'brien (they still here?), LF (used to be here)...all these companies are or were based and started here.

Trenton, NJ

St. George Utah. We were the fastest growing county in the US at one point. Everyone's home value doubled, and most of those people took out a second mortgage to pay for a new Supreme. The best local dealer is a terrific guy, but sold a wakeboat I don't particularly like. Given the few number of lakes, we have a high ratio of wallys who have a Supreme wakeboat.

Now that contruction has plummeted, lots of them are in foreclosure and no one can afford the gas.

California
The Dirty D (delta)
Don Pedro

Enough said

I know that most people don't think of UT. Check google trends. GO SLC!!!

http://www.google.com/trends?q=wakeboarding+

^^^^^^WORLD WIDE^^^^^^

I'm not sure that Google Trends understands the sport much. For instance, check out another tense of the word, "wakeboard":

http://www.google.com/trends?q=wakeboard&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Sacramento, Orlando & Austin are 1, 2, 3 & Seattle is #6. Having riden all over the west coast in the last 5 yrs & all over the country in the last 7 or 8 yrs, this seems much more likely than SLC.

That said, to the OP, I think I'd concentrate your search to large cities within about 500 - 1000 miles of your area. I've searched & bought a couple of boats from nearby markets & at some point the cost of travel & shipping start to outweigh the savings.

I use http://www.crazedlist.org to search Craigslist.
And just found out about http://www.jaxed.com for searching CL, Ebay & other sites for a specific product.

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on September 19, 2009)

Interesting thread.

What he really needs to know is where the supply and demand has created an abundance of boats for sale in comparison to the number of buyers. I would look in areas that have the worst slumping local economy.

Unfortunately, our local economy is slumping, and the local dealer has a lot of leftover new Supremes and a good number of bank repos around too. There is also a dealer trying to unload a new 2008 Centurion Enzo for 48K.

Maybe Dave has a stat for WW members home towns, that would provide a good cross section.
Would be interesting to see a graph overlayed on a map of the U.S.
I would guess Florida, and Central/ Northern Cal. to be two of the biggest concentrations. But I could be surprised!

Gary, Indiana

Ya, I guess my main concern was to know the areas where the supply is abundant and the demand is low.

Kinda like in northern MN or North Dakota, if you are looking for a 4x4 truck... pretty sure they out number any other type of vehicles on the lots due to all the farmers.

no where is michigan thats a fact

Anchorage?

Malibu, Centurion, MB Sport, Supreme, Calabria, are all made in Merced/Atwater CA, Sanger is down the road in Fresno... Central/NorCal.

Just go to the Delta, or any of the NorCal lakes and wakeboats are the majority.

i've been all over and i've never seen more wake boats on the road and on the water than in northern california.

I would have to agree with east tn, per capita espically knoxville Tn . Some of your biggest mfgs are here for wakeboard boats and I think knoxville is putting on more events than anywhere

What about MN!!! ahem... 10,000 Lakes!!! and that was a rough estimate like 30 years ago. I see wakeboats all freaking over the place. I was out on long lake yesterday, and there were 3 boats on it, two were wake teams with Wake setters and Stars, and us on a malibu
Then the Wake teams left, and two more wakeboats came totaling five, for those of you who cant count to 10,000.

Top 10 states for boat registrations:
Florida (988,652) vessels recorded in 2006.
California (893,828)
Minnesota (862,937)
Michigan (828,529)
Wisconsin (635,751)
Texas (596,934)
New York (497,974)
South Carolina (436,075)
Ohio (412,256)
Illinois (383,615)

Of each state's number, it is likely that the number of wakeboats will skew higher in states with lots of inland lakes/rivers and skew lower in states where most of the boating opportunities are coastal.

I've heard of a lot of bank repos lately, but where do you see them? Are they on like onlyinboards or at dealers or are they sold at local police auctions like cars/trucks are? I think there are a ton of repo boats out there but don't know how I would even start to see one.

