Which boats are the best

Cobia set out to reinvent the foot center console with their new CC. Introduced for , it is the latest Cobia to mesh tournament capability, family comfort, and style into a single package. A wide-open cockpit with level floor from bow to stern, twin gallon in-floor fish boxes, a gallon livewell, and a standard aft tackle station meet the needs of the most hardcore angler. The CC is equally adept as a platform for hosting an elegant sunset cruise or spending a casual day sandbar hopping.

Passengers and guests will especially appreciate all the bigger boat amenities like the forward entry walk down head, hideaway rear bench seat with backrest, and the upgrade cushion packages that include double-bolstered helm seats and forward-facing backrests for the bow. Learn More About Cobia Boats. Serious anglers will take advantage of the extensive tackle storage, a smartly designed bait prep area, and twin standard 50 gallon livewells, while everyone will appreciate the luxury appointments, which include massive cabin with a separate shower and head, standard mezzanine seating, and full transom-width stowaway seating.

Learn More About Everglades Boats. It also includes all the comforts that make it an outstanding boat for family cruising and entertainment, like plush bow seats with foldaway backrests and a lockable console with stand up cherry-accented head compartment and stainless-steel sink. Built in New Hampshire, Maritime Boats combines traditional New England looks with modern construction techniques and state-of-the-art design.

The Maritime Voyager , with its aggressive, stable vee-hull, was designed with offshore capabilities in mind. A full walk-around center pilot house allows for extended season fishing with protection from the elements. Learn More About Maritime Boats. The head console has a fully lined interior with a stainless-steel sink, SeaDek floor and electric flush porcelain toilet.

Boats like the Lund Pro Guide earn this brand a top spot in the industry. When it comes to pure watersports boats, the MasterCraft brand will be tough to top. Topping the Sea Ray line is the L Fly, a luxury yacht any boater would be thrilled to own. Focused mostly on fishing boats, the Tracker brand is immensely popular.

Sport boats like the AR have helped make Yamaha one of the best brands on the water. The Viking 68C is indicative of the entire line, which is appropriately termed yachts as opposed to boats.

Back Explore View All. Back Types View All. Unpowered Boats Kayaks Dinghies. Personal Watercraft Personal Watercraft. The R5 lives up to Cobalt's reputation, and if the company cut any corners to make this price point, we sure can't figure out where. Take a look at the some of the yacht-like details, and you'll understand why this boat delivers a bang as big as , bucks. How many bowriders include a thru-hull anchoring system with a stainless-steel scuff plate? A custom-stitched helm brow and dash perimeter detailed with Makassar grain accents?

A black leather and stainless-steel steering wheel? Plus, Cobalt doesn't lowball you with a wimpy powerplant, but instead starts with a potent 6. The ski pylon, removable bow- and aft-cockpit carpets, portable MSD, and stereo are all included as base equipment. And that stock stereo provides another great example of Cobalt's quality level. The bottom line? While the basic bowrider design has remained more or less the same for decades, the systems that power these boats have gone through many changes.

Sterndrives continue to rule the roost in this type of boat, but outboards have been making inroads. Due to the latest EPA regulations, sterndrive manufacturers have had to add catalytic converters to their engines. That raised costs substantially, sometimes by as much as 5 percent of an average bowrider's sticker price, instantly making outboards a less expensive — and thus more attractive — alternative.

As a result, in the past few years we've seen a population explosion of outboard-powered bowriders. There are both plusses and minuses to having an outboard on a bowrider.

They commonly post a higher top end, have improved slow-speed handling single-propeller sterndrives tend to wander and require lots of course corrections , and are exceedingly reliable. On the flip side, mounting an outboard on the transom means you lose the full-beam swim platform, and fuel efficiency often drops in comparison with an identical model with a sterndrive. Sterndrives, like this one, have become less popular in recent years as owners swap to outboard power.

The current news in watersports boats has to do with a new propulsion system, Volvo Penta's Forward Drive. By putting a pod-like forward-facing drive unit on a sterndrive, the prop gets moved several feet forward and under the boat, tucked away from surfers and boarders. And because the drive unit can be trimmed, it can also be used to help shape the wake.

This development has allowed a number of builders who produce sterndrive runabouts, like Bryant, Chaparral, Cobalt, Four Winns, Regal, and Monterey, to adapt existing platforms into watersports-specific models.

If these Forward Drive boats are so good, why didn't any win as our top picks? Hey, that's the way the cookie crumbled — we had a huge number of great boats from which to choose. If you like sterndrive propulsion and you want a watersports boat, you'll definitely want to further investigate Forward Drive. If you're young, or young at heart, it's tough to beat the thrill of being towed through the water at high speeds. But whether it's waterskiing, wakeboarding, or the newly popular wakesurfing that appeal to you, you'll be needing a new watersports-specific boat.

Hang on tight — this is going to be a wet-and-wild ride. At this price point, you're certainly not going to be able to afford a fancy watersports boat with ballast tanks and tow towers. You can, however, get yourself an excellent tow-sports platform in the form of the Sea-Doo Wake Pro This is one of the industry's few PWCs designed specifically for towing.

It has must-have features like a three-position tow pylon, an aft-facing observer's seat with grab handles, and a board rack. But it also takes things a step further by incorporating modern performance perks that enhance watersports, such as multiple preprogrammed acceleration profiles for skiers and preset variable trim for fine-tuning the ride and acceleration.

True, using a PWC for watersports does create some limitations. Your crew is maxed out at three, you can't create those big ripping boat wakes for surfing, and you're probably going to be wet whether you're the tower or the towee.

