Thoughts and demo rides of wake / towsports boats: Moomba Max, Axis A22, MB Sports

[MattFX4]

Is it full-time or "on-demand" surf mod of the stern? - is it just really a big deck boat re-branded?

--

See my 2nd post. I grabbed a screen shot from montaraboats.com

 

[MattFX4]

 

[swatski]

Hard to tell for sure, but those are most likely more like the hurricane deck boats/pontoon hybrids but... with a V-drive? Kind of crazy...

--

 

[BigAbe75]

I’ve recently gotten sucked into a Centurion dealers YouTube channel (Boatco). Are you guys looking at those too? Any idea how they compare? I’m learning all about their Deep V hull and various tabs, etc. But, dang this is confusing. Lol!

‘Course, the channel has a short video on financing options and one of the credit unions they work with will go out 20 years. Maybe that’s indicative of something by itself, and I should just unsubscribe because I’ll never be able to afford one??

Their Ramfill ballast will fill the factory ballast in 45 seconds, that sounds cool. The last boat I looked at said it would seat 18 and/or support 5,000 lbs ballast. Holy cow!

 

[OrangeTJ]

Centurion is making awesome boats right now. The Ri and Fi boats are gorgeous and apparently throw awesome waves. None of these inboard wakeboats are inexpensive, and that goes for Centurion, too. Figure $90K - $120K (kinda explains why they offer loans that are basically mortgage terms). 5000 lbs of ballast is certainly nothing to sneeze at, even though that is becoming more and more common in the surf-oriented inboard market. That's the same as my MB, before accounting for the 650 bow bag and the 250 in leadwakes bags. On just about any wakeboat, seating for 18 is a marketing ploy, though. Yeah, the boat will easily hold the weight and their might be a spot for every one of those butts but it is going to be skin-to-skin! I guess that could be a good thing depending on who's aboard!

 

[BigAbe75]

On just about any wakeboat, seating for 18 is a marketing ploy, though. Yeah, the boat will easily hold the weight and their might be a spot for every one of those butts but it is going to be skin-to-skin! I guess that could be a good thing depending on who's aboard!

Lol! I don’t have that many friends anyway!!

I was a little embarrassed after overloading my SX210 this summer at the family reunion. That was only 11 people I think and we couldn’t get anywhere near on plane, so larger capacity interests me. Although, it’s only an issue 1 week out of the year. I really think the new 1.8 engines would have made all the difference in that instance, though. I’m sure a Yamaha 24’ is going to be in my future.

My family is still young, and not too in to wake sports yet, but my wife and I and 11yr old All got into surfing this year. Still have a 2 and 5yr old. I’m big enough, I wonder whether I need one of these boats with a more powerful wave to keep me going. I’m looking forward to a little more practice next year with @RampRage and @jcyamaharider 24 footers, now that I have my own board, next year. And, maybe I can talk @007 or @trace into a ride behind their Tige boats at Shelbyville, just to see.


I’ve also subscribed recently to Shaun Murray’s channel and hear him really talking up Nautique, and the Wake 9 guys really talk up Supra.

And, one of the activities that I really want to do is some cruising. Cumberland River to Nashville, or I almost made it to the Charleston to Hilton Head run last May. And Bimini is on my bucket list. I’m thinking these wake boats really aren’t well suited for those kinds of activities??

 

[OrangeTJ]

No reason you can't "cruise" in a wakeboat just like you can any Yamaha, with the exception that I wouldn't really want to go out on the open ocean in one. For that matter, though, I wouldn't really want to go out in the open ocean in a Yamaha...but I'm sure they're better for that than most inboard wake boats. In shallow, rocky, or stumpy water, obviously there's less to worry about with a jet. The ability to back a jet almost all the way up to the shore is quite awesome, too. You won't be doing that in a V drive. For pretty much any activity behind the boat, I think you'll find that a wake boat will provide a superior experience. Obviously, Yamahas can be made to surf pretty well with a host of mods, too. Pretty sure the wave behind a surf-system equipped v-drive with 3,000 - 6,000 lbs of ballast on top of 4,500+ lbs of boat weight is going to be stronger, though.

There are a lot of great wake boats, some better suited to chop than others. My MB F22 handles chop (well, really any conditions) quite a bit better than my SX210 did. No problem at all getting up on plane and cruising with any amount of people who will physically fit in the boat - 14 has been our biggest crew so far, and it was tight. We ran all over Lake Tahoe with our family of 5 and two other families of 4 this past summer and had a blast. Top speeds on these boats will seem quite low compared to I/O or jet boats (think 34 - 40 mph) but I've found that I just don't care. We typically cruise between 24 and 29 mph and the boat is quite comfortable to purr along at those speeds for as long as there's fuel in the tank. WFO on mine is 39.5 mph, rev limited.

 

[MattFX4]

Lol! I don’t have that many friends anyway!!

I was a little embarrassed after overloading my SX210 this summer at the family reunion. That was only 11 people I think and we couldn’t get anywhere near on plane, so larger capacity interests me. Although, it’s only an issue 1 week out of the year. I really think the new 1.8 engines would have made all the difference in that instance, though. I’m sure a Yamaha 24’ is going to be in my future.

