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Hey guys,
I'm picking up my new boat tomorrow morning from the plant, and I wanted to share some photographs of the build process. I was tempted to wait until I had everything done and installed, but I figured I'd just post things up as they get finished.
I decided to go with an other Axis A22 for 2012 because I had an absolutely awesome experience with my 2011 A22. I had zero problems out of my old boat. It threw the best wake I've ever ridden - consistently. What I mean is that, when I wanted to ride slow and try to learn something new, I could, and the wake retained its shape. When I wanted to let a novice ride with factory ballast, the wake was nice, rampy and had a small lip for the newbie to use to get a feel for pop. When we wanted to slam the boat with 4k in ballast over the factory weight, it threw a monster clean wake at 23mph all the way back to 80+ ft.
No, this boat is not as blinged out and crazy as some of the boats I've owned and some of the boats that are available. Look, I've got two kids, a mortgage, and I want to buy a house on the lake at some point. I made a financial decision to focus on the core values/components I had to have in a wakeboat, and found that in the Axis A22. I was willing to sacrifice some bling to lower my cost. I'm not saying that everyone should do this, or that it's a mistake to buy a more expensive boat. Buy what suits YOU best. For me, I was able to save enough on the boat to put in a monster wetsounds stereo, and not have to take out a loan.
The A22 is a utilitarian boat. It's a wake machine. There are no heated seats. There are no touch screens. However, it's still plenty nice for those of us who simply want to shred a lot, and own a boat that throws an awesome wake under a wide variety of conditions, without having to break the bank.
Yes, my A22 is still relatively pretty pricey because it has the big motor and the Vandall package, but I wanted the extra power and the creature comforts that I used last year (like the heater, chillax seats, docking lights, etc.), and I wanted to have 450hp to move all the weight I intend to throw at this boat.
I just wanted to share some pictures and give some brief thoughts as to why I stock with the A22 for this year. There's a boat for everybody out there. There is no one, single, "best" boat. That being said, IMO, the A22 is one of the absolute best options on the market at this time for someone that wakeboards a lot, values a great wake, values an extensive dealer network, and wants as much bang for the buck as he/she can get.
Below are some build pics I received. Obviously, the boat has a ways to go before I'm done with it. I still have to mount the (powdercoated) z5 and install a ton of wetsounds gear, including a pair of white REV 410's on the tower.
In the last picture you can see the boatmate trailer that I had some custom work done to. I can't thank boatmate enough for being willing to work with me on the small changes I wanted to make. I wanted a solid white trailer with all clear led lenses and every piece of diamond plate anodized black. I know it can be a total pain in the behind for manufacturers to do custom work; however, the guys at boatmate (Owen Shelton in particular) went above and beyond to get me all of the information I needed to make informed choices and to implement all of the changes I wanted.
I can't wait to see the boat on the trailer, with the z5 on and the REV 410's mounted up!
I'm off to the eye doctor to get Lasik done this afternoon, and hopefully I'm up for going to get the boat at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. More pics to come!
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