WAKEBOARDINGの Oct-12 の目次

Mike Ennen recently wrote an article about how the Northwest wakeboard scene is in a revival; and its hosting the MasterCraft Pro Wakeboard Tour is proof. Lake Tye in Monroe, Washington, guaranteed buttery conditions for stop 4 of the Pro Tour; throw in those notorious green mountains as a backdrop and you've got yourself one of the raddest contest sites around. The weather was a bit cooler at this stop, but the riders were prepared to lay it all on the line for the victory. Phil is hot right now. He's been doing tons of promotional stuff for his new TV show, all while staying focused on his riding as well. In my opinion, he's the most calculated rider in our sport. Every time he gets on the water, whether…

The new X-Star's seat is pulling triple duty as a regular, forward-facing bench seat, a rear-facing action seat, as well as an onboard bed that's bound to make the sun pad just a little jealous. With a giant billet-aluminum handle on the top that's begging to be clutched for a smooth conversion, there's really nothing to the mechanism on the transforming seat, and we love that because it means there's nothing to break. With the handsome, integrated look that we've come to expect on any innovation coined by MasterCraft, the convertible seat will be a comfortable addition to any new X-Star rolling off the line. Nautique's convertible seat is so much more advanced than its previous rear-facing solutions, it's not even fair to compare it. There are no pieces to…

MasterCraft's X-2 is proof that you can have a crossover-friendly 20-foot boat that doesn't sacrifice the luxury and performance the company is known for. With larger-than-its-class storage, exceptional handling and wakes that ramp up for surfing and wakeboarding in a classic MasterCraft shape, the X-2 provides plenty of performance and quality at a size that's trailer and garage friendly. Not convinced of the wake performance of a 20-foot boat? MasterCraft pro rider Josh Palma cut his teeth on the X-2 while he was building up his trick arsenal before he got the X-Star. The X-Star would have dwarfed the dock space he was confined to at the time, so MasterCraft let him put the then-new boat through its paces. Palma was skeptical of the “jack of all trades” genre of…

Supra's new VISION Touch is a 7-inch screen that controls everything in your boat. Ballast, GPS speed control and mapping, seat height and climate control (that's right, it's integrated with your standard seat heater to keep you comfortable on those chilly days), rider profiles and driver presets are all at your fingertips. That last one is really impressive, being an all-new feature that lets you customize your cockpit and call it up at the touch of a button. Notwithstanding these amazing features, however, we're most impressed with the ease of the user interface on the VISION Touch. You don't have to get certified at a weekend training course, and odds are you may never even crack the manual on this thing because of its intuitive menu layouts and self-explanatory buttons.…

By now you've probably all seen the video of Brian Grubb, wide-eyed and amazed, as he seamlessly crosses from one side of the surf wake to the other within the span of a few seconds, and with that one transfer, changes the face of wake surfing forever. Is it that easy? Can a boat really change from goofy-foot surfing to regular with the flip of a switch and no weight changes? In a word, yes. It's fairly simple hydrodynamics that Malibu figured out to produce the most revolutionary surf wake the sport has ever seen. Recently, Jack Springer, CEO of Malibu Boats, and the Malibu Team shared the developmental path and the physics behind its new timesaving, game-changing Surf Gate. Why does a boat have to be rolled at an…