Direct Drive Boats
If you are on this site, then obviously you are looking
for an inboard boat and most likely you are going to be
using it for all sorts of water sports including water
skiing, wakeboarding, tubing and maybe even wake surfing,
wake skating and more. These things are accomplished
much easier with an inboard boat. But as we know,
all inboards are NOT the same. You have vDrive
inboards and Direct Drive inboards.
First, let's discuss the difference of an inboard boat.
An inboard boat has the engine inside of the boat like an
inboard/outboard boat would, but it does not have an
outdrive on the rear of the boat. In fact, the only thing
you'll find on the bottom of most inboard bots is tracking
fins, a prop shaft, a strut, a prop and a rudder...
nothing else.
As you'll see in your search for an inboard boat on
this site, most are not very large. In fact almost
all inboard boats are under 23 feet. Now, a direct
drive boat traditionally have shallow hull designs and
flat bottoms. This created for very small wakes for
competition slalom skiing, for which these boats were
designs. However, the side effect of the design was
that the boat has a very rough ride in choppy waters.
Generally, for big water, a direct drive inboard is not
recommended.
Between the direct drive and the vDrive boats,
certainly the direct drive was first on the market.
The vDrive boat was created out of the need for larger
wakes to be used in wakeboarding and other similar water
sports. The direct drive, however, is what started
it all. Mastercraft and Correct Craft are known as
the pioneers in the inboard boat and competition water
skiing industry and are credited with building some of the
first inboard ski boats.
 You
can easily determine if an inboard is a direct drive by
simply looking at the interior. If you see a large
hump in the middle (see image), this means you are looking
at a direct drive ski boat. You will see that the
engine is placed in the center of the boat. The
transmission is located at the rear of the engine and the
shaft then comes directly out of the transmission through
the hull to its fixed position at the bottom of the boat.
Almost every competition ski boat is a direct drive.
If you are trying to decide what type of boat to
purchase, the main thing you need to do is figure out what
you will use it for. If you are going to be using
the boat mainly for water skiing, tubing, knee boarding
and maybe a little wakeboarding, then a direct drive boat
can absolutely work for you. In fact, used direct
drive boats are currently in less of a demand which means
lower prices for you. This lower demand is due to
the rising popularity of the vDrive wakeboard boats, which
are commanding significantly higher prices right now.
However, if you are going to be using the boat for
wakeboarding, do not think that you NEED a vDrive boat
because that is not the case. In fact, with a little
weight (see ballast in the accessories section), you can
create a pretty nice wake in many direct drive boats.
Go visit any online wakeboarding forum and you'll find
that one of the boats that has been considered an all time
classic for it's wakeboarding wake is the Nautique 2001
built by Correct Craft in the 80s. This is a great
boat that throws a killer wake when properly weighted and
that you can get at a great price.
Hopefully this article has been helpful in getting you
to understand more about direct drive boats.
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