Minnesota is the winner per capita- not even close.

Look at the numbers Lakeski just posted- Minnesota is so much less populated than Florida, Cali or Michigan and has almost a million boats!

That's about 1 boat for every 5 people. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Keep in mind that those numbers are all boats. We just rode Silent Lakes in MN recently & were the only wake boat there..... but there were dozens of fishing boats & I/Os.

For buying a boat at a great deal the bay area/sac is by far the best area to look. There are so many people who lost there a$$ with the economy and there are a ton of boats in that area.

I live in the MN metro area, and was out on clear lake. I was with a buddy who has a I/O we were boarding behind (no tower), were beginners so it does the job!

i made a interesting observation. I saw 6 boats with towers on them on our way to the lake, ALL were I/O's. Maybe MN is the capital for non dd or vd boats with towers. or are manufacturers putting them on fram the factory just for the "appeal" of having a tower

Agreed Bill. It's just the sheer magnitude of those numbers blows me away. I mean- I think of California as having a lot of boats. And Minnesota has 7 TIMES as many per person, and twice as many per square mile. That's an insane number to wrap my head around.

Not hard to see why everyone needs a boat if you've ever spent time around Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan/Great Lakes Canada- there just isn't any other place in the world like it.

In Northern California, if you see a boat without a tower, it looks funny.

In northern MN. You never see wakeboats. And the ones you do see never leave the lift. Its all I/O's and fishing boats.
Land of 10k lakes

Sounds like this decision is being over thought. I think the best way to find a good deal is doing the research and finding the best situation...someone who's outgrown the current boat and is looking to upgrade or can't afford the payment, doesn't use it enough, etc.

Michigan's numbers are probably the most inflated per se because of the great lakes, I wonder what percentage of the registered are on the great lakes and, thus, less likely to be wakeboard boats.

i have heard that some of the largest by-volume dealers in the US are in TX. Buxton Marine, Texas Mastercraft, etc.

well for what its worth copes was the worlds largest mc dealer and one of if not the biggest malibu dealers before the economy crapped out. Also the rocklin copes boarders paradise sold more LF wakeboards than any other pro shop in the country back in 06. So id say the sac/bay area is a good guess and good place to start

The other factor is that some states count boats as kayaks and canoes and paddle boats etc. Michigan does not - but I believe most other states require registration. Just another fact to confuse....

On our lake in WI there is one Mastercraft for about every 5-6 cabin/homes on the lake, there is also a Wakesetter and a Natuque, that's a pretty high percentage.

Just traveled through MN in august for the first time, I'm just curious are all the little ponds you see along side the highways considered lakes?

Yea, I believe so, Jeff. While there are thousands of "lakes" in MN, there are definitely NOT thousands of lakes that you can ride on, much less run a motor boat on.

14,000 lakes in Wisconsin

I have to admit, I have seen way, way, way more wakeboats on the road in TX (DFW area) than I ever expected to see. You don't see them on the road that often in FL because most of them are on lifts on the lakes.

How about a rough guess how many lakes you can actually ride on in WI, Lakeski?

I found a website that says there are over 8000 lakes in Washington state. But only about 576 that are over 20 acres.

Calling something a lake, and being able to wakeboard on it are two different things.

Hell, we have a river in L.A.!

"How about a rough guess how many lakes you can actually ride on in WI, Lakeski?

I found a website that says there are over 8000 lakes in Washington state. But only about 576 that are over 20 acres."

15,000 lakes in WI, about 3620 lakes larger than 20 acres.
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/water/fhp/lakes/Lakes1a.pdf
I am on one of the 59 Long Lakes and it almost makes the top 5 deepest at 101 feet.

(Message edited by skibum69 on September 22, 2009)

101 ft?? Thats funny. We have lakes here that are so deep they don't know where the bottom is. The US Navy has a base where they test going silent in nuclear submarines on one lake. Another one is so deep prehistoric sturgeon in excess of 14' long & 100 yrs old have washed up on shore when they die. Inland lakes that we ride on!

