Your Boating/TMC History

[formulaben]

So cool...I kneeboarded behind a Jon boat with something stupid like 25hp.  He had to move to the middle seat with arms reaching back to the tiller in an effort to lower the bow and get it up on plane!  A barefooter guy in a Mastercraft watching this fiasco came up to us and actually congratulated the effort!

[braindamage]

@AKjoe is that a orange pfd around your brother’s neck? And it must’ve been pretty cold given what your dad is wearing.

[braindamage]

So here's my story:  I have always been part of a boating family.  My dad is a bit boat-crazy, mostly sailboats, but just about everything.  I can't count how many boats he's owned, but when I moved out after college I think he owned 10 boats (at that time...not successively).  My family bought a home on a lake when I was 5 from my grandparents.  We originally had a late-50's/early 60's purple runabout.  See pic below.  Not the same boat, but it's close.  We had it for about a week (from what I remember) and it left my dad stranded in the middle of the lake twice and that was enough.  It's my first memory of a boat.

We had tons of sailboats, which was my dad's first love, and even owned a sunfish sailboat rental business.  He bought another runabout and it turned out to be a workhorse. 1966 Evinrude 150hp v-6. Again, the pic isn't the exact boat, but it was identical.  We loved it.  I think it was 16' if you rounded up.  She ran like a champ and we used to ski and tube (using real black tractor tubes).  She once pulled up 7 skiers at one time, 3 of which were on slalom skis.  I would drive it down to the public beach on my days off when I was 13-16 and talk kids into going out with me.  I must've been a pretty good salesperson, because looking back I can't imagine a parent letting their daughter/son go out on the boat with a young teenager...but they did.  I taught just about every kid in town how to ski and tube.  I'd make ski ropes out of poly line and a cut-off handle.  My dad owned a hardware store so we could get those cheap!  I learned to slalom and loved every minute of it!

When I was 16 my friend who's parents owned the local marina called me.  There was a divorce boat available.  1986 Chris Craft Scorpion 187 200hp 5.0L V-8.  It only had 4 hours on the engine and included trailer, hoist, skis, jackets, tubes, ropes, etc for the price of the new boat alone.  It was a steal.  My dad was not interested, saying we already had a ski boat.  I talked 2 of my other siblings into pooling our money and buying it and my dad sold the evinrude.  I then bought my siblings out as they went off to college.  By 18 was the full owner of my own ski boat.  I named her "Braindamage" because of all the partying and aggressive skiing we did behind her.  She was awesome.  People referred to our home as "that house with all the cars" because of how many of my friends would be over to play during the summer.  The fact that my parents took off the entire month of August to stay at their cabin in the UP of Michigan (which had no phone) also was a factor.  We partied, skied, tied-up, sand-bar-d and had a blast.  Alas, I held onto her until my final semester of college, when I sold it to my dad to pay for the last bit of tuition.  He re-named her "Speedy".  My parents had her until 2017 when the stringers rotted to the point where the engine mounts failed.  so sad.  (see pic of me, my kids and some cousins long after I sold her to my parents)

I graduated, moved to LA, where I lived on a 30' Catalina sailboat.  Invited friends over and sailed all weekend, had a blast, cleaned her up Sunday afternoon and worked the weekdays to do it again.  Living on a boat in Redondo Beach harbor was awesome.  Unfortunately I sold her when I moved back to the midwest. See pic - not the same boat, just a pic of what she looked like.

