Exterior

I think MasterCraft has hit another home run in the looks department on the tower. It's got 3-inch aluminum tubing that slopes from the front of the boat to the back with machined aluminum supports. The thick tubing goes a long way in making this a pretty sturdy tower.

Folding and unfolding the tower is another issue. The weight of the tubing makes it cumbersome to fold the tower with two people and it can be next to impossible, and a bit dangerous, with just one person. When we attempted to return the tower to it's upright position, we had some difficulties in getting the hand-tightened bolts lined up and threaded in. We eventually got it done, but it was, again, a two-person process.

MasterCraft Comment: Most towers are not easy for one person to fold, especially with speakers, lights and other accessories. We recognize that our tower is heavy, but people like the design and it's stout. As far as alignment is concerned, the tested X-Star's tower was one of the first and had to be hand built. Since that time, we have tweaked the measurements for a precise fit and finish and all production towers are built from jigs.

Although there were no lights or speakers installed on our test boat, we inquired as to how they are mounted to the tower and found that they actually mount beneath the top tower tube with a very clean look. Both the speakers and lights mount to the tower via inserts pre-installed into the tower. All hardware and wiring is concealed inside the mount housing. There is room for up to four speakers and four lights to be mounted together. The inner speakers can also have forward-facing lights incorporated into the back of them.

The bimini is another great looking component. It mounts in the rear along the laid-back tower and has added supports for the front portion, which are mounted to the tower with some cool little quick-release mounts. The only problem is that it is a bit high and, unless it's high noon, it makes it tough for the driver and passengers to stay out of the sun. I'm sure a lowered version would be easy to get customized, but you'd lose the cool buttoned-to-the-tower look. It works well if you're tall and like walking beneath the bimini without bending over.

MasterCraft Comment: It's all about personal preference. The X-Star's bimini provides protection from the sun and lots of headroom. The lower you put the bimini for increased coverage, the less headroom you have. Hitting your head isn't cool.

As mentioned before, the racks flanking the tower were a striking pair. I'm glad we've got pictures because they're tough to describe in words. The racks utilize a ratcheting clamp that pops open with a turn of a lever at the end of each clamp. Once open, a board is put into place between the clamps and the top part of the clamp is pushed down until it clicks snug onto the board.

Again, we applaud MasterCraft for going above and beyond to create an entirely new type of board rack and trying to solve problems. However, we think they missed the mark a bit with these. Our general impression is that MasterCraft went through an awful lot of engineering and manufacturing to solve the problem of snapping bungies, used on many current wakeboard rack models, which we never really considered to be a huge problem in the first place.

When using these racks, be prepared for the following issues. You'll have a little more difficulty getting your board in and out of the rack since you've got to maneuver it between two clamps as opposed to just dropping it straight into the standard forked rack. The wider the board, the bigger the problem. The racks only open 18 inches wide, so wakesurf boards will have to go elsewhere.

The clamps can be difficult to snug up to your board. One click of the ratchet may be too loose and the next may be too tight. For one loose board, I couldn't pull the clamp down any tighter from inside the boat, so I had to get out on the dock and push down on the rack to get it to click one more time to keep the board from moving in the rack.

Lastly, I put a Liquid Force Trip 143 into the rack on both sides. On one side, the end of the board ended up rubbing against the tower. When I tried the same board on the other side, although it was close, it cleared the tower just fine.

MasterCraft Comment: The first racks were hand-built and that's why they were slightly different. We have since addressed the problem by building the racks from precision jigs.

They've made things easy at the gas pump by adding dual gas fills to enable the filling of the tanks from either side of the boat.

Cool Stuff