CLOSE
Sign up to get news on contests, pro events, new products and special offers.
WATERSKI MagazineWe choose six standouts from the deepest class of stern-drives ever.
It's early Saturday morning, the first evidence of spring being a thin layer of fog rising from the lake. You rally together a few accessories – wide-body slalom, wakeboard, kneeboard, tube, vests, ropes, handles, chicken salad sandwiches, mountain spring water and two kids. Your ride awaits at the water's edge. Unless you plan to make pit stops back at the dock to reload every 30 minutes, that boat better be big, strong and flexible. In all likelihood, it better be a stern-drive.
There isn't a more practical class of boat on the water. True, it might not be a rail-rider in the slalom course, and maybe you won't mistake the wakes for marble. Does that really matter? In no other type of boat can you pack 10 skiers, every ounce of their skiing gear and 50 gallons of fuel, while still maintaining a skiable field of water at the other end of a tow line.
On these pages we reintroduce a half-dozen of the best stern-drives on the market. You probably remember some of them from our past tests. However, these boats are constantly evolving. Every year the folks who make them show up at our lake site having committed another year of research to creating better machines for skiing, boarding, Air Chairing and carrying a good time. Take a look.
