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I have seen this and Axis does produce a very respectable wake, I just can’t get pass the look and feel of the current Axis design.
Axis and Malibu make great waves for sure. That wedge and surfgate is some of the most useful tech the industry has ever seen. I'd like to see how thick the transom on those boats with the wedge are to be able to handle that kind of force. My buddy who has ridden everything (Centurion, Nautique, Mailbu, Supreme, Supra) says the 24MXZ is hands down his favorite wave. Apparently you pay for that wave at the pump though. I just saw this yesterday so funny timing.
I like really the exterior of the axis boats. The tower I am still not sure about in the looks department. The thing I can't get over is the cheap feeling of the interior. In some aspects I felt like my Yamaha interior was nicer. Their dash is what upsets me the most. Cheap plastic peaces and a screen that it pretty worthless, even compared to the one in my Supreme. If they would do a better job with that, I would probably look very hard at a T22.
Of course having a 25' and 11,650 lbs of hull and ballast in any brand boat helps. Man would it be nice to be able to drop $200k in a boat.
Good points. I have learned something interesting at the boat show, talking to chaparral dealer. The forward-drive Volvo screw can be trimmed, of course, and that's how they can adjust the pitch of the hull, and shape of the wave. Supposedly works wicked good, and very simple.
..... well ok maybe not all like a Heyday 
but I guess even it has its place for someone.
It's too bad BoatTest.com doesn't invest more time into reviewing wakeboats so you could get some more unbiased comparisons.No listing required on our boat either. I wouldn't own a boat that has to be heavily listed again because I hate the way it feels, especially when you need to turn or pick up a rider. That’s a lot of the reason we switched from the Yamaha.
Yes the Malibu and Axis make a tall wave but unless you have the Power Wedge then there is no adjustability to wave shape. Axis doesn't come standard with Power Wedge unlike Malibu. The floating wedge constantly changes angle based upon speed so there is no adjustability in wave shaping.
My thoughts on the Axis after crawling all over them and taking demo ride was that it's a mass produced boat and you can certainly tell they cut corners. Yes it makes a tall wave but it also does it at the cost of a lot of drag and a lot of fuel consumption, same for Malibu. The gph is up there compared to a trim tab surf system and it’s substantial. I'm at like 4-5 gph fully ballasted and an Axis would be in the double digits by comparison. Then there is the hull design differences. Yes Axis use older Bu hull designs but quite frankly I found it rode pretty bad in chop. Maybe it’s because an Axis is lighter than a Malibu I don’t know but it rode rough. Really bad to be honest above wake board speeds in moderate chop and that was a total deal breaker for me. I demoed the Max in similar conditions and it did not beat us up. Hull design is newer, deeper and just rode much better. When I took delivery of my boat it was white capping in the channel and the boat ate it up no problem where that just isn’t going to be fun on the Axis. I also looked at both boats when we full ballast sitting still and coming off plane. The Axis pickle fork sits much lower in the water and I could see how it would be easy to stuff the bow when dealing with rollers. We haven’t had that issue at all with our bow and it offers a lot of confidence besides providing a drier and smoother ride with much more freeboard.
Regarding power of the engines, the Axis took forever to plane with wedge down and ballast full. This was a 2017 model so not sure what’s in them now but power was down when you add the drag of wedge + surf gate + optional plug and play ballast. The bow rides high of them compared to other brands and I think a lot of it has to do with the wedge pulling the stern down. It was not ideal for us if you can't see over the bow and since my wife is a novice captain I have to make things as easy for her as possible and seeing over the bow having great visibility is there only way she could ever drive a boat comfortably, at least for now at her skill level. We like less aggressive bow attitude and the more leveled boat when surfing or even cruising. Raptor engine had no issues getting on plane with full ballast or even 14 people in the boat which I don’t think the Axis would ever be able to do, at least not without a prop change.
Interior and overall fit and finish isn't even comparable IMHO. Axis has tons of plastic, which even rattled under the dash at speed during our demo. The boat just felt cheap if I’m honest even though they price them 5-10k over the comparable competition. I just didn't see where the money was going except for maybe the share holders since they’re a publicly traded company. I think thy produce 10+ something boats a day which is just crazy for a wake boat! In 2018 Malibu said they made over 6,200 boats on their fiscal report. By comparison Skiers Choice puts out 1500-1600 boats a year with only 500 of those being Supra. This allows them to focus on a little higher quality with less shortcuts rather than pumping out big quantity numbers, even on their "budget brand' Moomba which is why I personally think they feel higher end than say an Axis or even Malibu if comparing to Supra IMO. Of course everyone has their opinions so this is totally subjective to taste and what so,some likes or deems better.
