For over four decades MasterCraft Boat Company has been building tournament tow boats, as shown in
Figure 1. From its humble beginnings in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains MasterCraft quickly built its reputation on a workhorse three-event tow boat, pulling regional, national and worldwide tournaments.
The in-board tournament ski boat was the genesis of the MasterCraft Boat Company. For the first eleven years of production, tournament ski boats were all MasterCraft built – from the first boat constructed in 1968 through the next eleven years until 1979. It wasn’t until after 1984, that MasterCraft branched out into the recreational ski market by offering sport-V-drives such as the MariStar series.
By 1987, nineteen years after the first hull was built, MasterCraft boats had been used to set more American Water Ski Association (AWSA) records than all other manufacturers combined and MasterCraft was the established sales leader in the ski boat market (with annual sales of about $15 million).
By 1993 (25 years after the company was founded) MasterCraft had built its 25,000th boat.
By 1996, twenty-eight years after the first hull was built, it’s the boat chosen by more skiers all over the world than the next two ski boats combined.
/edit (2009 Oct 9) production stats for 1993 added