There are, however, some additional advantages to consider. Given its dry weight of less than 1, pounds, you can trailer your vessel with just about anything larger than a Smart Car.

Launching and retrieving will always be a piece of cake, and the small fuel tank and low operating costs make for some seriously cheap thrills. A strong option to consider is Yamaha's Waverunner VX, which doesn't have a pylon or the acceleration profiles but does have a towing eye on the stern. That means it has plenty of pulling oomph, and unlike most boats of this size, it also has a full-beam integrated swim platform.

Most boats this inexpensive have an outboard slung on a transom and a miniscule swim platform off to one side. Fuel Capacity: 20 gal. Another advantage of the jet drive: the propeller, or rather, the lack thereof. Obviously, climbing in and out of small boats with exposed props can lead to problems, but it's a nonissue in this case.

We also like the aft-facing seats built into the transom. While we wouldn't condone riding in them while underway at high speed, they do provide an excellent lounging spot for coving and relaxing after a long day of shredding water.

But no boat is perfect, and while the Scarab is our top pick in this range, we do see room for improvement. An option to trade in the ski-tow eye for a pylon would be nice, and adding a windshield would make captaining the boat more comfortable. What about some other choices? Truth be told, there aren't many watersports-dedicated boats in this price range; you could make do by stepping back down to a large PWC or opting for a small bowrider or center-console that's designed for other waterborne activities.

The X is Yamaha's "high-performance wakeboard edition" runabout, and although it isn't particularly large for the price point, it does represent big value. It has the features found on high-end watersports boats, many of which cost literally twice as much as the X, including a folding tower with wakeboard racks, a cruise-control system that maintains preset towing speeds, and, most impressively, twin ballast tanks that can be flooded to weight down the boat and kick up an enhanced wave.

Another big advantage the X holds over the competition is its power package. This is a twin-engine boat, with a pair of high-output 1. Can you think of another boat of this size, type, and price with twin engines? We didn't think so. Yet another big surprise is the stock trailer, which is a tandem-axle model.

Virtually all competitors come with a single-axle trailer. Meanwhile, the Yamaha X enjoys those same jet-drive advantages found on our prior pick: the elimination of prop worries and the full-beam swim platform. Other solid choices include the Scarab's 's bigger brother, the , or, perhaps, the Four Winns HRS equipped with a tower. Pay attention to your wake when circling back to retrieve a skier.

Arriving at your skier as your wake comes crashing back on you could put your skier at risk of having the boat come down on top of him or her. For starters, it's a MasterCraft. MasterCrafts enjoy excellent resale value, and when you consider how much more you can recoup when reselling it as compared to most other boats, in the long run, it isn't as expensive as it seems.

Then note that it has the inboard V-drive power system preferred by hardcore watersports jocks. At 20 feet it's not large for a watersports boat, but it does have wrap-around seating in the cockpit and bow plus a pair of aft-facing seats built into the transom with stowage underneath.

And the X20 also gives you the ability to customize. We're not just talking about the boat — sure you get to pick from a huge variety of interior and exterior color patterns and yes, you get to choose the graphics, but you also get to customize the watersports experience. Thanks to the wake-generating Gen 2 Surf System which integrates hull design, surf tabs, the 2,lb. When towing anyone behind your boat, have at least one spotter on board to keep track of the skier and relay instructions to the driver.

We should caution that many features you may want on the X20 are considered optional. Beyond that, you won't find much to complain about on this boat. MasterCraft has a well-deserved reputation for building top-shelf watersports boats and the X20 is no exception. The recent growing popularity of pontoon boats has led to some very interesting developments in the genre, and a slew of monstrous pontoons in the to foot size range have hit the market in the past couple of years.

You can find double-decker pontoons with waterslides aiming at the lake from atop foot-high top decks as well as party platforms with the capacity to carry up to 24 people yes, there are enough seats for everyone.

With size comes power, and as pontoons have grown larger, their builders have worked to beef up the structures to accommodate massive amounts of horsepower. At the same time, they've been experimenting with strakes, steps, and foils that can be welded onto the pontoon's running surfaces. The net result is increased speed, and though they're quite pricy commonly eclipsing our self-imposed cost restrictions of this article you can find trailerable pontoons like the Aqua Patio AP XP, which can break 60 mph with a Yamaha F on the transom.

Or the Harris Grand Mariner , which can blast past 63 mph thanks to a pair of hp Mercury Verados. True, the owner had added performance-enhancers like an 8. And no, we don't think the average pontooner should have any need or desire to go that fast. But if you do feel the need for speed, today's pontoons offer just as much capability as virtually any other type of boat.

Pontoon boats have been one of the strongest segments of the marine market in recent years, and it's no wonder — these boats are amazingly comfortable, versatile, and easy to operate. They're equally at home on lakes, rivers, and coastal bays with relatively small waves; many pontoon boats don't handle large waves particularly well. And though their boxy shape may look rather untraditional to the nautical eye, that same shape makes for a huge amount of deck space in comparison with V-bottom boats of the same LOA.

Don't let the name fool you: This pontoon is only minimally fishy, and the only fishing feature other than rod holders is a 9-gallon livewell that will work just fine as a stowage compartment. But if you just want to go on dolphin- or whale-watching cruises or head down the coast to a new destination, one of the other types of boats will probably be a better pick. To that end, there are some specific attributes any vessel needs if you plan to use it for ocean boating.

Explore Saltwater Fishing Boats. First and foremost, any boat that goes through an inlet and into the ocean must be large enough and seaworthy enough to safely handle the conditions. Just exactly what this means is a judgement call, because boating in the ocean can vary dramatically depending on the location and the weather.