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  • Any wakeboarders on here, with there own boat?
  • xterramac
    Free Member

    The mrs (the proper wakeboarder) and I(the wanna be), along with the brother in law (who’s bigger than me, so is a really really good wakeboarder, honest) are looking into the cost of having our own Mastercraft over paying for tow’s….
    I just wondered if any wakeboard boat owners, could shed a little light on the true costs of running 5.7ltr v8 through the summer…
    Thanks Macca

    doh
    Free Member

    not sure with prices now but iirc it is about £30-40 in petrol an hour in use(although lots are dual fuel these days) + fees + storage + maint + transport having a boat aint cheap.

    lucien
    Full Member

    “their” not “there”, so there! 😀

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    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    We have one with a 5.7L inboard Mercruicer (shared cost). Initial purchase cost (whatever?) + insurance (£265pa)+ service (£300pa)+ winterising (£120pa)+ running repairs (whatever?).

    I worked out approx £2.50 a mile in petrol a few years ago, so probably about £3 now or more. We mainly slalom ski tho at 30-36mph, which will use a lot more fuel than wakeboarding which is usually at 20mph approx? I’d still assume £2.50ish a mile in fuel.

    The way we operate is the core skiers/owners pay monthly DD into a joint account, everyone pays £5 a ski (we kind of fix the distance/time per ski).

    They’re very good engines

    b-a-c-o-n
    Free Member

    Yes, had a Mastercraft Pro Star for 3 years, 5.7ltr V8. I bought it with a friend, which turned out to be the best move I made. I’ll be honest….I wouldn’t do it again.

    I used to store it at a farm en-route to the lake (a lake called Stewartby). Bought a Land Rover defender to tow it, which was great, as the slip into the lake was pretty steep and you simply couldn’t launch it with anything but a 4×4.

    A full tank was around £100, and this was back in 2005. So probably £130 now. That would last maybe 6 hours. It was great to have, don’t get me wrong, there were times when me and a bud had the entire lake to ourselves some summer evenings, awesome. The lake was also a skiing lake, and the old farts who ran the club always insisted that you couldn’t run any weight in the boat, but when we were on our own we would load all the fat sacks, water drums etc and get a decent wake out to your waist !! Great laugh, hitting the double was like being booted into space !

    The running costs aren’t cheap, insurance, winterising, servicing, club membership, maintenance, boat license etc etc. Glad that I had another guy to split it all with. One thing we also did was charge a set amount for buddies, like £20 a day. A lot of the time people using the boat don’t realise the costs, so be up front with them and that normally works.

    If you have somewhere to keep it, thats half the battle, as it started to be a pain getting it from the farm and taking it back….by that time all your riding buddies have dissapeared home !!

    I sold it and simply used another friends boat, he bought a brand new X7 so it was an easy decision. But if I didn’t have access to another boat would’ve thought hard about selling it. All gone now anyhow, just ride the cable. Rock up with you board….ride…..go home !!

    xterramac
    Free Member

    Hey thanks for the info guys,,
    I totally agree, “boats dont run on thankyou’s alone”…

    Ive got a 4×4 and room for storage, so that side of things isnt to bad, buying costs again are kind of covered.. Being an ex merchanic id like to think the servicing wouldnt be to much of a cost. I guess its mainly the fueling of the thing, insurance and winterising.. we have the sea and ski lanes, plus coves near by, but as you know, lakes are better… (if you can get time on them)
    The only other thing we looked at and thought might work out a cheap alternative, but dont know much about them is, a seadoo wake ski… Ever used one?

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    winterising you’ll have no problem with, essentially it’s just flushing water out of the engine and replacing with antifreeze for winter storage. I think our guy also takes the spark plugs out and detaches a few hoses.

    someone at our lake has a Bombadier seadoo thing with a wakeboard tower fitted, they look good and seem ok for towing. jet boats are noticeably underpowered for towing tho (especially big lads), so not sure about weighting them for big wake with that lack of punch, but essentially, they’ll get you wakeboarding.

