Nautique future developments?

[thedude]

MB had a 2 speed tranny a few years ago. I'm not sure if its still in use. It was coupled to PCM engines.

Diesel would be awesome, especially if it were bio compatible for the "brew your own" crowd. Otherwise...

Dual fuel engines. Natural gas and petrol/diesel. Fill up the CNG tanks from a compressor located at your house. I mean, the USA has such abundant supplies right? Folks around the world have done this with propane. Petrol tank would shrink to 25 gallons or so.

The storage trunks are huge in these new boats, perfect location for 2 CNG tanks. If the boat is heavily loaded, it starts out on petrol then switches to CNG. Could even have a dual fuel diesel engine. Most people use these boats in weather above 60F, so it would work well.

Cost would be high, engine manufacturer getting the kit CARB certified would be a large cost passed along to consumers.

Electric drives for ski boats, they had one a while back. My guess is with battery technology improving, that will come back soon.

The cost of fuel will eventually kill wakeboarding and surfing in my opinion, at least for many. Boat sales were highest in 2005-2006 thanks to a good economy and cheap fuel. Even if the economy improves, fuel prices will always be high.

[TN_Rider]

I always thought if you had a track in between the back seat and motor with about 75 pounds of lead on it that slides back and forth from side to side to level the boat it would work great. Have it on a switch so the driver could adjust it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jrz1]

Wouldn't the system get thrown off and over react when turning?

Would need steering input sensor to elim any changes while turning.

[perry386]

How about an advanced ballast management system that has an auto-leveling feature both side to side and front to back which monitors the boat's position constantly while underway and self-levels to a preset position based on changing loads (ie people moving around etc.) to maintain a desired wake shape. I'm constantly fighting to get clean wake on one side or the other or both. There has to be a way to figure out what the front/back and side/side attiude needs to be to obtain various size and shape wakes. The current pre-sets are OK but by nature they are static settings to obtain a certain wake profile based on the weight of the boat at the time. Change the number of passengers, fuel etc., speed and those preset will likely still get you close but not precise. I'd like a system that gets you 95%+ of the way there all the time based on a given load/speed etc.

Totally agree with this. Malibu is heading the right direction with this. What they have now is sort of silly but it's a step forward. Right now I talked to a guy at the boat show and he said that malibu is developing an app for your smartphone that communicates with the MALI-VIEW system and what you do is lay the phone on the floor while you are riding and it uses the accelerometer to decide where the weight needs to be, it then sends that information to the boat and the boat empties and fills ballast accordingly. Silly right now, but it could open doors for further development which is great.

[DanielC]

My opinion, it is really not that complicated. Tell you passengers the wave behind the boat hat thas more white needs more weight. Even high school freshman giirls can figure that out. Too bad they really do not have a lot of weight to move around.

[hondaprlud]

My opinion, it is really not that complicated. Tell you passengers the wave behind the boat hat thas more white needs more weight. Even high school freshman giirls can figure that out. Too bad they really do not have a lot of weight to move around.

Like



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kopp210]

The auto level really isn't necessary at all but would be a nice to have feature. If you have a highly skilled driver perfect pass isn't necessary, but with it almost anyone can give a good pull.

My girlfriend can even drive with PP but I end up waving my arms in crazy motions to get people to move, most of the time unsuccessfully. Then they get up to get drink or change iPods and sit back in different place again.

Also sometimes we ride private lake with just driver in boat, everytime we trAde sets we have to reposition lead bags to account for different driver weight. And there is some time of trial and error time lost there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Brichter14]

There is a guy out of peoria that makes a device for mastercrafts that can judge where weight needs to go in the boat to level it off. When i went out on a demo with danny harf on an x25 it was on there and once everybody got seated where they wanted to, they checked this gadget and filled ballast accordingly.

[BWB-745-]

I always feel that I'm constantly asking the fatter person in the boat to move here, or sit there.

[s_kelley2000]

Tell you passengers the wave behind the boat hat thas more white needs more weight. Even high school freshman giirls can figure that out.

Yup. Easy way for inexperienced passengers to remember that is to tell them "the white side is light side". But keeping 50-100 lbs of easily movable lead really helps to dial things in.

[vision]

CATS system needed.

[Laptom]

1. Multiple good board racks. 2 racks on a boat is crazy when you have a large crew
2. Good working cruise control for the river. The river mode on the link system is junk
3. Tower with good overview. The current 2 leg towers are really blocking the view for the driver imho.
4. Automatic ballast system, indeed like discussed before; ask for a shape & heigth of wake, the computer will calculate the level ballast & other setups (NSS, plate, etc).
5. Although the G series are Great, I think Nautique will/can bring a new design philosephy to the wakeboat community. We don't need heavier boats, just smarter designs which can influence the wake like we want. Think like water gunnels, NCRS next generation & NSS combined. Something like the KITT second version, but then for the water.
6. More efficient powerplants, PCM is already a great powerplant, but why not combine it with hybrid, diesel or other technologies (we are already running for 600hrs on propane on our 230, was a $750 DIY modification, but since then only refueled our petrol tank for 4 or 5 times in 600hrs). Here in Europe it getting really problematic to afford a wakeboardboat with an efficienty of 8-10 gallons an hour (we pay around $12,5 per gallon, more on the water, so you are easily spending $125 or even $150 for an hour of fun on a loaded G23/G25, this has nothing to do with a hobby anymore. If Nautique/PCM could design the G23 & G25 (or even a G27) with an fuel rate of 4 gallons/hour on petrol, that would sell like warm apple pie).

7.

[DanielC]

There are a lot of comments on fuel economy on this thread.

YOU CANNOT IGNORE PHYSICS!
It takes a lot of energy to make a big wake. You have to sink the boat into a large hole you create in the water, so the water will rebound above the level surface of the water to create the wake. A big heavy boat operating at or close to displacement speeds is always climing out of a hole, to create that huge wake to surf, or wakeboard on, the wake that rolls on for hundreds or thousands of feet. Where do you think the energy in that wake comes from?

My Ski Nautique, uses about 3 to 3.2 gallons per hour.

[Laptom]

True about that, but you need to keep you mind open for more efficient technology's to create a hole in the water. It is possible to get more efficient without using weigth, but perhaps the dynamics of hull or add on's can get optimized. Bigger is not always the only solution!

[laurie8888]

Snap in carpets for the 200 specially for salt use


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk