Possible Boats

[wakeboarderdave1]

here is the list of boats I am considering having my dad purchase.

1990 Ski Nautique - $10,500
1992 MC ProStar 205 - $10,000
1988 Supra Saltare - $12,000

If it were my choice I would have my dad get the ProStar and have the interior redone. The Nauti seems good b/c it is close and just needs a tower. we don't exactly have a ton of people ride with us. So a smaller boat seems justifiable. If anyone could offer some opinions as to which boat should be bought that would be awesome

The reason I started a new thread was because I didn't want to have to sift through the other one to find opinions.

Pictures:
Nautique


MC PS 205











Supra Saltare







On the ProStar. Anyone know of a estimate of how much it would cost to repair the seating. I was thinking of buying a whole new seat from Overtons (same color scheme for $270).

[ontrider]

wakeboarderdave1, prostar 205 man! I don't think the interior even looks all that bad from what I see there.

[wakeboarderdave1]

Ontrider got any pics of your boat? I saw a picture of it on wakesiderides.com yesterday and must say that I was very impressed. What kind of things have you done to your boat for boarding?[/b]

[DRAGON88]

Another vote for the 205. A little TLC and that would be one good looking boat! Just be sure to have a leak down test done on it and go after it with some fantastic and magic erasers.

[wakeboarderdave1]

A special thanks goes out to Pet575. He is going to go look at the boat for me tomorrow and tell me what he thinks of it including how the engine is.

Now for the hard part. Convincing my dad that this is the right boat! Anyone got any ideas. I'm willing to pay for the interior to be redone. My dad grew up with a guy who now does this for a living. I'll keep everyone updated on the progress.

[HHI Dave]

[bjeremi]

What year did the 205 haul change into the 1999 X-Star or 205 haul?

[DRAGON88]

bjeremi, 1996 was the first year of the beloved 205 x-star hull. Pre'96 205's are great hulls too.

[Lauri H]

Dave,
You get that Prostar and bring it down here. We'll have a boat cleaning party, and it will look great!
Our first boat (yea, the Bayliner) had sat outside, uncovered at LOTA for 2 years. The interior and exterior were awful. It had at least 6" of rotted oak leaves in it! We washed it down, inside and out, at the marina where we bought it, then went to work on it when we got it home. Took a good two days, but that thing came out beautiful. There were a couple rough spots on the interior, but we got it replaced a couple of years later. Throw a towel over the seats and ride!

[spyd4r]

Go with the open bow

[jrhurst]

that is one clean supra though .

[Commodore]

Okay, everyone knows I am a Supra driver. But I can't believe yall are seriously steering him to the 205. As D88 said the 96 on 205s are a great hull. Especially the 205V. Not only is it not the ultimate X-star hull. That boat is filthy.

Now take a look at the Saltare. That's the Launch hull. You can weight that sucker down a ton, and get a mean sharp wake. Not too mention the gel looks great, and the interior is clean. It looks to have a modern stereo (Sony xplods in the sides) It's much more roomy then the other choices, and a more luxurious boat.

There is no doubt in my mind, out of these three choices, the Supra is the better wakeboard boat, and the nicer boat overall.

Hell send me the link to that Supra. I know a couple of guys that will pick that up in a hearbeat.

[wakeboarderdave1]

I was acctually getting ready to pm you Haugy and see what you thought. I would give you the link, but only after we have decided on which boat we want!

[Commodore]

wakeboarderdave1, the teak is clean, the trailer has been re-painted (they were painted to match the color from the factory, not white). That supra looks immaculate. And as for the hull, that supra will stomp any of those boats for wake, I'll bet my Supra on it. The high deck line is what helps. You can weight ti down a ton and the back end won't end up close to the water line. As for the others, well just don't slow down too fast.

[wakeboarderdave1]

I was thinking the Supra was the way to go. Hopefully it's still around when we get our money for our boat.

[DRAGON88]

Haugy, for me it's really a toss up. The 454 will be great if you start weighing it down a ton as will the high freeboard. BUT the 205 is also very well suited for wakeboarding. Either way I see it it's a win win and I could go either way.

Does the Supra have wood stringers? If so be sure to check them for rot. I think the MC is 100% fiberglass.

