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Mastercraft wake


Than_Bogan
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To @Sully - When our local promo owner got his new 2011, a local Big Dawg skier who skis into 39 said the wake was uncomfortably firm even at 38. Before the first tournament with that boat, the owner changed the prop and it completely changed the character of the wake (to soft). I never skied his boat with the original prop, but I did ski it in the tournament with the new prop and thought it felt great.

 

To @skibug - The prop he changed to was: 13.0 X 14.5 with 301Q ZO version.

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My ski partner gets into 39' off regularly behind out 197 TT an comments frequently about a trough coming out of the second wake...i on the other hand have absolutely no problem with the wake at 39' off.....and probably never will if you catch my drift.
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Shortenit, Was the the through bolt missing? At least that is how MB has mounted them in the past. If that was missing, yes you could just pull it up and out!

 

For awhile the promo boats came with the pylon laying in the floor and I had to put the bolt in.

 

Or was the "glass" busted?

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Since I (accidentally!) started this craziness, I want to make a few more comments:

 

1) Any wake issue is *relative*. For about a decade now I had never even noticed the wake, so it came as a total shock that it was "there." Nobody should imply from this that this boat is somehow worse than boats from the 70s or 80s! (Sheesh.)

 

2) A lot of posters appear to be missing the one relevant observation that has come out of this, which is that *some* Mastercrafts seem to have *relatively* bad wakes under *some* conditions, but IT MIGHT BE FIXABLE. My thanks to all who contributed relevant experience or advice.

 

3) This boat was IN NO WAY responsible for my poor skiing at Regionals. I did that all on my own. I was just curious about the wake because of what I said in (1) above.

 

4) There was nothing unfair about this boat or any other aspect of the conditions. We all skied with the same stuff, and while most of us tanked it, Scott B kicked complete ass!

 

5) (Somewhat of a tangent, not directly to this particular boat.) As I've stated many times on other threads, I'd like to see most future focus on hull improvement go toward -15 and slower speeds, even if that turned out to mean I'd have to get re-accustomed to actually noticing the wake at -28 and -32.

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I decided to look at the scores of those divisions that skied behind the MC at the SR. Specifically those at 32 mph or less. So, it appears that in the G1, G2, B1, and B2 , more than 50% of the skiers fell on their first pass. Last year, these divisions were pulled by the SN200 and I do not recall many of those same skiers missing their first passes. Keep this up and there will be less skiers in the Regionals and Nat's next year. I hope not. I would like to see the sport grow.
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You can order the prop through your dealer or through any OJ supplier. The prop is not on OJ's website yet, but they do have them in stock as of last week. The 13x14.5 is the recommended prop for the 2011 MC Boat. It raises rpm's around 100-150 at 36 mph for slalom but gives a better holeshot. I think it skis great.

 

I'm just going to say this and get it over with. If you still complain about wakes with any of the recent boats.... get a life. Work on your skiing and quit complaining about everything else. I start at 34 -22 and ski behind all of the big three all the time. No complaints from any of them. There is always going to be a wake, and if you dont like it, start doing 3-event cable skiing.

 

As far as B1, G1, B2, G2, if you want a nice wake at 15.5mph then you will need a slalom only built boat, as it will not work for tricks anymore, and if it has a nice wake at 15.5, it will most likely be terrible at 34 and 36. A lot of kids ski great behind anything you put them behind. Lets put more focus into how to improve this sport rather then just always make up excuses for what is thought to be bad.

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"A lot of posters appear to be missing the one relevant observation that has come out of this, which is that *some* Mastercrafts seem to have *relatively* bad wakes under *some* conditions, but IT MIGHT BE FIXABLE. My thanks to all who contributed relevant experience or advice."

 

This was the exact point I was trying to make.

 

 

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I think Horton should just lock this one up. It is and will not go anywhere. I see the obvious and at the same time, my daughter PB'd twice on a 2011 MC. This boat was set up properly. I have seen many a MC not set up properly. Which is a shame. Want to keep kids in skiing, knock em down on their first pass. For all those who are not seeing the obvious, I would be happy to pull you with a 1980 SN. And, gas is on the house. :)
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@Skimech I do not like slamming MC (they make a really good product and I think most skiers agree) but I think this is a good topic. Trust me, industry folks are reading it.

 

What fires my up is that in a RPM (PP) world you could change the prop and the change was far less pronounced. Now in a ZO world NO ONE knows what is going on.

 

I heard a story (third person so take with a grain of salt) about the a factory (not MC) asking ZO for help and the reply was “you have engineers, you figure it out”.