I was boat-less for 18 years.  I would ski behind Speedy (Braindamage) when visiting my parents, but that was only 1-2x/year.  I loved it, though.  Marriage, kids, mortgage, job, dogs, moving, remodeling, lake cottage, etc took up my time and money.  I had a "list" of big purchases that my wife and I would keep and I always had "ski boat" on it.  Eventually I worked the list down so that a ski boat was the next purchase.  I didn't have alot of budget, but I knew I wanted an inboard.  I did a ton of research, found TMC, and bought the "perfect" family ski boat, a '00 Sunsetter Lxi.  It was, however, a mess.  It was 11 years old in Arkansas and was stored outside, in the water, uncovered, year-round.  I got her for a song, but had alot of work to do: new interior, electrical work, gauges, stereo, battery, starter, moldy carpet, chalky gelcoat, scum on bottom, ding'd prop...  My middle child, who is the only other skier in the family and loves boating was my mate and worker during her rebuilding.  It was a ton of work, but she was looking brand new and ran beautifully 4 months after we brought her home.  She's been a joy ever since.  Having a boat led us to eventually buy a home on a lake and we love every minute of it.  I tried to surf her for a few years, but the stepped hull wouldn't work.  Mostly I open water slalom, go for margarita cruises with my wife, and take her downtown for drinks/dinner.  TMC has been awesome, and without the site and all the members helping me along, there's no way I would be where I am.  This is the actual, factual boat, with my wife, middle son, and youngest daughter from a summer 5 years ago. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by braindamage

[formulaben]

Great story!!

[ahopkins22LSV]

I love that picture of the Chris Craft. Same color scheme as the 16’9” one we had. We only had an in-line 4 in ours though lol. This reminds me I need to dig up pictures of my dads old boats. 

[AKjoe]

7 hours ago, braindamage said:

@AKjoe is that a orange pfd around your brother’s neck? And it must’ve been pretty cold given what your dad is wearing.

Yup—Type II pfd! 

[ahopkins22LSV]

Here are a few pictures of our 98 Moomba Outback, my 13 TXi and my dad's new 18 Tracker, and of course our 19 VTX . The older boats we had I will have to find the actual hard copies of photos lol.

Oh, and yes those are domed number registration numbers on my dad's tracker  

[CBray4]

@ahopkinsVTX That old school Moomba is sweet! 

[ahopkins22LSV]

1 hour ago, CBray4 said:

@ahopkinsVTX That old school Moomba is sweet! 

Thanks! It was an awesome boat for us. I'll try to find pictures of it sacked out to surf lol.

[UWSkier]

Definitely a theme going here.  I also grew up in and around boats.  My family has owned property on the same lake in Northern Wisconsin since the 1940s.  When "my" first boat was new in 1973, it was a damn hot-rod in those parts.  This was my Grandpa's boat.  He had 7 kids, all pretty active types.  The old 65 HP Johnson was a finicky thing to keep running, but it got the job done.  It looked just like this only with a Johnson instead of a Merc.  Mean Green.

My dad decided after I was a few years old that he needed his own boat since he wanted to learn how to barefoot (off a kneeboard, long line...).  So, through friends at Mercury (we lived in Fond du Lac WI at the time) he bought a 1985 Four Winns Horizon 190 with a 5.0L 230HP Mercruiser.  It was a beautiful, solid, nice-riding boat, but it was a dog out of the hole.  Still is.  My uncle still owns it and it still looks practically new.  Looked exactly like this.

After three years of struggling with a boat that wasn't fast or hot enough for barefooting, and one that made a monster ski wake, my dad bought his dream boat (at the time).  This 1988 Concord Mach 1 with Merc 175 would rip your arms off out of the hole, top out at 70+, and made a ridiculously small slalom wake.  The performance-oriented hull wasn't the straightest-tracking, but if you had it trimmed in with the hammer down, you could make turns like those ridiculous jet boats you see on the YouTubes racing down in Australia.  Just insane performance.

One thing the Concord didn't like... at all... was running below 25 MPH.  Since my younger brother always catches on to the latest fads, we started wakeboarding around 1998 or so.  The Concord didn't like that.  Around that time, a guy on the lake with a Concord similar to ours flipped his over.  We towed him to shore, helped him bail his boat out, and unknown to me (a dumb college kid at the time, with an even dumber younger brother) put the Concord up for sale.  Mom's orders.  Can't have wreckless boys driving a boat that can flip that easily (I did almost lose it end-over-end in a headwind once).  That all worked out well when the next spring we went up to the lake, pressed the button to open the garage, and this was sitting inside.