I try not to be biased in these boats as I truly love them all but I just don't think Axis or Malibu are at the top of their game compared to others. Maybe they were 5+ years ago but to me my money felt better going to Moomba even if it didn't make as tall of a wave stock vs stock to a Surf Gate. I can always upgrade like I did to give me monster wave. If stock wave is all that matters then yes I’d say they are one of the best but when spending money on these boats I like to factor in more than just the stock wave. For us it’s the overall package and equally important the dealer support that matters most so for we liked what Skiers Choice was putting out. It checked the majority of the boxes for us but the same could be different for other people. Please understand no disrespect intended to Malibu as we did not demo them simply out of our price range but just speaking from my experience with the Axis. Maybe Malibu are substantially better than Axis idk.
All of these boats can be subjective to what we think the best is. My best advice I can give for anyone shopping is to demo as many brands and models as your budget allows or that tickles your belly and based off demos plus dealer experiences you’ll have a good idea what is best for you. Personally if I had to rank best overall it would probably go to Nautique G23 but that wave shape seems to be subjective for many. However I love the overall attention to detail they pour into their boats. My second would be Supra but like I mentioned earlier its just all subjective for everyone and that’s ok. I’d love to see more Centurion and Supreme supported here but I just found out Russell Marine no longer carries Centurion but still carries Supreme which is strange. I think they were the only dealer in the state so now these is zero Centurion support here or near us so they are out of any possibility since you need dealer support on these kind of toys at least on the front end IMO. For me I love them all
I try not to focus on what the stock wave is because all of these kinds of purpose built wake boats put out a killer wave when setup. The majority of them will need some additional ballast especially if the boat has a light crew onboard. I think being able to shape the wave is very important and to me it seems trim type systems offer a lot of adjustability. It is pretty cool seeing the wave complete change shape from having a lip andy’all to laying down more mound like for skim style and adjusting length based on speed and wake plate. Not going to lie it took me the majority of last summer to learn ours so it might not be the best for someone wanting to just flick a switch and go but it is fun and kind of rewarding once you start to understand and learn how to anticipate how the wave will change based off people or ballast load + surf settings. This season we hope to use Autowake more and play with it now that I have upgraded the ballast. Should be able to hit the pitch and roll numbers with a light crew onboard.
In regards to that video "comparison" above with Mastercraft and Malibu keep in mind those were made by a marketing company called Guinn Partners and made exclusively for Malibu and Axis. They made a bunch of videos against most of the competitor brands last year and of course the Malibu and Axis were in top every time lol. There is no idea what settings were being used on the competitor boats at all, or if the Malibu/Axis boats considered the plug and play blast as "standard ballast" in the video so who knows. Not to mention the sole fact it was done for marketing purposes pretty much throws out any legitimate comparison of wave IMO. Not saying they Malibu and Axis don't make tall big waves because they certainly do but those videos are misleading at best. Heck just look into the video they did against the G23 and they even made that wave look small lol so yea I'm not buying into it. The G probably puts out one of the best surf waves out there based off all the love it gets. IMO if you want a good idea of how some of these boats perform the wake9 polar bear event videos are probably the best at showcasing the boats and their respective waves. Those are boats setup by their owners and driven by their owners with full crews onboard to really help get a good idea of upper level of the wave performance without a marketing narrative to sway results.
Sorry for long winded wall of text lol
I have thought about this too after I had a rather large coworker really struggle to get back on the boat from the beach area. At 155 lbs hoisting myself onto the boat has never been a problem for me so I never really thought much about it, but I felt really bad for my coworker to have to go through that while everyone was waiting onboard. I am curious how they would mount a ladder to the platform. I wouldn't think it would be strong enough without having something structural glassed into the platform that it attaches to or having it bolted through the platform which would be a very poor option to me.
Yeah, I wish I had that platform. Malibu bought Cobalt a few years ago, thereby owning the patent for that swim step. Wish I could upgrade my ‘16 to it, but they won’t sell it. ?
Next time you have a chance, shoot a photo of the underside for me please. I am curious how they attached it. I am thinking I could mill some aluminum mounting brackets that could be screwed into the platform and also glassed in as well.
