freshturk
08-19-2014, 08:05 AM
As a few of you know, ive sold my 2012 LSV and made the upgrade to an sc350. Figured I would write up something to explain how i made the decision on the sc and what I think of it after 25hrs.
We moved to Lake Norman in North Charlotte back in April coming from NE Ohio where our lake was 1500acres, 10-20ft deep and the season was 2mos shorter. Back in Ohio, for the size of our lake, length of our season, it was hard to justify spending anything more than what I did on my LSV. Now, on Lake Norman things changed quickly. For those who dont know, Lake Norman has roughly 500miles of shoreline, 30miles long, 9 miles wide with average depths of 50+ ft. Whole different ball game.
We've loved our LSV and with the exception of a fuel sender unit going bad within the first 5 hours, it has been absolutely problem free, but it was not without its limitations. Back in Ohio, the lake wasnt too busy and choppy days never bothered us too much. For surfing, we were listing the boat pretty hard with fat sacs and tsunami pumps a plenty and we were able to get a pretty decent wave. As we moved to Lake Norman, the mid afternoon chop quickly became rather painful to cross after a day sitting in a cove. Having to go 12mph to cross a main channel instead of 20 quickly got old. The lake being super busy and the 30+FT flying across the waters at all times made listing a boat without a whole lot of freeboard a little sketchy and after riding on friends g23, x30, etc. we soon realized that an upgrade was needed so we decided to do our due diligence and demo as much as we could.
Our budget was far from limitless, but in the short time ive been in Charlotte, weve made some friends that would allow us to get into most of the high end boats without breaking the bank minus boats such as g25, x46, xstar. Our criteria basically was adequate wakeboard wake, pro quality surf wave without having to list the boat terribly or have extra sacs all over the place, has to handle chop well and more free board
Mastercraft
We demo'd an x30 with gen2, stock ballast + plumbed in 750s on each side. Awesome fit and finish, very roomy boat, great surf wave on both sides. Port side surf wave is long and probably the cleanest face ive ever ridden. Boat handled chop great. As for aesthetics, the mastercrafts were our least favorite due to the hideous towers.
X25 without gen2, stock ballast + plumbed in 750s on each side. Hands down best wakeboard wake ive ever ridden(Ive only surfed a g23, never wakeboarded.) Super rampy and as firm as it gets, seemed rather narrow probably comparable to LSV in terms of width. Surf wave was just as good as the x30 despite almost 2ft shorter. Boat handled chop just as good as the x30 and better than the SC350.
Interior quality was probably 2nd behind Supra.
Great local dealer here in Charlotte was a big plus.
Nautique
Good friend has a g23 + NSS with stock ballast which weve been riding all summer. With stock ballast the wave has tons of push but lacks significant length. Handled chop as god as the supra, but still behind theMastercraft and ther interior quality was right on par with Mastercrafts. The nautique LCD screen is far more complicated than it needs to be. Interior features such as the center transom walk-thru, transom cooler, and full cooler in main area floor were awesome and I wish I had them.
Centurion
Demo'd a 2014 enzo 244 with ramfill. Ramfill basically eliminated 85% of storage capacity on this boat and despite the 30sec fill time, it was somewhat of a pain in the ass. We normally fill our tanks as we are leaving the no wake zone and have everything done before we get out. With ramfill, the idea of having to go 20mph for 30sec and then for 90sec to empty would have meant we would have had to basically drive in circles because we ride just outside of our marina. Interior quality was terrible, ride quality was bad. The tower did not feel solid in the least. Dealer wasnt very knowledgeable at all in terms of setup. We surfed with stock ramfil ballast which i believe is in the 3700lb area and the wave was the worst of any boat weve ridden which was disappointing because I had such high hopes for this wave. After researching, it seems that this boat needs to list pretty hard and most people are adding about 500-800lbs of lead to the surf side which wasnt what we were after.
Malibu: We didnt bother demo'ing one because we knew from the start that we would still have to list the hell out of it even with surfgate to get an adequate wave
Tige: No dealer close
Supra
SC350 blew us away right from the start. Sitting in the water it sits just as high as a g23. Beautiful boat in person.
Interior: Vinyl layout and quality was the best of the bunch. Cup holders galore, favorite feature just might be the trash can. I do wish they had installed more gas shocks to some of the cushions, but their hinge design funtions well, just doesnt have the same high end feel as those with gas shocks. The dash is fantastic as I for one love the redundancy of the switches to use as a backup and the Vision screen is super easy to use as everything can be accomplished with 2 presses of the screen from anywhere. Despite the same 102" beam, the G23 still feels wider. For only being 21' 8" the boat feels extremely roomy as I feel the huge amount of freeboard adds to that feeling. Tower is solid as a rock without a single shake or vibration. Stock swivel racks are the nicest Ive used outside of the mastercrafts $4000 clamping racks. These racks have way more padding on the inside and the boards dont budge. Each side is wake/surf but the surf part has a indentation at the bottom which allows a wakeboard to slide in and not move at all, very simple but super smart feature. Works awesome. The one thing I dont like about the interior is the transom seating. On the seat in the picture there are 2 small compartments with hinged billet doors with drains at the bottom. Functionally these arent good for much of anything and as you come off the throttle from surfing these get flooded and drain into the bilge which only activates the auto pump after a long day of surfing but I still have to manually activate the bilge at the end of each side. Very minor but the bilge of my LSV was always perfectly dry and the bilge pump never ran once.