This boat is the ultimate crossover, and will be the last ski boat my dad owns.  He's bought a bunch of fishing boats since then, but he LOVES his Malibu.  So does everyone in the family.  They simply don't make them like this anymore.  Malibu's attention to detail around this era was unlike any other.  Little things.  For instance, the observer seat hinge is upholstered so you don't have an ugly bare metal hinge sitting there.  The industry doesn't have a disruptor in it like Malibu was at that time.  The seats are far more plush and the whole cockpit feels far more luxurious than newer boats.  That and there's just something to the lines of the older boats.  So, I joined MBO shortly after it launched, then moved over here when that whole thing went down.  I'm a sponge for knowledge about stuff I like like boats, sleds, etc.  Since I've built up a near encyclopedic knowledge of these older boats... and since I love the lines of the older boats so much, I decided I needed my own.

Here is my '01 last fall that I found in Oregon parked at casa de @NWBU staging for her journey to her new home

Gratuitous action shot with @kdspindl at the wheel... I think...

Edited April 30, 2019 by UWSkier

[braindamage]

18 hours ago, ahopkinsVTX said:

I love that picture of the Chris Craft. Same color scheme as the 16’9” one we had. We only had an in-line 4 in ours though lol. This reminds me I need to dig up pictures of my dads old boats. 

I loved that boat. My friend had the 169 with a 4 cylinder and it was a dog. The 200hp would pull you right up with 2 or 8 people in the boat once we propped her down. 34mph skiing was 5500rpm, though. Huge wake wasn’t so great.

My dad isn’t so great at maintenance and it killed me to see her degrading. I wanted to rebuild her but my wife (wise beyond her years) said it would not be a good idea.

[ahopkins22LSV]

4 hours ago, braindamage said:

I loved that boat. My friend had the 169 with a 4 cylinder and it was a dog. The 200hp would pull you right up with 2 or 8 people in the boat once we propped her down. 34mph skiing was 5500rpm, though. Huge wake wasn’t so great.

My dad isn’t so great at maintenance and it killed me to see her degrading. I wanted to rebuild her but my wife (wise beyond her years) said it would not be a good idea.

It was definitely a dog! I learned to deep water start behind that boat though!

[sic0048]

My grandparents lived on the water in the "Northern Neck of Virginia" - where the Potomac River empties into the Chesapeake Bay.  I would spend my summers there as a child.  We had a 14' or 16' runabout that I learned to ski behind.  However the jellyfish were so numerous that we wore sweat shirts and pants (we couldn't afford a proper wetsuit) to keep from getting stung.  We didn't ski that often given the jellyfish problem, but it was a great introduction to boating.

It wasn't until college that I met a guy who was a serious waterskier.  His family had a '87 Mastercraft Prostar 190 (this was in the early 1990s) and he taught me to drive an inboard boat and slalom ski (course and free ski).  We both ended up teaching waterskiing at a summer camp for a few years.  Those were great times.  I think we put about 800 hours a summer on their inboard boats.  The camp bought 4 new boats every year.  One year we had Ski Brendella's (a piece of junk) and the next year they had Mastercrafts.

A couple of years after graduating from college, his family moved from the area, but my parents retired and bought lakefront property on the same lake I was use to skiing on.  We quickly bought a '93 Mastercraft PS 190 which we had for many years.  It was just a couple of years ago that we moved up to a '04 Malibu Response LXi.  My kids are now teenagers and we are definitely blessed that we live about an hour from the lake/my parents.  It has taken a while, but my kids are finally to the point where they enjoy waterskiing.  For a while, I thought I wasn't going to get them to do anything but tube!  

Edited May 1, 2019 by sic0048

[Slayer]

23 hours ago, UWSkier said:

Definitely a theme going here.  I also grew up in and around boats.  My family has owned property on the same lake in Northern Wisconsin since the 1940s.  When "my" first boat was new in 1973, it was a damn hot-rod in those parts.  This was my Grandpa's boat.  He had 7 kids, all pretty active types.  The old 65 HP Johnson was a finicky thing to keep running, but it got the job done.  It looked just like this only with a Johnson instead of a Merc.  Mean Green.

