Flagship Malibu boat

[biggator]

One thing not mentioned about the wedge.. it makes the boat REALLY stable side-to-side. My LSV was really insensitive to weight with the wedge deployed - never had to move people around to keep both sides clean.

That said - the problem (IMHO) with Malibu is that they design a boat that works well with 2500lbs and up.. and give you 1250. The G is the first boat I've been on that actually included enough ballast to throw a great wake stock without filling up all your storage with extra bags or plug-n-play.

[daveybobcat]

jsta, my experience with the wedge is very positive. I would never buy a wakesetter without one as I think that is one of the best reasons to be getting a 'bu. From the marketing side, they say the wedge simulates 800-1k of ballast. Throw that out the window, here's what it really does.

For surfing, the wedge is absolutely crucial. I can tell a very significant difference in size of the surf wake if I don't have the wedge down. It makes the wave taller and steeper, which allows you to speed up more if you would rather trade in that extra height for a longer pocket. If that didn't make sense to you what I'm saying is, whether you like longer pockets or shorter pockets and steeper waves, the wedge will help you achieve this with some minor boat speed adjustment.

For wakeboarding, the wedge *does* significantly effect the shape of the wake. It puts more lip on the peak of the mound. In other words it essentially "lips out" the wake more. For my personal wake tastes, I like the lippier wake so this is a must for me. A lot of people on the forum say they don't run the wedge if they have extra ballast - i say baloney, I run stock weight + 1100 in each rear locker 80% full, with the wedge (that's a LOT of rear biased weight) and I love the wake that way. I run the acme 1235 with the monsoon 350 and have no issues getting on plane (with the stock acme 537 it would never happen).

Back to the wedge. There are historically 3 different kinds.

The "manual" wedge - This wedge had a total of 2 locking positions (4 push pins total as there are two per locking position). This is what my 06 23LSV came with because they didn't introduce the "floating wedge" until 07. I *hated* this wedge because you needed to locked the wedge in either the up or down position and I found try to dink around locking the wedge in the down position is a huge PITA and expecting someone else who was unfamiliar with the boat to do it for you - forget about it. Good news is if your boat has this version you can simply purchase the floating wedge and it's a bolt-on replacement. The identifying characteristic of this wedge is 2 distinct locked positions up or down. This wedge got a bad rep from a few folks who had issues with the bolts that attach the wedge to the arm assembly sheering off (and in turn the wedge would bend into all sorts of nasty angles from the pressure - you have probably seen some horror shots on wakeworld or somewhere else). While this is rare, it's a documented issue with the wedge and malibu did the right thing and introduced a stronger problem free "manual" wedge commonly referred to as the "floating" wedge.

The "floating" wedge - This wedge wasn't normally intended to be called this, but the name was used on the forums and stuck. The term "floating" is used because there is only one locking position total - up. When you "release" the wedge it simply "drops" into place. As you accelerate it is true that the wedge can pivot (or float) positions to whatever is a natural riding position for it. To achieve the ability to not need the lock position for "down" they simple made the wedge have a more aggressive angle so it would always want to travel to the downward most position. The wedge is a made out of a chromed metal which doesnt get all "nasty" like the other manual wedge did and always looks shiny and gorgeous. The wedge is now *welded* to the arms on this model and I have *never* heard of there being an issue with this model. It's trivial to release from the "up" position and to put it back into place you simply lift the wedge (since it can freely "float" anyway) until it clicks into the stow position when done. I think this is by far the "safest" bet for the wedge because it fixed all the problems with the manual wedge and doesnt introduce any additional moving parts like the power wedge will.

The "power" wedge - as the name implies, no manual intervention is necessary other than playing with some settings at the captains chair. It is powered by electronic actuators (not hydraulics) so no messy fluid to worry about. I have heard of a few people on the forum reporting having "problems" with the wedge getting stuck in the down position. What a lot of people don't realize is that you have to be shifted in gear to be able to move the wedge. This is kinda of a "gotcha" but was implemented as a safety mechanism because we live in a pathetic sue-happy society where people will even sue boat manufacturers because they load the bow down with too many people (see MC lawsuit). Because of this, they make sure that you are in gear before they allow the wedge to actuate so the driver cant accidentally crush little sally's legs that he didnt see were dangling under the swim deck. So a lot of the "noise" you see about power wedge issues are simply white noise with people not realizing the safety feature is there. This wedge is also unique in that you can custom set the degree to which the wedge is deployed. You can fully deploy it or many places in between. Because of this, I would gravitate towards this wedge without hesitation, however if you are a person who puts high value on "the simpler the better as less will break" the floating wedge is your ideal choice.

In summary, as I already mentioned, I put a high value on the wedge because I have seen the difference it makes and for my wake preferences - it helps me achieve exactly what I want. Something to consider also is the more you progress the more you may find you like different shapes of wakes (this happened to me) and the wedge is another utility to help you shape the wake to what you want. That being said, I have not ridden the G23 and the simple fact that FINALLY a wakeboat manufacturer (other than Epic, which I still haven't had a chance to ride behind) has included some SERIOUS stock ballast capabilities. It may be true that the benefit of the wedge diminishes with higher amounts of stock ballast. However, ballast always takes time to fill (until more boats go with the pure-vert / gravity fill system) because pumps are *slow*. Dropping the wedge takes all of 5 seconds.

I'd say that's my $.02 but maybe it was more like $.04 this time Hope this helps, happy hunting.

man that is useful!

[DocPhil]

25 LSV is actually a sick boat and the only Malibu I would consider.