In water: Boat handles like nothing Ive ever driven. At 30mph you can yank the wheel and the boat doesnt lean at all. Feels like driving an old direct drive. Nothing compares to this boats handling. Boat handles chop well, not as good as the Mastercrafts however.
Wakeboard: Have only ridden it without any weight and it was adequate. Very wide and definitely will benefit from weight. Mellow lip, not extremely firm but I assume this will firm up with weight.
Wakesurf: Best of the bunch here and all my friends agree on this one as they too have ridden all the other boats on this list. Our setup is the stock liquid lead package, 500 up front, 200lb in each corner plus the plug in play with a 650lb horseshoe up front and 1100s in each locker. The 1100s dont fit perfect but i assume they fill to atleast 90%. The wave is the longest of the bunch. The face isnt as clean as the mastercrafts, but it works just as well as the messier face doesnt get in the way of any tricks. We have been running the port side at boat 100% full, skim setting(barrel only works when you list the boat and the skim is still better), 10.8mph, smart plate anywhere from 25-50% as anywhere in between doesnt change the wave much. As for the starboard side we drain the port side tank to 90% just to overcome prop wash and the wave is just as good. The wave is still really good without the slight list, but we are just trying to optimize. The side to side transfer is fast and easy.
Our local dealer has been outstanding to deal with and a big reason we went with the supra.
At the end of the day our rationale was such. Its really hard to beat the supra as it comes stock with a ton of desirable options and surfs so well without much effort. In the end it came down to cost as our boat came in about 15k cheaper than what we would have wanted an x30 to have option wise and with that significant of a difference in price we couldnt justify the cost of the x30.
We just hit 25hrs after 2 weeks of having the boat and it has been awesome. Couldnt be happier with the boat and that we were able to stay in the skiers choice family.
http://i1302.photobucket.com/albums/ag121/freshturk/867fb7ef-fa11-4aa7-8ae2-85ac295740d7_zps53165b26.jpg (http://s1302.photobucket.com/user/freshturk/media/867fb7ef-fa11-4aa7-8ae2-85ac295740d7_zps53165b26.jpg.html)
We moved to Lake Norman in North Charlotte back in April coming from NE Ohio where our lake was 1500acres, 10-20ft deep and the season was 2mos shorter. Back in Ohio, for the size of our lake, length of our season, it was hard to justify spending anything more than what I did on my LSV. Now, on Lake Norman things changed quickly. For those who dont know, Lake Norman has roughly 500miles of shoreline, 30miles long, 9 miles wide with average depths of 50+ ft. Whole different ball game.
We've loved our LSV and with the exception of a fuel sender unit going bad within the first 5 hours, it has been absolutely problem free, but it was not without its limitations. Back in Ohio, the lake wasnt too busy and choppy days never bothered us too much. For surfing, we were listing the boat pretty hard with fat sacs and tsunami pumps a plenty and we were able to get a pretty decent wave. As we moved to Lake Norman, the mid afternoon chop quickly became rather painful to cross after a day sitting in a cove. Having to go 12mph to cross a main channel instead of 20 quickly got old. The lake being super busy and the 30+FT flying across the waters at all times made listing a boat without a whole lot of freeboard a little sketchy and after riding on friends g23, x30, etc. we soon realized that an upgrade was needed so we decided to do our due diligence and demo as much as we could.
Our budget was far from limitless, but in the short time ive been in Charlotte, weve made some friends that would allow us to get into most of the high end boats without breaking the bank minus boats such as g25, x46, xstar. Our criteria basically was adequate wakeboard wake, pro quality surf wave without having to list the boat terribly or have extra sacs all over the place, has to handle chop well and more free board
Mastercraft
We demo'd an x30 with gen2, stock ballast + plumbed in 750s on each side. Awesome fit and finish, very roomy boat, great surf wave on both sides. Port side surf wave is long and probably the cleanest face ive ever ridden. Boat handled chop great. As for aesthetics, the mastercrafts were our least favorite due to the hideous towers.
X25 without gen2, stock ballast + plumbed in 750s on each side. Hands down best wakeboard wake ive ever ridden(Ive only surfed a g23, never wakeboarded.) Super rampy and as firm as it gets, seemed rather narrow probably comparable to LSV in terms of width. Surf wave was just as good as the x30 despite almost 2ft shorter. Boat handled chop just as good as the x30 and better than the SC350.
Interior quality was probably 2nd behind Supra.
Great local dealer here in Charlotte was a big plus.