My dad decided after I was a few years old that he needed his own boat since he wanted to learn how to barefoot (off a kneeboard, long line...).  So, through friends at Mercury (we lived in Fond du Lac WI at the time) he bought a 1985 Four Winns Horizon 190 with a 5.0L 230HP Mercruiser.  It was a beautiful, solid, nice-riding boat, but it was a dog out of the hole.  Still is.  My uncle still owns it and it still looks practically new.  Looked exactly like this.

After three years of struggling with a boat that wasn't fast or hot enough for barefooting, and one that made a monster ski wake, my dad bought his dream boat (at the time).  This 1988 Concord Mach 1 with Merc 175 would rip your arms off out of the hole, top out at 70+, and made a ridiculously small slalom wake.  The performance-oriented hull wasn't the straightest-tracking, but if you had it trimmed in with the hammer down, you could make turns like those ridiculous jet boats you see on the YouTubes racing down in Australia.  Just insane performance.

One thing the Concord didn't like... at all... was running below 25 MPH.  Since my younger brother always catches on to the latest fads, we started wakeboarding around 1998 or so.  The Concord didn't like that.  Around that time, a guy on the lake with a Concord similar to ours flipped his over.  We towed him to shore, helped him bail his boat out, and unknown to me (a dumb college kid at the time, with an even dumber younger brother) put the Concord up for sale.  Mom's orders.  Can't have wreckless boys driving a boat that can flip that easily (I did almost lose it end-over-end in a headwind once).  That all worked out well when the next spring we went up to the lake, pressed the button to open the garage, and this was sitting inside.

This boat is the ultimate crossover, and will be the last ski boat my dad owns.  He's bought a bunch of fishing boats since then, but he LOVES his Malibu.  So does everyone in the family.  They simply don't make them like this anymore.  Malibu's attention to detail around this era was unlike any other.  Little things.  For instance, the observer seat hinge is upholstered so you don't have an ugly bare metal hinge sitting there.  The industry doesn't have a disruptor in it like Malibu was at that time.  The seats are far more plush and the whole cockpit feels far more luxurious than newer boats.  That and there's just something to the lines of the older boats.  So, I joined MBO shortly after it launched, then moved over here when that whole thing went down.  I'm a sponge for knowledge about stuff I like like boats, sleds, etc.  Since I've built up a near encyclopedic knowledge of these older boats... and since I love the lines of the older boats so much, I decided I needed my own.

Here is my '01 last fall that I found in Oregon parked at casa de @NWBU staging for her journey to her new home

Gratuitous action shot with @kdspindl at the wheel... I think...

I totally agree on the older boat styling.  They're simply flat out sexy machines!!  I nearly bought a SSLXi when I found my RLXi.  Had I not found the RLXi, I would have purchased the SSLXi and would still own it today.  I'm kind of crazy owning 2 Mailu boats right now, but I don't see that changing anytime soon.  We love the RLXi (Gen1 - Killer ski wake and sexy lines) and we also love our 22VLX.  Now....if only the weather would cooperate so I can use the hell out both of them, all would be well in my world.....

[UWSkier]

32 minutes ago, inlandlaker said:

I totally agree on the older boat styling.  They're simply flat out sexy machines!!  I nearly bought a SSLXi when I found my RLXi.  Had I not found the RLXi, I would have purchased the SSLXi and would still own it today.  I'm kind of crazy owning 2 Mailu boats right now, but I don't see that changing anytime soon.  We love the RLXi (Gen1 - Killer ski wake and sexy lines) and we also love our 22VLX.  Now....if only the weather would cooperate so I can use the hell out both of them, all would be well in my world.....

Nothing crazy about having a real ski boat and a wake boat, especially when the former is holding its value so well

[ahopkins22LSV]

Guys, this thread has some great posts in it. I know we are all passionate about our past stories and boats but we can’t have the swearing. Please remember that swearing is not allowed per the TOU. 

