New to Nautique

[jtohara]

Hello all! I'm sure this is not an original post, but I am excited to share with like minded individuals. In late November, I bought a 21' 2001 Pro Air Nautique. I live in a small lake community in the Kansas City area. We have been here for about two years. Our first boat was a 1983 Cobalt 18DV. It was I guess what you'd call our starter boat. I quickly realized my family (and perhaps selfishly, me) needed a better boat. It got to the point where my wife and daughter were just embarrassed to go out on the water in the old brown cream puff. I quickly grew to love wakeboarding and I'm interested in other water sports too. I cannot overstate my excitement about what we have upgraded to. I'm sure it is light years ahead of the old Cobalt. I have talked to a several Nautique owners and they all say they are the best boats. I'm interested to hear opinions about the Pro Air Nautique. I've read mixed reviews of the boat, but I want to hear what PN has to say about it, good or bad. I'm a very inexperienced boater (< 2 years), so I'd also LOVE to hear about maintenance tips, or helpful links that will provide detailed information on protecting my investment in the best possible way. I welcome any feedback and look forward to learning from the PN posts.
Thanks all,
Travis

[jtohara]

Adding a picture

Here's a pic...

[SlipNSlideKing]

I've never owned a Pro-Air but I can honestly say this is the boat that got me addicted to wakeboarding! A friend of mine bought one in 2005 and I spent 2 summers on it. It's a great boat, very solid. If you add around 2k lbs in ballast it throws a decent wake (not huge but clean). The engine always ran like a top and maintenance was pretty simple since it's direct drive. Enjoy the new boat!

[Kenv]

The Pro Air is one of the boats that started the wakeboat revolution. I had a 2000 Super Air, but the direct drive has a great wake as well. Lots of friends learned to flip behind the Pro. Enjoy the ride and welcome to PN.

[jtohara]

Questions

On the note of adding 2000 # of ballast, is that harmful to the boat? I was thinking of adding a fat sac in the ski locker, another in the transom storage area, plus the 400 # stock tanks. I think that would get me to a total of about 1000 #, plus the weight of the passengers.

Does anyone have a good website for fat sacs made for Nautiques?

And what about a website for parts? I hope to not have to do much, but I need to change the oil before the season starts.

Thanks for everything guys.

[DanielC]

You do not need to load the snot out of the boat to wakeboard behind it. Run it with just the tanks full, if you need to, and learn to actually hold a cut.

You probably have the Ford GT-40 engine. Use a Motorcraft FL1-A oil filter.
Use Valvoline VR-1 racing motor oil, 40 W

[jtohara]

DanielC, well done. Thank you. Exactly the kind of information sharing I was hoping get out of this site. I do have the GT-40, thanks for the insight on the filter and oil!

[SkiTower]

Does anyone have a good website for fat sacs made for Nautiques?

And what about a website for parts? I hope to not have to do much, but I need to change the oil before the season starts.

Thanks for everything guys.

www.nautiqueparts.com

This is Whitelake's website and they have consistently helped many members. Luckily they are my local dealer. Also, they have a website but they have many parts that aren't on the site, so give them a call. They are the prime source for hard to find decals and are an authorized fat sac dealer. They'll hook you up!

[GoBig]

Here's a pic...

Actually you have an Air Nautique model. The "Pro" Air version used a Total Wake Control (TWC) hull that implemented chimes along the water line of the hull. The intended affect was to raise the bow of the boat creating a larger wake. The performance was marginal and after only a three years in production the design was scrapped.

Your Air model actually is an all around much better hull than the Pro Air TWC. For more info on the differences you can check out the brochures from 1999 to 2001 here http://www.correctcraftfan.com/reference/brochures.asp

Does your 2001 still have the digital gauges? If so, they likely don't work or will stop working at some point. If the gauges have not already been swapped out for analog gauges, you should look in to doing that. There are a quite a few threads on this forum discussing the issue and related swap out.

Looks like you got a clean ride there. Congratulations and welcome to the PN family!