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I am one of the few who actually own a Ski Nautique 176. If you are not familar with these boats they are a much smaller version of the 196. Being a small boat there is not much room for fat sacs. With that in mind I came up with these boxes. The side boxes slip right over the sacs once they are filled. They are sturdy enough to sit and stand on. The stern box is my ghetto version of a sun lounge. It holds a 550 lb Fat Boy. No more tripping over sacs!
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those are really trick. very well done. i always liked the idea of the 176 tho i have never ridden in one on the water. how does the wake compare, both slalom (fatsacs empty) and wakeboard (sacs full) to that of the same model year 196? how does the boat drive? -
1st off, thanks to who ever resized the pics!
As far as the wakes go, I really don't ski. We use the boat 100% for wakeboarding, so I really couldn't give you a good answer about the slalom wake. For wakeboarding I load it with around 1300 lbs of ballast. The wake is actually very nice. I have a friend who has a '94 196 and our wakes are noticeably different.
The wake behind my 176 is more rampy than that of the 196. It has a really nice shape to it. Being a bit of a smaller boat it also doesn't take as much ballast to get it sunk down in the water. This makes for a slightly larger wake using the same amount of ballast. However, since my friends 196 has more room and a higher powered engine, he can load his down with a lot more ballast than I can and end up with a larger wake.
As for how it handles, the tracking is awesome. It is very reponsive and has the ability to make very tight turns. I changed out the prop from a 3 blade 13x17 to a 4 blade 13x16 to get a better hole shot. This of course reduced my top end speed quite a bit, but the change was well worth it. Even with 1300 lbs of ballast and 4 adults in the boat the hole shot is really good.
The only knock I have on this boat is the lack of space. When it's loaded with guests and gear it's a bit cumbersome to move around in the boat. However, this is balanced out by the ability for this puppy to fit in my garage!Comment
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