My family is still young, and not too in to wake sports yet, but my wife and I and 11yr old All got into surfing this year. Still have a 2 and 5yr old. I’m big enough, I wonder whether I need one of these boats with a more powerful wave to keep me going. I’m looking forward to a little more practice next year with @RampRage and @jcyamaharider 24 footers, now that I have my own board, next year. And, maybe I can talk @007 or @trace into a ride behind their Tige boats at Shelbyville, just to see.


I’ve also subscribed recently to Shaun Murray’s channel and hear him really talking up Nautique, and the Wake 9 guys really talk up Supra.

And, one of the activities that I really want to do is some cruising. Cumberland River to Nashville, or I almost made it to the Charleston to Hilton Head run last May. And Bimini is on my bucket list. I’m thinking these wake boats really aren’t well suited for those kinds of activities??

I also really like what Centurion is doing. I haven't looked at one in person, but from what I see on social media I am impressed. Don't think you would have a problem getting on plane in a wake boat with 11 people unless you had several thousand lbs of ballast loaded also. My buddy has a Supra with the 450 engine and the torque is unreal. It wouldn't keep up speed wise with my 242ls, but his boat had way more low end power.

 

[swatski]

My 0.02

I LOVE Centurion. Really a dream boat in many, many ways.

Yet, sharing time between a beautiful and deep lake (like our fave - Bull Shoals Lake - where a Centurion would be my hands down first choice) AND a river (or ICW/offshore cruising) - YJB it is...

To me - if one considers YJBs’ shallow draft (having nothing hanging down there!), added redundancy of twin engines, and (almost impossible to swamp) self-bailing decks (and not to mention I routinely run with 10-12 people on board ) - there is hardly a better choice in the market right now...

(Unless one has the time and the luxury of being able to maintain multiple vessels. )

—

 

[DavisAR195]

View attachment 84127

With how fast the pontoon industry has been growing this will be a game changer I feel.

 

[haknslash]

Looking at the hull of that “pontoon boat” looks like it’s going to ride rough as hell like any aluminum flat bottom Jon boat. They fill that hull with 5.000 lbs and claim to ride at 42 mph even when all ballast is full saying surf boat wallow at those speeds. Nobody rides around WOT with 5,000 lbs of ballast because of fuel burn lol. The time it takes to fill or drain ballast these days using decent pumps does not take forever so most people empty their tanks if they’re just going to cruise around as it makes no sense to hit your wallet burning the fuel for no reason. It’s also no longer accessible to shallow coves like an outboard pontoon because that surf version comes with a PCM onboard engine so there will be a prop that can’t be trimmed out of the water like your typical pontoon with an outboard. Lastly that thing looks worse than a HeyDay!!

If you have ram fill on a Centurion it takes a second to fill thousands of lbs of ballast. They use a scoop made into the V of the hull just before the prop. There is a gate inside the scoop and it opens to allow water to flood the hard tanks as ty get up to speed. I think they added Ram fill around 2014 or 2015 so if you want a Centurion those are the years to start at. Older Centuirions I looked at didn’t have ram fill and there was not a lot of storage space because of the hard tanks and older models didn’t have a lot of freeboard or deep storage so something to consider. If you have a boat that uses Quick Fill gates on the transom for the hard ranks like MB and Supreme it takes about a minute or so. You can actually fill them faster if you drive slowly in reverse as they fill from the transom. Just have to be careful not to blow out a bag if it’s plumbed in-line with the quick fill hard tanks. MB uses a port directly from their hard tank to also fill the rear bags making fill times real quick if you use this technique.

 

[swatski]

Looking at the hull of that “pontoon boat” looks like it’s going to ride rough as hell like any aluminum flat bottom Jon boat.

Exactly!
This looks to be a Franken-toon, lol, with a flat bottom and a prop you can not trim!
Fun.

Oh, wait. Hurricane has been making those (and a bit more stylish) for the last decade! They call them deck boats.

--

 

[haknslash]

My local Supra/Mastercraft/Moomba dealer who has stayed in touch with me all along the way just texted me asking when I could come in for a Makai demo! Planning to check her out next weekend and can’t wait to see it in person and get some time behind the boat on the wave! I’ll bring the GoPro along and get some footage.

 

[2kwik4u]

So I'll just leave this right here.....and hope @haknslash does a review in the near future

Family Wake Boat

 

[haknslash]

@2kwik4u heh it was mentioned a little earlier in this thread. It's ....interesting...that's for sure.

 

[OrangeTJ]

So I'll just leave this right here.....and hope @haknslash does a review in the near future

Family Wake Boat

Lots of comments about it above. Based on the pics, it looks to be a flat-bottom aluminum boat with a "pontoon style" upper deck and an inboard drive. That hull is not likely to ride very nicely. At all. I'll take the deep V and proven wake performance of my MB (or that of a number of other wake boats) every day of the week. Perhaps the hull design will turn out to be something other than it appears to be, though.

 

[MattFX4]

I like the layout by yeah it may ride like hell. Hard to tell. In some pics it looks like a tri toon

 

[OrangeTJ]

View attachment 84127

Looks quite monohull here. I also found this line from their website quite entertaining: "1,000,000 square foot ultramodern factory building weapons grade carbon fiber yachts". That is hard to take seriously.

 

[2kwik4u]

Guess I missed those posts. Whoops. Can't read 'em all I suppose.

And here I thought I found something new.

 

[spatty99]

Just pulled the trigger on a new 2017 Moomba Helix. I'll report back on how it compares to our 2008 212X, but I was exceptionally impressed on the demo ride.