[LateNightSalami]

I haven't paid the site membership yet so I can't really post pictures directly. But I will try to describe as best as I can. My grandparents lived on a lake (same house where my mom grew up) but didn't have much money. Often had to try to enjoy the lake on a budget when I was growing up. The first boats I remember with them were one of those old tan deck boats with the under powered I/O engine and a "pontoon" boat. This pontoon was so low level you literally had to bring lawn chairs on it to have a place to sit. It was just a floor covered in that crappy grass green outdoor carpet and some light aluminum railing. The driver would have to stand and the thing wasn't super stable (kind of felt like attaching a motor to a boat made of cork) but it got the job done for lake fireworks days.

The deck boat was...interesting. It was old even for the mid 90s standard and was that tan color that I assumed came out of a 70s aesthetic and somehow survived for a while in the 80's. It was missing the windshields and the engine was always having trouble and we were always trying to find cheap ways to fix it. This lead to fun shenanigans like the throttle being reversed at one point and we only discovered it when my dad almost ran over my mom when attempting to launch the boat. Had only a couple of fun memories on this boat but basically any kid will have some fun memories on a boat thatis functional and can pull a tube. We eventually got rid of this money pit because we were sick of sinking money into a boat that needed to be fixed every other month. Made it difficult to enjoy.

Que probably my favorite boat of all time: This boat was everything the previous boat was but was smaller and actually worked. It was a 16 ft Rinker Wedge. It was that exact same tacky tan color as the previous boat. It had no wind shields like the previous boat. It was an underpowered I/O like the previous boat (a "120Hp" engine that I am convince made about 90 Hp). The speedometer didn't work like the previous boat...but that sucker was RELIABLE...once you knew its quirks. The main one was the starter was going so about 3 in 10 attempts to start the engine would ever actually work. Once we learned how to use a screw driver to bypass the faulty starter and just hotwire the engine to the battery directly that boat was pure, cheap, care free joy. We beat the heck out of the thing constantly and it always started up and worked. Tubed and skied for hours. I learned how to trim the prop a and turn at just the right radius to make a giant wave at the center of a half circle that I could hit at just the right time so the tubers I was pulling would launch a good 6-8 ft in the air...this was not easy on the hull. We left the boat in the water (no boat lift) and I don't remember ever seeing 1 osmotic blister. The downsides to the boat became sort of endearing after a while. Sure it took a solid 10 seconds to plane out when I was trying to slalom ski behind it but you can bet my deep start form quickly became immaculate! Heck, probably the funniest time was when the thing literally sank. I was going to meet a friend at the "lake house" (grandparents had passed away at this point) and he called me up and had to send me a picture of it under water in order for me to believe he wasn't joking. Said he saw some fish swimming around in it. Fortunately it was in shallow water so a high volume pump easily raised it (it was pumping water out faster that water could come in). The rubber "boot" around the I/O rotted out and the battery eventually died from gradually pumping out water for a week straight. You would think this would spell the death of this boat: HECK NO. Sure the engine refurbishing wasn't cheap...but it was A LOT cheaper than getting another boat and it arguably ran better after all the little tune ups. It was back to its old self (screwdriver hotwire start and all) in no time and we were back to beating the hell out of it. My favorite thing about it was probably how laid back we could be with it. If the driver bumped into the dock while docking it I didn't really care (the dock was all wood anyway so it wasn't going to scratch much). Probably my only real gripe with it was it was a pain to cover. Since it had no wind shield I had to stack garbage cans in the driver and passenger seats to keep the boat cover elevated so it wouldn't collect rain. For this boat though almost all of the down sides turned into fun characteristics to laugh at and its reliability made everything easy and fun. We had to sell this boat when we had to sell the lake house during the economic down turn. Really sad times.

8-10 years later...

