Matt Brown we'll hold ya to it!

[skiyaker]

The April issue of waterski mag has a great article on crossover V-Drives with some good comments from SC's Product Development and Engineering Manager Matt Brown. Among other things, in response to the question what we can expect from crossovers in the future he says "I think there are better opportunities for wakesurfing. There are opportunities for crossovers to be even more high-end slalom and high-end wakeboarding. And there are opportunities in hull design, especially for rough-water rides and comfort."

Not that I can complain- I think my OBV is a pretty darned good cross-over and you guys with the newer ones look like you have a great surf boat but might I hope there's some more hull R&D going on at SC? Maybe a new Supra to rival the nautique sport 200 and Malibu VTX cut diamond hull boats profiled in the article?

[sandm]

hate to be a naysayer, but looking at the makeup on my lake, and sure that most are the same, spending r&d in a new waterski hull would not be a good return, but developing a wakesurf boat that can function as a boarding and a marginal waterski boat would probably get much more attention and more sales..

I see skiers every day, but wakesurfers outnumber waterskiers 10-1 on pretty much any day of the week.

[skiyaker]

hate to be a naysayer, but looking at the makeup on my lake, and sure that most are the same, spending r&d in a new waterski hull would not be a good return, but developing a wakesurf boat that can function as a boarding and a marginal waterski boat would probably get much more attention and more sales..

I see skiers every day, but wakesurfers outnumber waterskiers 10-1 on pretty much any day of the week.

true true. The article points out that for the hard core- whether it's slalom, surf, or wakeboard- they'll get a dedicated boat but that only makes up about 10% per discipline- so you're right that doing like centurion did with the carbon pro in hopes of capturing a small fraction of that 10% wouldn't make much sense. But take my situation; I love to ski though I'm not an expert and really don't need a dedicated slalom boat nor do I want to maintain 2 boats. When you see my boat out it will probably be wakeboarding or surfing- because that's what everybody else does so if we have 5 riders and I'm the only skier then you're right it will be doing something besides skiing most of the time. Still, I'm the guy buying the boat and since I like to ski seeing a few features there like with the Bu's hull design really speaks to me.

[Grant M]

hate to be a naysayer, but looking at the makeup on my lake, and sure that most are the same, spending r&d in a new waterski hull would not be a good return, but developing a wakesurf boat that can function as a boarding and a marginal waterski boat would probably get much more attention and more sales..

I see skiers every day, but wakesurfers outnumber waterskiers 10-1 on pretty much any day of the week.

I totally agree, I grew up skiing but as I got older my water flatness requirements got quite picky, I still love to ski but it's becoming nigh on impossible to find flat water unless your up with the sun and pure ski boats and wake boats by their inherent design don't go well together.

So I figured if you can't beat join em...

[sandm]

Still, I'm the guy buying the boat and since I like to ski seeing a few features there like with the Bu's hull design really speaks to me.

good point. seems like I see the diamond cut on a lot of the vtx boats. am assuming that boat gets the most requests due to the 20ft length and the requirements on some dedicated ski lakes with boats being under 20ft in length. I would guess that's part of the shrinking outback, down to 20ft even.