Hypothesis:
We will determine that the X-14 will be the ultimate all sports mid engine water sports boat
Method:
We were very lucky to be presented with the ability to use the Mastercraft X-14 for a week and tell them what we thought, take out clients and just get an overall idea for how awesome of a boat it was. This is a bit of a departure for us as we generally have X-2s or X-Stars to wakeboard behind. However we realize that in a lot of family’s Wakeboarding isn’t the number 1 priority and a compromize has to be made to accomidate small wakes for waterskiing, and big clean wakes for boarding. An impossible task for some boats, but not for the X-14. So claims Mastercraft, although we love and trust them, we thought that we should find out for ourselves. So our experiment was to create a single day, challenge to test in a real world how the boat would perform for Wakeboarding, Wakeskating, wake surfing, and Slalom skiing. We loaded the boat with all the gear for all events. We started with skating set the standard perfect pass in the VDig gauge filled the ballast and let it rip. The boat killed it for skating clean crisp wakes nice transition area for re-entry jumps, pronounced lip for lip tricks, and an awesome wake for wake to wake airs, not too steep nice ramp and supprisingly narrow. from there we cranked the ballast all the way to full and had a go at wakeboarding. We were pleasantly surprised at how well the boat ran for a mid engine awesome clean wake that was surprisingly big for a mid engine, we were able to ride at a 75′ rope no problem because of the width. Our next test would prove to be the hardest the surf test. We changed the balast to shift the weight onto the surfers side and moved all the occupants over played around with speed a bit to get the wake just right and had a bit of a hard time getting things just right after a little adjustment and adding a bit of weight we got a pretty good surf wake that we could go up and down and have some fun on. Now for the final test. The slalom test. Now by no means are we pro slalom skiers but we have been known to build some great walls of water in our day so we put on our hard hats and got to work. We started with some light free skiing the boat had a great holeshot and nice clean wakes for skiing, at 32 mph the wakes clean up no roostertail and flatten out to a smooth buttery wake thats nice and soft on the knees as you pass behind the boat. Once we warmed up we got the boat into the course where it excelled and was surprisingly nimble in the course. The wake was the closest to its younger 197 brother that I have ever skiied and skiing at a more recreational length I doubt that the average skiier would even notice.
Conclusion:
The X-14 is the ultimate do all boat. Equially at home to board or ski there is no reason not to want to have one of these bad boys at your dock to fulfill your wake dreams wether it be for a beefy wakeboard wake or a soft small ski wake the X14 delivers and then some! Stay tuned for when we test the X-14′s twin the X14v all the same versatility without the bulky hump of the mid engine.