Nautique
Good friend has a g23 + NSS with stock ballast which weve been riding all summer. With stock ballast the wave has tons of push but lacks significant length. Handled chop as god as the supra, but still behind theMastercraft and ther interior quality was right on par with Mastercrafts. The nautique LCD screen is far more complicated than it needs to be. Interior features such as the center transom walk-thru, transom cooler, and full cooler in main area floor were awesome and I wish I had them.
Centurion
Demo'd a 2014 enzo 244 with ramfill. Ramfill basically eliminated 85% of storage capacity on this boat and despite the 30sec fill time, it was somewhat of a pain in the ass. We normally fill our tanks as we are leaving the no wake zone and have everything done before we get out. With ramfill, the idea of having to go 20mph for 30sec and then for 90sec to empty would have meant we would have had to basically drive in circles because we ride just outside of our marina. Interior quality was terrible, ride quality was bad. The tower did not feel solid in the least. Dealer wasnt very knowledgeable at all in terms of setup. We surfed with stock ramfil ballast which i believe is in the 3700lb area and the wave was the worst of any boat weve ridden which was disappointing because I had such high hopes for this wave. After researching, it seems that this boat needs to list pretty hard and most people are adding about 500-800lbs of lead to the surf side which wasnt what we were after.
Malibu: We didnt bother demo'ing one because we knew from the start that we would still have to list the hell out of it even with surfgate to get an adequate wave
Tige: No dealer close
Supra
SC350 blew us away right from the start. Sitting in the water it sits just as high as a g23. Beautiful boat in person.
Interior: Vinyl layout and quality was the best of the bunch. Cup holders galore, favorite feature just might be the trash can. I do wish they had installed more gas shocks to some of the cushions, but their hinge design funtions well, just doesnt have the same high end feel as those with gas shocks. The dash is fantastic as I for one love the redundancy of the switches to use as a backup and the Vision screen is super easy to use as everything can be accomplished with 2 presses of the screen from anywhere. Despite the same 102" beam, the G23 still feels wider. For only being 21' 8" the boat feels extremely roomy as I feel the huge amount of freeboard adds to that feeling. Tower is solid as a rock without a single shake or vibration. Stock swivel racks are the nicest Ive used outside of the mastercrafts $4000 clamping racks. These racks have way more padding on the inside and the boards dont budge. Each side is wake/surf but the surf part has a indentation at the bottom which allows a wakeboard to slide in and not move at all, very simple but super smart feature. Works awesome. The one thing I dont like about the interior is the transom seating. On the seat in the picture there are 2 small compartments with hinged billet doors with drains at the bottom. Functionally these arent good for much of anything and as you come off the throttle from surfing these get flooded and drain into the bilge which only activates the auto pump after a long day of surfing but I still have to manually activate the bilge at the end of each side. Very minor but the bilge of my LSV was always perfectly dry and the bilge pump never ran once.
In water: Boat handles like nothing Ive ever driven. At 30mph you can yank the wheel and the boat doesnt lean at all. Feels like driving an old direct drive. Nothing compares to this boats handling. Boat handles chop well, not as good as the Mastercrafts however.
Wakeboard: Have only ridden it without any weight and it was adequate. Very wide and definitely will benefit from weight. Mellow lip, not extremely firm but I assume this will firm up with weight.
Wakesurf: Best of the bunch here and all my friends agree on this one as they too have ridden all the other boats on this list. Our setup is the stock liquid lead package, 500 up front, 200lb in each corner plus the plug in play with a 650lb horseshoe up front and 1100s in each locker. The 1100s dont fit perfect but i assume they fill to atleast 90%. The wave is the longest of the bunch. The face isnt as clean as the mastercrafts, but it works just as well as the messier face doesnt get in the way of any tricks. We have been running the port side at boat 100% full, skim setting(barrel only works when you list the boat and the skim is still better), 10.8mph, smart plate anywhere from 25-50% as anywhere in between doesnt change the wave much. As for the starboard side we drain the port side tank to 90% just to overcome prop wash and the wave is just as good. The wave is still really good without the slight list, but we are just trying to optimize. The side to side transfer is fast and easy.
Our local dealer has been outstanding to deal with and a big reason we went with the supra.
At the end of the day our rationale was such. Its really hard to beat the supra as it comes stock with a ton of desirable options and surfs so well without much effort. In the end it came down to cost as our boat came in about 15k cheaper than what we would have wanted an x30 to have option wise and with that significant of a difference in price we couldnt justify the cost of the x30.
We just hit 25hrs after 2 weeks of having the boat and it has been awesome. Couldnt be happier with the boat and that we were able to stay in the skiers choice family.
http://i1302.photobucket.com/albums/ag121/freshturk/867fb7ef-fa11-4aa7-8ae2-85ac295740d7_zps53165b26.jpg (http://s1302.photobucket.com/user/freshturk/media/867fb7ef-fa11-4aa7-8ae2-85ac295740d7_zps53165b26.jpg.html)