Finally, my wife and I manage to get back to Michigan after living in PA for 5 years. We find a lake house in Brighton area and start saving up and looking for our boat. Initially I wanted something like a old cheaper '95 Response or something. Something to get on the water in a respectable price and do some skiing. We could also have a pontoon if we wanted. My wife was having none of that. She wanted a 1 boat solution that would do what we wanted and look awesome doing it. Tough to argue with that I suppose. With the direct drive out the window (for friend and room purposes) and super old Vdrives being non existent we committed to spending quite a bit more if we could find the right boat. One day in 2016 or so she found a listing for a tricked out '08 VTX that had literally all the options you could get for that year. This is the add photo for the boat we have: https://tinyurl.com/y5hlvt37

It even had a full exile sound system. The guy selling it was loaded. The hull was in immaculate shape and it was serviced every year (sometimes the oil was changed during both winterizing AND summerizing the boat). He was only selling it because he decided he wanted a bigger malibu with a touch screen. Really hard to say no to that one. I genuinely love this boat but I will say that there is a certain freedom in having a boat you can both enjoy AND neglect that makes me miss that old Rinker Wedge.

Edited May 2, 2019 by LateNightSalami

[hawaiianstyln]

I guess my story would be that I grew up on Oahu surfing all my life.  I became competitive, but was SOOO sick of the crowds, especially the line-ups on the surf breaks on North Shore.  Got so annoyed I gave up and heard about wakeboarding in 93.  I used to travel to my friends house and wakeboard on the Mainland in AR.  Started to get good at wakeboarding but it was always distant to me since I had not known the sport to be in Oahu.  Left for college (Oklahoma - OU) in 95 and was able to ride more during college.  Came back to Oahu in 99 and found a skiing club on Hickem Air Force base, Oahu.  Ski'd for them for a few years until I found a Malibu dealer on Kauai.  Flew over with my dad and bought their demo boat they used on the Wailua river.  2000 Sportster LX!  Shipped that back to Oahu and then found the Oahu Water Ski Club.  Became a member and pulled all my rookie driving and screw-ups at the club, but they taught me a lot.  Eventually I became reputable driver for tourneys.  Won a few wakeboarding tournaments at the "Hawaii Wakeboard Pro-Am" tourneys and finally got sponsored as a CWB Team Faction rider.  I found out quick about this site when I had to do all my own repairs on a Malibu.  Kauai Malibu dealer wanted me to rep Malibu for Oahu.  Then flew me back to Merced Plant in 2004 and Malibu told me to pick out my boat to have out in Oahu as the rep.  The orange VLX in the pics below was the Flagship boat they built specifically for Brostock or US Open I can't remember.  Shipped that back and had fun on that boat in the islands until I moved to Arizona and shipped her with me in 2005.  2007, before SquareOne inc. started up (Ronix/Radar), Paul Obrien invited me to come to Radar Lake and test out a new product with my best friend Grant Kalkoske (former global director of Sales for them) which was the "Ronix One" months after I tested it.  Got in big with AWA (Arizona Wakeboard Assoc) competing and driving for them.  2012 I moved to MI and then bought the 08 VLX.  Now I'm getting old, take one exhibition run and get crazy in the air, then take Ibuprofen and several beers to go hangout at a local sandbar with island style music blairing!

RADAR 2007 (maybe it was 06 I can't fricken remember haa)

Edited May 3, 2019 by hawaiianstyln

[REHinH20]

6 minutes ago, hawaiianstyln said:

