On Wed, 4 Apr 2007 10:30:50 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:

I wonder if part of the reason is tradition. I remember as a kid living on
a lake during the summer the boat used for competition skiing and ski
"shows" was an inboard powered Ski Nautique. I don't recall ever seeing an
I/O configured boat on this smallish lake ... the rest were all outboards.
In those days a "big" outboard motor was a 75 or 100 hp Merc or Evinrude and
they usually struggled to pull up one slalom skier. The Ski Nautique often
towed five or six of us with girls on our shoulders.

Master Craft has been around for a long time also and they were always
inboards if my memory is correct. I'd guess that the inboards were
cheaper to run and had more power than the 2 stroke OBs available in
those days.

Wayne.B wrote:

Master Craft has been around for a long time also and they were
always inboards if my memory is correct.

Learned a few months ago that they actually did make some with
outboards. Looks like in the early 90's the Prostar and the
Barefoot were available with outboards.

http://www.sdwaterski.org/boats.html


sam

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...

I'd guess that the inboards were
cheaper to run and had more power than the 2 stroke OBs available in
those days.


One of the boats we had was about an 18 footer with an old, 75hp (I think)
Mercury "Thunderbolt". The engine was huge. The little lake we were on was
about a mile long and maybe 3/4's of a mile wide.

At WOT, that thing could make about 5-6 circuits of the lake before we'd
have to fill up the 6 gallon gas tank again.

Eisboch