 

Take in all that and then wonder…. Is it the boat, the boat set up or the ZO …. Did anyone see M3 scores from the Western Regionals. My theory is the lake was miss adjusted. The east side if the lake was wacky

 

 

 Goode  KD Skis ★ MasterCraft ★ PerfSki ★ Radar ★ Reflex ★ S Lines ★ Stokes

Drop a dime in the can

 

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I certainly think the technical discussion aspects of hull improvments is of great interest. Given the fact that the sport of slalom is pretty small, the market is mostly divided over three manufacturers with interlopers cycling in and out that leaves each manufacturer scratching for a fairly small volume. If the gang on BOS can offer productive advice and the product gets improved, it's a win for all. I don't see a downside in that. The boat manufacturers certainly can't afford the technical tools available to larger producers so a site like this is a tool as Horton noted that they obviously take advantage of for some level of feedback.

 

The technical progress in 2011 has provided us with 2800# boats that have vastly better wakes than the 1980's 2200# versions.

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My 2011 Indmar world team boat with a tower skis deep shortline great. But Lisa struggles at -15 and slower speeds. We often ballast the back of the boat for tricks and are too lazy to remove the batteries - I'm sure that doesn't help her. My boat has a huge gas tank - we never run more than 1/2 full (about the same fuel as full tanks in my old 04). Greg Badal said a different prop might help the -15 wake but I'm not sure what prop I have. And I don't to screw up my shortline wake! No fancy strut but Greg said that won't help Lisa.

 

Jody, my old Marlin Magnum had a great slalom wake. Of course I was young and broke in those days so my boat never had more than 5 gallons of gas in the tank. Tournaments were run with full 45 gal tanks and three big people in the boat and the wake was awful. It took a lot of ballast weight to make a good trick wake. But we always removed the weight to slalom. Light weight boats rock for slalom!

 

Horton, my slalom was great at Regionals! I did lose in tricks but that's OK, Kirk beat me!

 

Eric

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Well said Richard. pretty much sums it up.

 

"my 2011 MC 197 WTT with the 6.0 Ilmor has been a great machine, no problems with Jump or Slalom, just with whiners who need to complain about something. Keep your ski on edge and out in front of you where it belongs, and worry about more important things like handle control and "vision up". It's definitely got a larger wake for the Jr. skiers, or slow speeders, but it's funny how the boys and girls don't say a word, it's the little league parents that do."

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@LeonL - "Roger, is the boat with the soft wakes Lou's? I'm pretty sure that I skied behind Lou's boat at Regionals and the wake/rooster was fine. Really soft. "

 

Yes, Lou's boat has a great wake. So do both of the South Florida Promo boats (Joe Luzoro and Paul Spencer) after changing props. I spoke with Lou last night and he has both props and changes between them from time to time. He says it makes little difference on his boat which has the old strut. He said he has heard that with the new strut, the 13.0 prop makes the wake softer. I have no way to verify this info since I don't think I've skied behind the old strut with both props. I do know that Paul's boat had a stiff wake all the way to 39 before the change to the new prop and he has the new strut.

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Scores behind MC 2011 South regional.

W-1> 4 competitors total= -7 buoys of average, W-4> 8 competitors total = - 348 buoys off average, M-1> 8 competitors total = - 37 buoys off average, M-3 >21 competitors some non data on averages total -144 buoys off average.

Top 3 seeds of G-1 & G-2

G-1 = -39 buoys off average, G-2 = -14 buoys off average.

30 % fall ratio on openers.

PB's total = 1

Phone call Arm cloud yes there are jump segment problems will make right for Nationals

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Not sure what that proves, here is W3 with actual score followed by average score (no one skied their average):

Cordeiro - 92, 94.33

Garcia - 90.5, 91.5

Burt - 89, 93.67

Wood - 88.5, 89.5

Birdwell - 58.5, 61.5

 

Boat = SN200

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Counter point - SCR Regionals - Slalom events pulled w/ MC.

G2 Top 10

Score Avg

91 91

85 85.33

85 85.33

80 83

78.5 80

74.5 75

71 67 (pb)

69 71

68 70

68 70

67 68.5

 

Women 1

91.5 91.75

88 90

63 64

57 60

57 61

51 52

 

Women 4

83 85.5

75 78

74 74

74 84

62.5 63

62 63

 

So, if the MC wake is so bad, why didn't the scores at a high-pressure, one-shot tournament go in the tank? Rarely do skiers perform up to their 12-month average in a single round "L" tournament but most were pretty close. And, looking at all of the scores from SR, it seems performances were down for some reason. Perhaps conditions? Not sure. But considering Houston was under a tropical storm warning (Don) all weekend, I thought the scores were pretty good.