Bill,
When were you in MN???

June this year.... and for Jason's gig a couple years ago.

Yes 101 ft isn't all that deep compared to reservoirs and the massive lakes out west, but for a small lake at over 1000 acres that is pretty darn deep.
I've been meaning to take a picture of the depth finder reading with the shore in the back ground, the shoreline is only about 80-100 feet away, not bad for a little ol'spring fed lake

(Message edited by skibum69 on September 22, 2009)

Cool....I didn't even know you were here this year!

It was a work related trip & didn't get to spend a lot of time doing much else. We've talked about making it out again too.

Next time you are out Bill, give a shout out and we can hook you up with some pulls.

Thanks Jason, Hope to make that happen! We have had a good time there the last few years.

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on September 22, 2009)

Are the majority of repo boats at dealers, or at auctions like cars/trucks? Also, is there a website(s) that have lists of repo boats like they have for houses? Just wondering how to find repo boats.

I'm going to go out on a limb and throw the Dallas/Ft. Worth area out there as the top area for inboard sales.

Why? Several of our local dealerships claim (or claimed) to be the top dealership for their brands in North America. I was pretty sure that our Malibu dealership, Waterski America, had claimed that they were the top Malibu dealership in the US, but I don't see anything on their website anymore saying so? Our Master Craft dealership doesn't have any claims on their site either, but our Supra and Correct Craft dealerships both claim to be the number one dealers in the US.

www.waterskiboatsdallas.com
www.buxtonmarine.com


In addition, we typically have had a pro tour stop or event in the Dallas area the last 5 or 6 years. We also have a TON of large lakes in the D/FW area and I can tell you from my experience in boating on them the last 8 years that inboard boats have tripled on our lakes in the last 5 years. Used to be you hardly saw any, now they are everywhere!

Of course I have no proof or numbers to back up my opinion, but it seems like the D/FW area should certainly be in the top 3 at least.

(Message edited by nauty on September 23, 2009)

I would have to say the Sacramento/Bay area as well. Back in the early 2000's, you had both the number 1 and number 2 MC dealers by volume, (Cope and Ski World), the number 1 Malibu dealer by volume (Cope), the number one Centurion dealer by volume (Hammer's), and a couple of top 10 Nautique dealers by Volume (Larson's and Hammer's Petaluma). Throw in the top dealers for Sanger (Tracy Boat), plus all the other dealers that did decent numbers with the West Coast brands, and the area was hands down slinging more Wake boats than any other part of the country.

Since the California economy took a dump, I'm sure that other areas have passed us up, but we still have an extremely high number of boats on the water of the Wake genre.

The capital could be the Minocqua/Woodruff, Wisconsin (pop 6,800) a small town with lots of dealers:
Plowmans Marine: CC and BU
Stengls Marine: Supra, Moomba, MC
Arbor Vitae Marine: Centurion

And within about 35 miles of Minocqua:
Three Lakes, WI (pop 2,339):
Watercraft Sales: CC

Tomahawk, WI (pop 3,770):
Erv's: Tige

That's a heavy concentration of inboard dealerships in a rural area. Of course, there are lakes everywhere.

(Message edited by lakeski on September 23, 2009)

^^^^
I have to agree, there used to be 7 MC dealers in WI last time I checked and there were only 9 in CA(think about the population difference). There are 4 MC, 3 CC, 2 Malibu, dealers within 2-2.5 hours of Eau Claire and thats not counting the other ski/wakeboat dealers.

Both Austin and Dallas need to be on that list. I haven't been to Dallas lately, but I just spent a week in Austin riding. I would say at least 70% of the houses on the lake we were on had a wake boat and about a quarter of those had 2 wake boats. These are all private single family residences.

wakeboats are like lawn decorations on lake austin. I've never seen a higher concentration of wake boats anywhere, and the majority never get off the lift.

And we are talking newer MC, Bu's, and Nauti's