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    I got told the two best days you have with a powerboat are the day you buy it, and the day you sell it.

    willard
    Full Member

    Put it on LPG and find a place that does gas. Friend of mine had a boat and would never have been able to run it if it wasn’t for being on LPG. As it was, we used to bung him a tenner or so for 40 minutes battering behind it.

    He eventually sold it and started going to the local cable park. A season ticket there is still cheaper than him owning a boat and fuelling it.

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    We’ve thought about LPG conversion, problem for us would be buying it, we ski in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales and take cans of petrol with us.
    I’m wanting the Mercuiser VW diesel engine for ski boats which will run on cheap tractor diesel.

    MarkN
    Free Member

    I used to have a boat years ago. It was good fun but I had an awful lot more disposable income back then. Not sure I could afford it not to be honest. It was a 16ft Dateline Bounty with a Suzuki 115hp outboard 10 gallon tank up front. Great boat with good memories.

    igrf
    Free Member

    jam bo – Member
    I got told the two best days you have with a powerboat are the day you buy it, and the day you sell it.

    😆 Lot of truth in that.

    I’ve had lots of ski-wake boats of different varieties over the years and the best time was when there were three of us splitting the costs all committed and we were single. We used to burn 10 gallons an hour quite often, then we were competing.

    I have to say if I were doing it these days I’d look for a diesel set up and a bit of water where you could run it on red diesel and I wouldn’t ask anyone about the legalities.

    But definitely only if there were a few bods sharing..

    I ought to declare an interest we sell this brand these days but more and more folk are just riding the parks (which the boards our lot make are eminently suitable for).

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    VW Audi V8 4.2L TDi conversion

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    I have to say if I were doing it these days I’d look for a diesel set up and a bit of water where you could run it on red diesel and I wouldn’t ask anyone about the legalities.

    Depends who’s selling the diesel, technicaly to use red it needs to be for heating and you have to sign the book stating how much of the tank is for heating and how much is for ‘transport’. My parents boat uses the exhaust through a heat exchanger for hot water so they stated 50/50, apparently HMRC have been known to make checks on people using a lot for ‘heating’ during the summer months.

    igrf
    Free Member
    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    Depends who’s selling the diesel, technicaly to use red it needs to be for heating

    Tinas, not sure why your parents would be under scrutiny from HMRC for whatever use on their boat as it’s all duty exempt (that’s the only dif between diesel and gas oil), or was this for VAT rates rather than duty?. ie heating @8% VAT, engine fuel @17.5% VAT

    Gas Oil or ‘red’ as you call it, is legally used for all sorts of none road applications including farm vehicles, plant and machinery etc, so what you’ve said there is not right. A fair few petrol stations in rural areas sell it from forecourt pumps. The petrol station up the road from me had a Gas Oil pump until it closed recently, no one has to sign any forms to buy it. It’s not that easy to get hold of otherwise, you’d probably need a tank or a fuel distributor depot nearby. Anyway, there aren’t any legalities issues with running a boat on ‘tractor diesel’/gas oil/red diesel (all the same thing).

    julians
    Free Member

    I have my own boat, it has the 5.0 mercruiser engine. I keep it in majorca , in the water all year round. Its an outdrive boat rather than a shaft driven boat , which has higher servicing costs because of teh outdrive.

    Fuel costs are around £30-40 per hour running, servicing including antifoul(which you wont need if you’re keeping it on a trailer ) comes to approx £1500 per year. Thsi breaks down roughly as £500 antifoul, 200 outdrive, 200 lift out and in water, £600 engine service. Insurance is ~£300.

    There are also mooring costs on top of this, but you wont have these if you keep it on a trailer.

    If you do your own servicing you could run one for a lot less in terms of service costs.

    b-a-c-o-n
    Free Member

    Boarding in the sea can be problmatic. A ski boat isn’t a sports boat, so the flat hull and waves don’t go well together. Plus a lot of the early Mastercrafts use the water for coolant…..having sea water going through the engine is OK, but make sure you flush it through thoroughly.

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