Parker Payne, a 22-year-old professional wake surfer from Dallas, is trailing an elegant Chris-Craft as he ollies, spins, and carves his way across the Sarasota Bay, spouting a plume of frothy water behind him.
This boat is not your grandfather’s Chris-Craft. If feats of extreme Gen Z athleticism seem at odds with the 150-year-old boat builder’s elegant, understated image, Chris-Craft’s leaders hope its latest lineup will change that perception.
Starting at $203,000, the Sportster 25 Surf is the company’s newest, smallest, and sportiest boat, engineered for wake-surfers skilled enough to bob behind a boat cruising at 11 miles per hour. The demonstration at the Resort at Longboat Key Club—10 miles from Chris-Craft’s Sarasota, Florida headquarters—hinted at the active lifestyle Chris-Craft wants to bring to its growing portfolio of wake-surf boats.
The wake-surfer is a departure for America’s oldest boatbuilder, but appeals to a younger demographic.
Chris-Craft Boats
The builder has been busy, launching models at a faster clip than any other time in its history. Long known for its classic aesthetic, Chris-Craft has exited the pandemic with a plan to reach young, well-heeled watersport enthusiasts who find a more stately million-dollar 37-footer impractical.
“With the supply chain challenges facing the industry, we saw an opportunity to take a fresh look at consumers of boats below 28 feet,” Chris-Craft CEO Steve Heese tells Robb Report. “Typically buyers on smaller lakes don’t need a solid mahogany dash and the cost that goes along with it.”
The foray into smaller, sportier boats represents untapped business for Chris-Craft. Before the pandemic, the company released two new boats a year, the industry standard. Now the made-to-order boat maker is launching three or four models annually, with many targeted toward aspirational buyers in their 30s or 40s.
The wakeboard tower is a new design element for Chris-Craft.
Chris-Craft Boats
“Above 28 feet, we have a customer who just wants what they want, and they’re not so focused on price,” Heese adds. “Below 28 feet, we have a more value-conscious consumer, and we can’t go crazy on the design enhancements that cost a lot of money.”
The renewed focus on a younger demographic represents a return to the company’s roots. Founder Christopher Columbus Smith built his first wooden boat, a skiff, in 1874, as a 13-year-old growing up on the St. Clair River in Algonac, Michigan. He parlayed his early efforts into designing larger, faster boats that attracted wealthy buyers, eventually becoming the world’s largest manufacturer of mahogany runabouts.
Chris-Craft debuted the $150,000 standard version of the Sportster 25 in July. The surf edition, which adds an expansive aft sun pad and a wide swim platform with a pull-out step for safe access to the water, followed in September.
The helm blends elegance with special electronics for surfing.
Chris-Craft Boats
The company is following the cadre of specialty builders, led by Correct Craft, MasterCraft, and Malibu, that created the wake-surf boat market more than a decade ago. These three brands are considered premier builders in the towboat market, mostly because of the quality and specialization required to create new models for a clientele that is both brand-conscious and obsessed with details.
Undeterred and using its own brand equity, Chris-Craft has launched three other surf editions since 2019, all based on the company’s more expensive Launch GT line. The Sportster 25 Surf is the first surf edition from the Sportster lineup.
Heese expects strong demand for the new model, forecasting an even split between sales of the Sportster 25’s sterndrive and surf editions. “It was designed from the start to offer the wake surf system as an option, so we built compartments within the boat to hold water ballast tanks,” he says. “We allotted space for pumps and a control system for the dash to control the wake technology.”
The company will release another surf boat, based on the larger Sportster 28, in March.
The retractable transom step is also a sign of the brand’s focus on functional details.
Chris-Craft
Design engineer Callie Gillespie tells Robb Report that the craft features larger trim tab systems that deploy further downwards to create a wave that billows out from behind. The Sportster 25 Surf is also equipped with Volvo drivetrains and roughly 1,000 pounds of ballast. The result is sports car–like handling that creates a formidable surf wave.
“We wanted to make sure that there was a perfect weigh-to-ride ratio,” Gillespie says. “The weight was chosen so that the boat would produce both a great wake and a great ride.”
Still, the surf boat’s design hews to Chris-Craft’s classic aesthetic, boasting details such as majestic teak decks, smooth leather upholstery with intricate stitching, and a teak console in the cockpit. For the Sportster 25, the boat maker partnered with JL Audio for a premium audio system—a feature that is mandated on other brands’ wake-surf offerings. However, Chris-Craft owns the design for the custom aluminum grill and bezel encasing the speaker.
The stern also has a large sunpad for relaxing.
Chris-Craft Boats
Robb Report’s tour of the factory revealed the craftsmanship behind the scenes, from the organized and labeled wiring hidden within the fiberglass, to precise grain matching for the wood trim and plush woven carpet on the floor. Each boat must clear 700 inspection points, from bow to stern, before leaving the factory’s garage doors.
“We’re not bashful about spending money on nice things, tooling wise,” says Ron Berman, vice president of engineering.
That dedication to producing top-caliber boats will be critical as Chris-Craft distinguishes itself in the wake-surf market, which is mostly driven by quality.
