About this forum
Ski Boat Forum opened in November 2025 for people who run an inboard V-drive and are tired of wading through pontoon and bass boat threads to find out why their surf wave is flat.
Inboard here means the direct drive and V-drive tow boats: Malibu and Axis, Mastercraft, Nautique, Supra and Moomba, Tige and Centurion. Surf boats, wakeboard boats, and the older three-event ski boats too. If it has an outboard hanging off the transom or a sterndrive leg, there are better boards for you and I will not take it personally when you go find them.
It is run by Reed S., who posts as mod_reed_s. Reed spent eighteen years driving boat for a ski school on a lake outside Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, pulling slalom sets at six in the morning before the wind came up, and now winterizes and commissions inboards at a marina on the same lake from October through May. He owns a high-hour 2008 Malibu Response that he refuses to sell. He reads the contact mailbox himself and is slow about it in October and November, which is the only time of year a marina guy has no time.
What it costs
The server is eleven dollars a month and the domain was fourteen for the year. Reed pays both. There is no advertising on any page, no affiliate code in any link, and nobody has paid for a thread or a spot in one. If that ever changes it will say so here first.
House rules
- Make, year, engine and surf system in every question. A 2019 Wakesetter 23 LSV with a Monsoon 450 and Surf Gate is a different boat from a 2014 VLX with a 350, and the answer changes.
- Weight and speed belong in surf questions. Nobody can tell you why your wave is washy without knowing roughly how much ballast is aboard, where it sits, and what speed you ran.
- Say what you paid. Buying reports without the bid, the trailer and the delivery get a note from a mod asking for them, and most people fill them in.
- No selling boats in threads. There is no classifieds board, on purpose. Linking a public listing to make a point about price is fine.
- If you work for a dealer, a lender, an auction or a marina, say so in the post where it comes up. People posting as owners when they are not get removed.
- Be civil about brands. The Malibu people, the Nautique people and the Mastercraft people are stuck on the same three boards and none of you is going to convert the others.
- Mods move posts to the right board and leave a note where the post used to be. Threads get locked rarely and with a reason written in them.
- Accounts are by email request until the spam settles down.
What this is not
Not a dealer, not a broker, not a marina service desk and not the factory manual. When somebody here hands you a ballast number or a torque spec, check it against your own boat and the owner's book before you trust a tower or a transom to it.