 

 

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I do not own a MasterCraft. I own/ski behind a 2010 SN 200. But several of my club members skied behind the MC w/o issue.

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Stats can be skewed to make anything look good or bad. I can't believe we are really talking about wakes in 2011. Just because someone didn't ski their average or above at Regionals doesn't mean the boat was the problem. Many people buckle under pressure.... Its a shame that the boat is getting blamed for lack of performance.
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Malibu Pylon update: Not specifically on topic, but posted here because it was previously brought up on this thread.

Malibu has told us that a 3/8" thru bolt was mistakenly omitted from our boat, hence the pylon coming loose. Easy fix, dealer will install, problem solved. Unfortunate to be sure, but it happens. Look at the auto industry, or for that matter any industry and there are similar incidents. Glad it all ended well.

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I've stayed pretty quiet on this issue for the obvious reason of not wanting to be accused of drinking the MC cool-aid too much, but this really is kind of crazy to be sending e-mails to AWSA and MC demanding changes to the boats. The evo hull has been in production for a decade now, and the changes for 2011 were the new strut with a differently pitched prop and the new Ilmor engines. Now there is some weight difference between the Indmar's and Ilmor's but not enough to cause a major upset in the boats balance so that is a wash and the new strut certainly isnt going to make the wake larger.

 

Within any of the tournament boats there will be variation in weight of some degree just because of the way that the resin is sprayed, again a negligible amount, but the single biggest weight difference will come from having a tower and added weight in the bow. As some have mentioned it seems some of the promo guys are running alot of weight in the bow which certainly could be a contributing factor, but as most of you know the biggest contributor to wake feel is the prop. So before jumping all over MC checking that the boat has the correct prop for its setup would be a great idea ie did the owner put the prop for the inmar motor on an ilmor powered boat and vice versa. While its true that there is some troubles with ZO that isnt something that MC will let slide, since they are in the business of tournament water sports and one of its biggest supporters (lest all of the CC and BU guys forget that), and no one at MC wants to hear of their boats being accused of not performing as advertised.

 

Frankly I was somewhat surprised when I read that someone thinks that the MC's wake is dangerous and they think it could kill someone! Given that most of you are a little more advanced in age most of you were around when the 2001 and older CC's were around and no one died from skiing through one of their wakes. Taking a pragmatic approach and making sure that if you're child is going to ski behind an unfamiliar boat making sure they have good edge control versus blaming the boat seems to be a more constructive approach to me.

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@MCskiFreak

I think that there are 2 issues.

 

One is that there seems to be a ZO issue with jump. I do not understand it at all but I think that is where the "kill" comment came from. As I understand it, all the boats have the same jump issue - perhaps it shows up with MC more.

 

Second is the wakes. I ski behind a lot of boats and also do not understand what the deal is. I have no idea if the complaint is a perception or a reality. My wild guess is that it is about props.

 

MC has made a quality product for 40 years. They have had some up and down years but generally I consider them to make as good a boat as anyone.

 

I am not shutting this thread or the others down but I would like to ask you guys to not get too carried away.

 Goode  KD Skis ★ MasterCraft ★ PerfSki ★ Radar ★ Reflex ★ S Lines ★ Stokes

Drop a dime in the can

 

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@Horton, The ZO issue with jump is only with Mastercraft because Mastercraft is the only one who forced a change in ZO software. CC and Malibu are running the same software as last year. MC required a change in ZO software which is where the jump problem came from. The boat tries to run away in the second segment (last ZO timing segment.)
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I don't post on here much, but this thread got me a bit intrigued. Our lake doesn't have a MC, but we had a promo MC pulled our tournament (strictly slalom) and there were a fair number of complaints about the MC wake. I will say that the wake seemed harder than the SN 200, but it wasn't something that should affect performance; however, for the kids, it was noticeably larger than the 200 and greatly affected the kids at the slower speeds.

 

I will also say that the MC was a great looking boat with a lot of attention to detail and I wouldn't hesitate to ski behind one in practice or a tournament for that matter (although I would prefer the SN 200).

 

As for the death comments, those seem a bit extreme as with this sport, it seems like there is always a risk of death or serious bodily injury as many of you can attest to.