[Commodore]

wakeboarderdave1, awww you sneaky bugger. You photobucketed them.

[SouthWaker]

Another vote for the Supra. I am a MasterCraft guy myself, but if the owner was ever so lazy to carpet his cushions god know what else is jerry rigged on that boat. I keep my boat very clean and still manage to get some small spots that none of the cleaning chemicals recommended on here will get out. That is more than mildew on the cushions in the ps 205 and will make "trying" to clean that boat a nightmare.

[Commodore]

DRAGON88, valid point. Yes the Supra will have wood stringers. And not all Saltares had the 454, that was an upfit option. They came standard with a 351w, so check that as well.

[pet575]

Everyone, I got my eyes on the MC today for wakeboarderdave. Got about 20 more pics of it that I'm gonna post on photobucket tonight when I get home (its 4:25 my time right now) and get them out of my camera. I can't say how those pics are gonna turn out until I see them on a computer screen, so I'd rather not give too much comment on this boat other than to say that the hull is in pretty darn good shape fiberglass and paint-wise. No major dings or scratches or anything like that, some small stuff up on the Vee in the bow but it looks like it could be gravel kick-up from trailering. The interior is what it is- dirty and in need of some work, but I think we all could see that from the pics. Sales guy says he has started the boat on the trailer and heard it run. I'll update more later after I see how some of my pics turned out.

[Commodore]

[DRAGON88]

[SouthWaker]

It is not like the Supra is going to be under powered compared to the MC, because it being a 92 it should have the 351 as well. I would be sold on the Supra if it had a big block in it.

[DRAGON88]

SouthWaker, according to the craigslist listing it does.

[Lauri H]

The Supra is a sweet looking boat, but before he removed the link, I looked. It was over the "budget" amount. So, going by that, the Prostar was the next logical choice.
We all know, when looking at boats, the "budget" gets inflated!

[wakeboarderdave1]

Dad is actually willing to spend a little more to have a better boat.

Here is another boat to throw in the mix. A 1984 2001! It's located at a dealer in KS. The price is $9,000.
Pics

[pet575]

Well, bad news has just cropped up on those 20 Prostar pics. Like an idiot, I forgot my digital when I went out there. But, as a supergenius, I saved the day with the trusty digital camera built into my phone. I got home tonight and transferred the pics over to my PC to get a better look at them and get them online. The camera phone would have none of that, as it went ahead and distorted the hell out of the colors and turned most everything green. You can't see a damn thing on them, I guess the sunlight had a bad effect on what I was trying to do.

My apologies to all for not producing the pics, but I did send wakeboarderdave a lengthy email on what I saw and thought of that MC. If you're interested, he might be willing to pass it on to you or post portions of it that I haven't already mentioned.

As many have said, the interior was in pretty rough shape and that MAY be an indication of how it was treated. BUT, for a better price, I probably would have taken a chance on it if I could have water tested it and had the time to put into bringing the interior and finish (which was NOT in horrible shape!) back to being nice-looking again.

The pics wakeboarderdave posted show everything pretty well. The motor was relatively clean and looked to be free of fluid leaks. Tough to tell how old the electrical components were. The sales guy didn't know much about the boat, but said he had started it and heard it run. Gotta wonder what kind of work the carb may need, though, after sitting with old gas in it. I had a Rochester on my old boat that gave me hell every year if we didn't drain the float bowls, remove it, spray it with WD-40, and put it in a Ziploc bag in our heated garage for the winter. Probably a different beast here, but a carb is still a carb. And yes I know how crappy most Rochesters are.

So anyway, it needed some love but it probably would've been OK-but not for $10K. I would think more like $8,000-8,500 at the most.

[pet575]

Oh, what the hell. Here are the relevant edited portions of the email I sent wakeboarderdave:

"Hull:
Seemed like it was in pretty good shape. No major dings, or large chunks out of the paint or fiberglass, from what I could see. Bottom looked pretty flat/straight, didn't look like any major patch jobs had been done or anything like that. There are some pea-sized dings in the fiberglass/paint at the Vee of the hull in the bow, but they almost look like gravel kick-up or something like that from trailering. Also a scratch/gouge that is maybe 3-4 inches long on that side of the Vee at the bow as well, but not horribly deep. There are some little scratches and nicks along the Vee at the bow, and they may need to be filled or painted, but they don't look awful and could probably be taken care of pretty easily. Not sure if they are big/deep/significant enough to cause leakage.