I guess my story would be that I grew up on Oahu surfing all my life.  I became competitive, but was SOOO sick of the crowds, especially the line-ups on the surf breaks on North Shore.  Got so annoyed I gave up and heard about wakeboarding in 93.  I used to travel to my friends house and wakeboard on the Mainland in AR.  Started to get good at wakeboarding but it was always distant to me since I had not known the sport to be in Oahu.  Left for college (Oklahoma - OU) in 95 and was able to ride more during college.  Came back to Oahu in 99 and found a skiing club on Hickem Air Force base, Oahu.  Ski'd for them for a few years until I found a Malibu dealer on Kauai.  Flew over with my dad and bought their demo boat they used on the Wailua river.  2000 Sportster LX!  Shipped that back to Oahu and then found the Oahu Water Ski Club.  Became a member and pulled all my rookie driving and screw-ups at the club, but they taught me a lot.  Eventually I became reputable driver for tourneys.  Won a few wakeboarding tournaments at the "Hawaii Wakeboard Pro-Am" tourneys and finally got sponsored as a CWB Team Faction rider.  I found out quick about this site when I had to do all my own repairs on a Malibu.  Kauai Malibu dealer wanted me to rep Malibu for Oahu.  Then flew me back to Merced Plant in 2004 and Malibu told me to pick out my boat to have out in Oahu as the rep.  The orange VLX in the pics below was the Flagship boat they built specifically for Brostock or US Open I can't remember.  Shipped that back and had fun on that boat in the islands until I moved to Arizona and shipped her with me in 2005.  2007, before SquareOne inc. started up (Ronix/Radar), Paul Obrien invited me to come to Radar Lake and test out a new product with my best friend Grant Kalkoske (former global director of Sales for them) which was the "Ronix One" months after I tested it.  Got in big with AWA (Arizona Wakeboard Assoc) competing and driving for them.  2012 I moved to MI and then bought the 08 VLX.  Now I'm getting old, take one exhibition run and get crazy in the air, then take Ibuprofen and several beers to go hangout at a local sandbar with island style music blairing!

BOOMER!

 

[hawaiianstyln]

1 minute ago, REHinH20 said:

BOOMER!

YES!!

[JeffC]

Oh man, I LOVE This thread.   Even though I have only had time to read a few posts, it is a trip down memory lane!   I can tell catching up on the rest of it will be a lot of fun.   My story is a couple of "bookends".   

In my early teen years, my brother (14 years older than me) bought a 16' Larson with a 100hp Johnson outboard.   I remember the first weekend I got out on it - the night before I could not sleep at all... couldn't wait to try water skiing.  The next day the addiction started... and I skied until I couldn't move.   We had a lot of fun with that boat, learned to slalom, fish, and generally enjoy being out on the water, including getting the #)$* scared out of us when we got caught on lake Erie in a bad storm.   Had he not had a full convertible top, we would have absolutely capsized out by West Sister island, and I probably would not be typing this now. 

In '74, he bought a brand new 19' Silverline Comoro. It was chocolate brown and cream colored, and he put the biggest motor the hull was rated for, a Evinrude 150.   It was an awesome slalom boat, and it solidified my addiction to boating.  It was WICKED fast for its time... we used to unload it, and race his neighbors Checkmate at dusk on glass water. It would top 60, chine walking all the way down the lake.   I dont know if my brother knew, but I sure didnt understand how dangerous that could be.   Unfortunately, his wife tore her hamstring deep water starting on the slalom, and that slowed the boating time down a lot... He felt bad about taking the boat out and leaving her behind, so the boat sat more and more.  I went off to college, and skied less and less. 

in 1982, I was nearing graduation, had my job offer, had bought a motorcycle (1974 Suzuki 550 - a three cylinder two stroke air cooled motor that was STUPID fast - a crotch rocket before the name was coined).   A good friend bought a 21' Mark Twain, and we spend every decent weekend of the fall of '82 and spring of '83 heading to Brookville lake on the bike with my GF,  and two other couples. 

Then there was the big gap.   Started the career.   Married my soulmate.   Had four kids, and watched them grow up.   Every once in a while, we would talk about buying a boat, but never did it because we were convinced it would just sit while we went to football, soccer, track, dance, ... .... ...   Probably a good thing that we didn't buy it then, it might have spoiled boating forever because I would have sold it in frustration after a year or two.

Fast forward to fall 2014... Kids grown, and mostly gone.   We got the boating itch pretty bad, and I bought this 1997 Crownline 182 with a 5.7L Mercruiser.   Another fast boat, and a great runabout for the weekends.   

Got back up on the slalom ski, grinned a lot, and proved that I was still a lake rat after all those years.   I also learned that slalom crashes in your late 50's hurt a hell of a lot more than they did in your 20's.   Also learned that an 18' IO doesn't leave a lot of room for people, cramped was an understatement.   By January 17, I wanted to learn to surf so that I wouldn't permanently injure myself falling off the slalom ski, and the rest is history. 