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I've been reading this thread with great interest. I don't have any statistics to add, but have had direct experience this year, and especially this last weekend. Looking back at my ski log, I've skied behind at least 5 2011 MC TT boats at 3 different sites (and a 2012 MC TT today-gorgeous boat with a great wake). All but one had great wakes. The boat in question had the hardest, biggest wake I've ever seen-on what appeared to be an identical boat. I took the worst fall of my ski career on it. Skiers from beginners to 35 off (not regular skiers behind this boat) commented on the hardness of the wakes. So my logic is that something is different (my best guess is the cupping of the prop) and it would be worth it to find out what. It it definitely not true of most 2011 MC's, but evidently there is something in some of them that creates a hard, big wake. I would love to be a good enough skier not to need a bit of forgiveness on the wake. But for the sake of keeping my body in one piece, I'm going to avoid that boat.
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The fact is that at 17-34 MPH longline and 15 off, the LXI and MC have a much bigger wake. Ask any kid on the dock or ask any 26-32 15 offers. They will all tell you that it is bigger. Some stronger skiers will be able to ski the wakes with not much of a change in average. I spoke to a guy who has 2 pretty good G2/G3 skiers last year at the Ranch. He was looking for a new boat and was blown away about how great the 200 wake was. I told him he needed to get one. He said, "no way, I need my girls practicing behind the big wakes so that when they get the 200 they PB and dont have to worry when they draw the big wakes at tourneys". (nice reason not to buy the best) My wife tells me last week that she wants to buy a MC just so she can get better behind the big boats. CC will go out of business due to having the smallest wakes.

Again,

My last 3 PBs have all been behind the MC.

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It appears to me that given the volume/number of comments relative to the issue at hand, there probably is something that may be contributing to the variation in wake size of a particular model of boat. Given that a boat is pretty much a solid object that does not change, there probably is some specific cause creating the condition (prop pitch/cup/type/trans ratio, accessories such as tower/bimini, or perhaps boat loading such as ballast/fuel). The most productive thing would be to corral one "good" one and a "bad" one and determine the different factors particularly if some of the company reps can be in attendance. I'll bet the root cause could be narrowed down fairly quickly. The upside is that now the owners of these boats can tune their ride to practice behind whatever type of wake they want at any time. The three top manufacturers all make great boats but with any advancement in technology there are unintended consequences that arise (at least it is not wings falling off or gas pedals sticking. . . now those have produced the overly dire consequences mentioned) and nobody is immune to that.
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I was thinking the same thing. Ski behind a MC to be prepared for the big wake. Then, one of the engineers in our ski club says why beat your knees up everyday crossing the wakes. I saw this statement as a valid point. We ski behind a SN. The MC doesn't bother me as the ZO doesn't either. But, the kids do have a bit of trouble with it and they do get psyched out when it shows up at the starting dock.
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I suggest the point is that the 'big three' had finally been producing boats, with skiability similar enough to be a non issue. Denying an identified problem doesn't make it go away. I've skied behind only one new MC- it has a wake I'd call an anomoly compared to Malibu and Nautique. When MC brought out the 1998 boat, it was quickly nicknamed the "Deathstar"- VERY hard, large wakes. I personally saw juniors get slammed and hurt. With skier complaint/input they provided a band-aid fix, that at least made it skiable until the next hull series revision came along (in 2001?). We were all happy until the Infinity showed up- made the '98 MC wakes look benign. They 'fixed' it too. but it (thankfully) went away.

If ZO needs a software revision to spare rerides in jump then we need to pressure them to provide it, BEFORE Nationals. Denying a Record because the speed control can not run proper times is unacceptable. Skiers have a lot of time and money invested in getting to Nationals, they deserve the best ride possible.

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Mrs. MS. Sorry for the delayed response to your question. My daughter skis about 2/3 of the time behind the MC and 1/3 behind the CC. From the get go I have tried to teach her to focus on balance, balance, balance and understanding that balance is something to control. I have seen a lot of kids who pull really hard off the ball and let up through the wakes which is a logical thing to do when the wakes are huge. I figure if my daughter can hold a solid edge all the way through with slow speed wakes, she'll have that skill down pat forever when when the speeds pick up. Just reminding her to plan for the wakes and not be surprised by them seems to make a big difference.
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Right on Richard! I've skied and driven them all and have attended lots of junior events this year and no complaints. My daughter is G2 and prefers the MC for both trick and slalom. I use to run 50 lbs in the nose of my 2003 197, great tracking and small wakes. I test drove an skied several sets on the 2011WTT I just purchased and it's a dream all around. No need for nose weight on this one.
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Questions... (Just thinking about what if...)

If boat "A" is undisputed as having smaller wakes for certain slalom speeds than boats "B" and "C", then are the scores submitted behind these different boats really comparable?

Should all sanctioned tournament scoring require that the boat year/make/model be captured for every ride?

If that data were captured and showed a consistent correlation of performance (good or bad) to a specific boat, would we want to go to some handicapping of scores to neutralize the boat differences?

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