Jet Boat vs Tow Boat

[djetok]

I am in the process of finalizing my decision on spending $60,000 on a boat. Kids love water sports, and we like to spend time on the lake as a family. What boat will meet our expectations and provide the best all around experience for skiing, wakeboarding, tubing, and surfing? A new 212X, or a used Inboard Tow Boat?

Tow sports behind a Yamaha is obviously not as good as a purpose built boat like a tow boat. A tow boat can do everything a Yamaha can except shallow water. A Yamaha is a better cruising boat, and chill boat. We go out with a group of friends and one friend has a tow boat. 3 of us have Yamahas, and we go in to the shore and then throw a line out of the tow boat to tie too. He will take people out surfing when desired, the funny thing is that is like twice a day. Most of the day we are just lounging, playing horse shoes, or something else.

I think the real opinion of what you should be relies on your opinion. What you think is going to happen and what happens, typically changes with time.

 

[Wisefam22]

If I lived on a lake and had a lift I would probably ly have a dedicated wake boat. I could walk out my back door down to dock and go surfing then put her away for the evening..

That said I dont live in the lake and our Yamaha had allowed us to surf, not as good, tube, wakeboard but also trailer it and explore other lakes, and the ICW.

There could be a case made for both being better but it comes down to what toy want to do as a family and how much you want to do said activities.

 

[mwalker4]

I've seen a couple of articles comparing Outboard, Sterndrive, and Jet Boat. I haven't seen any with the Tow boat included. The weeds in the intake seems to be a big jet boat negative which is difficult to overcome. Not an issue for me on lakes/reservoirs that I go on, but for you it may be huge. It would be nice to find a definitive table comparing all of the boating technologies pros and cons.