This website helped immensely in figuring out what I wanted/needed, and at the 2017 boat show we ordered our 2017 22 VLX.   

 

Now this old fat dude has more fun than should be legal being a lake rat, and staying active.   Surfing is without a doubt my favorite activity, and I WILL get a 360 done this season before I turn the big 60.   Boat has been summerized for the 2019 season, and all I need is a sunny day, and the fun will start all over again!

 

 

[UWSkier]

LOVE those colors @JeffC!  Looks like my boat's grandbaby! 

[kylesullens]

Started out with a 1974 FiberForm - 1998 (I was 18years old, bought it with a buddy.  I learned a lot from this boat!)

2001 - Bought a 1997 SeaDoo for 2 summers during college

2003 - 1995 Bluewater Eagle

2009 - 1999 Centurion Elite V (bought during recession for $15k.  Put 300 hours on it, sold 8 years later for $19k)

2017 - 2006 Malibu 23 LSV

 

Barring something catastrophic, the LSV should be our last family boat.  The boat is big enough for our family and friends and will do all the water sports we are interested in.  The electronics and shiny paint on newer boats is cool, but we don't make payments on toys.

[hawaiianstyln]

On ‎5‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 1:25 PM, kylesullens said:

 The electronics and shiny paint on newer boats is cool, but we don't make payments on toys.

agreed on that for sure.  Plus I can't get the motivation to drop $100K+ on a boat that my 08 VLX can basically do.  Sure I have to slap on a wake shaper if we surf, but we don't surf often. 

[Pnwrider]

I’m bored waiting for my truck Bedliner to get installed so I’ll play along.

I started out boating on family vacations when my uncles would bring their boats. My dad and his brothers grew up boating and waterskiing. They used to ski every day after work in the summers. My parents ended up getting an RV so most of our summers were camping heavy with maybe a boat trip once a year. I tried to talk them into a boat when I was a kid, but no luck (usually Mom was the roadblock, more on this later). In jr high my best friend was big into waterskiing. He had several top 3 finishes at nationals, a house on a private ski lake, and a Malibu response! He got me hooked on Malibu’s. He would upgrade annually through a promo program so always had a new boat. I remember thinking how fast the Malibu got up to speed and how much power it had compared to my Uncles i/o. After college I got into motorcycles and boats became an after thought. My wife hated motorcycles and made me promise when we had kids the streetbikes would go. Before my daughter was born, I started looking for other hobbies to replace motorcycles. I brought up boats and my wife went along with it (that’s how much she hated me riding streetbikes).

I bought our first Malibu when my daughter was 2 weeks old. A 2003 21 vlx. Bought it with a friend as I was unsure how much we would use it and wanted to offset some of the risk you hear about boat ownership. We had that boat for about 3 years and put about 50 hrs a year on it. Making great memories along the way. At the end I started wanting to surf and that boat had to get slammed to get a decent wave. The lakes around here get super choppy/busy, a slammed 21er did not make for a fun boating experience. That plus our second kid, decreased how much we used it and I sold to my boat partner. The funny part here is when I told my mom I was gonna sell the Malibu. She responded by telling me not to sell it because my kids love it so much. My dad still gets a good laugh out of that one. 

I wasn’t totally boatless as I also picked up several aluminum boats boats along the way for fishing and hunting out of. I still have an 18’ Lund for running the rivers and the occasional crabbing on calm days in the salt water if a buddy’s boat isn’t available. 

Fall of 2017 I started shopping for a new boat. I wanted the ease of surfing the newer boats provided but I didn’t want to spend 100k on a toy. I wanted to get the new axis a24 that was coming out. After a demo, I just couldn’t love it and was getting up there in price anyway (budget creep seems to be an issue of mine). I was encouraged to stop by the Malibu dealer and try to work a deal on a 23 lsv. The rest is history, took delivery last spring and love the boat. Now it’s me bringing the boat on our annual vacations! My uncles still own their boats (both owned since new), but somehow they always seem to get left at home.