Paint:
The paint looked pretty good for the most part. No major paint scratches, gouges, blistering, etc. It is tough to say what type of fading/oxidation has occurred, not knowing the original color. There is some type of brown-ish/tan-ish staining on the white paint on the bow and some other areas that I think the pics will show pretty well. I think it is safe to say that it will need some fine grit wet sanding, rubbing compound, and wax (using an orbital buffer) and that would restore the color pretty nicely of both the blue-green and the white. There are a ton of threads on wakeboarder about doing that type of stuff. Teak deck on the back looked to be in good shape structurally, although some work to restore the deck to original color/finish is probably in order (if you care about that). Not sure what that would entail, as I've never had a teak deck to work on/maintain myself.

Interior:
Pretty dirty, a few rips that you've already seen (which didn't look all that bad), and some seats re-covered with carpeting. Not sure if the carpeting in there now is the original or not, but it is NOT in terrible shape. Didn't notice any tears, wear spots, stains (except for one small rust/corrosion spot in the bow floor-but that looked fresh and almost looked like someone had just laid a spare metal part there not too long ago that rusted a little or something), or anything like that in the carpeting. The brown coloring you can see on the fiberglass parts of the bow floor is NOT rust-it is only dirt/dust. I was able to get it to come up/clean up with my finger only, so nothing to worry about there. There is a belly ski locker, but it was hard to tell how far toward the bow it goes since there was a piece of material hanging down, it was dark, and the locker floor was full of water. Looked pretty shallow, though, and I'd say it MIGHT be 12-16 inches deep at the most. Again, tough to tell when there was water in it. The storage under the bow cushions is pretty small, too, so there will not be a ton of space to hide ballast in the bow outside of the ski locker option. I tried to pull up the back bench seat to get a look under it, but one of the upholstered strap handles was pretty loose and I didn't want to tear it off by forcing the issue so I didn't get a look under that back seat. Sorry. The lift-up storage hatch on the passenger side, which gives you access to the hatch under the glove box, probably needs to have the pneumatic shock replaced-it was wobbly on its mount as well. Not much storage under the gunnels, just some standard stuff along there. For what it is worth, there is a Pyramid head unit to run the sound system. I think it was a CD player, but can't remember now. Sales guy knew nothing about the sound system, but it looked like just 2 speakers behind the driver and passenger seats.

Motor/drivetrain:
Carbed Indmar and, as one of the pictures shows, it appears to be the HO version-which is rated as a 285HP rather than the 275. The motor cover was a little wobbly on its hinges, but it stood up on its own. Some of the foam insulation on the inside of the cover was hanging off a little, but it didn't look like a major repair to fix that. The engine looked pretty clean and didn't look like it had endured any major oil/fluid leaks. There was a little rust discoloration or whatever on the valve covers and the outside of some parts of the engine. Again, this discoloration looked somewhat fresh. Tough to tell how old the distributor cap, plug wires, or other electrical components were but they didn't look to be in poor shape and didn't look to be brand new. In one of the storage hatches, there was what looked to be a new impeller in the package that someone planned on installing at some point. The prop, rudder, and their mounting hardward all looked OK. All had a little rust/discoloration on them, too. Steering wheel seemed a little stiff, likely requires a steering cable lubrication (or replacement) to fix that.

When I first got in it/checked out the under-seat storage, hatches, etc. I noticed how wet it was and how much water was in these compartments. Turned me off at first, but then I sort of figured out why it was there. Even though this boat appears to have been covered from time to time on the dealer lot (at least from what the pictures have shown), we've gotten a decent amount of rain up here in KC recently. I'm wondering if the rust-looking stuff I saw was just moisture buildup from a lot of rain, a leaky boat cover, or something else allowing moisture to get under the engine cover. I think that is probably the case, and that it would not have smelled of wetness and had water in it without that rain. I don't think those are major problems if you dried it all out and got cleaned it up nicely."

[wakeboarderdave1]

Well stuff now we are back at square one. The guy who was going to buy our boat backed out. Anybody know someone that wants to buy a i/o for 10K?