This is a repost from Tumbler: http://tastefullydetached.com/post/28053663232/nautique-g25-demo
“I headed out yesterday with Billy Clark of Austin Surf Co. to the Nautique G25 demo day on Lake Travis, big thanks to Nautique and Sail & Ski for the chance to be one of the first non-pro riders to surf this boat.
My initial impression of the boat was OMFG that is a huge boat! It’s 25 feet with a 102” beam and the interior space really showcases that size. Once on the boat the Nautique rep showed off the storage space which is beyond huge, I could actually take a comfortable nap in the port side console storage area… That’s only if I could handle sleeping with the built in subwoofer! The other thing I noticed was how much seadek “teak” flooring material was EVERYWHERE, this boat should be a sales demonstration for this product alone. The rep then showed off the 550hp, supercharged PCM engine among all of the other features including but not limited to convertible seating and locker size.
We set off onto Lake Travis to check out what we were there for, the surf and wakeboard wakes. With the port and the front ballasts full the G25 has hands down the best factory-available surf wake that I have ever surfed, the wave had a long, wide, and smooth face with a nice 2ft long tube off the back. The 7 of us surfed that wave for an hour or so before we asked the rep if we could fill some of the additional ballast that we brought with, he approved and it was on! We added 750lbs to the rear port-side locker, and arranged the 9 passengers as needed to form out a taller wave than I’ve ever seen. We usually surf an Enzo 240 sac’d out with almost 3000lbs of ballast and this boat was already showing a taller wave than that setup.
After getting out on this monster we found it to be super peaky, with some minor adjustments to the Nautique configurable hull surface we were able to stretch it out and get a massive surfing wave. Because of a lack of time the wave we had was not for beginners, it would however add a foot to anyones airs in a heartbeat. Honestly I’d have liked to have another 2-3 hours on the boat to play with more ballast moved all around the boat, as well as the configurable hull surface to try and form out a bigger, more user friendly wave for beginners. Also with the additional ballast we had a bit of an exhaust-in-the-face issue for the rider, which could easily be fixed with a fresh air pipe. (without the extra ballast, exhaust was not an issue).
We then emptied our personal ballast and the rep filled all 3 factory ballasts and set the boat up for wakeboarding. The wake was even, clean and had a sick shape to it on both sides at 23 mph. The rider was a bigger guy at around an estimated 230 lbs (that is my estimate), and he had zero issues literally flying behind the G25. Lip tricks both into and out of the wake came quickly to him, and more than the crisp ramps on the outside of the wake I was super impressed by the lip on the inside of the wake. To see such a big rider getting 3+ feet of air just popping out of the wake was really impressive.
And I’ve rambled long enough now, thank you for reading.
Edit/Additional: All things said, the G25 outperformed everything that I expected from it and I am grateful for the time I spent on it. Some things not yet mentioned that impressed me were the high passenger capacity, the superb polk/roswell speaker setup, the insanely smooth power delivery (both from the engine and the transmission) and the overall fit and finish which is unrivaled. If other manufacturers do not respond to this boat, they will absolutely be left at the dock because from everything I have seen this will be THE boat to have on every lake come sept/october when they start delivering them.”