Nautique launches new G23 and G25 boats

Nautique released the new G23 and G25 towboats on July 17 with an in-person launch party in Austin, Texas, a live webcast and a live Periscope stream.

Nautique chose to launch the boats in such a social way, using the hashtag #gamechanger, because they wanted to reach customers all around the world.

“In the past, if you weren’t in some physical place you couldn’t experience what was going on,” said Greg Meloon, president of Nautique Boat Company. “We looked at it in a way to say ‘Let’s get a group of customers [together who are] excited about our Nautique product and show them what’s new, build that excitement and let that spread.”

The new additions to the G series mark a significant product development undertaken by the company. When the G23 and G25 originally launched, the hull was designed to build the ultimate wakeboard boat. While wakeboarding is certainly still popular, the rise of wakesurfing caused Nautique to redesign the G23 and G25.

“We knew we could build a better wakesurf wave,” said Meloon. “Building an ultimate wakeboard wake is somewhat similar to building an ultimate wakesurf wave.”

The Nautique Surf System was also redesigned to integrate with the hull so consumers could get the maximum result from both systems. With the NSS, Meloon says consumers can adjust the finer details like the length of the wave, how steep the wave is and more by operating between the NSS and the Nautique configurable running surface on a G series boat.

“It maximizes the wave that we can get by reducing the amount of lift we have at wakesurf speed so that the boat and factory ballast creates a bigger wave that what you could get in the past, and it brings the wave together the way it interacts all the way around the boat so that it’s cleaner, provides a better platform for surfing from beginners all the way to the advanced pro,” said Meloon. “You can change the way the wave is shaped because different people like to ride a different wave.”

With the changes to the G series boats comes the release of Nautique Surf Select, which allows surfers to switch from one side of the wave to the other, and the Nautique Surf Select app on Pebble Watch, which is a waterproof smart watch. The app allows surfers to control different aspects of the boat and provides real feedback from the helm. Surfers can also control stereo volume, skip tracks, and choose to switch from one side of the wave to the other immediately or after a three-second countdown.

“That allows more of a beginning surfer to press the button, get ready to make the change and know when the boat is going to switch so they can be in the right place to make the transition,” said Meloon.

Nautique continued its longstanding partnerships with PCM and GM on the new G series boats. Through these partnerships, Meloon said the new boats are the first towboats to offer direct injection technology to the water sports segment.

“[Direct injection] is [GM’s] most advanced technology in creating great power and doing it efficiently and smoothly,” said Meloon. “This is an opportunity for us to be at the forefront of integrating those new technologies into marine and be able to see the benefits that they brought to the automotive world as well.”

One new partnership for the company is with JL Audio, which Meloon said is a company that provides a premier speaker from a quality standpoint and its durability in a marine environment. The two companies worked together for months on developing systems for each model to maximize audio performance. What they came up with was WAVEFRONT, a patent-pending technology that uses a full-range speaker mounted underneath the dash. A channel pushes the sound up and into the windshield area, which reflects off and fills the cockpit with sound. It also includes zone control so users can adjust the speaker in the bow, cockpit, in-dash WAVEFRONT speaker, the tower and the sub separately and balance to their desire.

Nautique chose to make this a factory option because the company noticed many consumers were buying stereos for thousands of dollars immediately after the boat purchase.

“[The WAVEFRONT technology] is different than anything else that’s on the boat market today,” said Meloon. “It’s completely different in audio. It’s something that is difficult for people to understand until they’re in the boat, but it is by far the most impressive audio system that I’ve heard to date in any boat, and it’s available straight out of the factory.”

The new G23 and G25 are beginning to arrive at dealerships this week and Nautique hopes to continue raising awareness of the changes within the boats.

“Nautique Boat Company is focused on building industry-changing product and driving forward in what we’re doing,” said Meloon. “Integration of our different systems in the boat to make it easy for the customer to create a great wakeboard, wakesurf, water sports wake, all behind one boat and the G23 and G25 launch was all about telling the world that we’ve moved the bar again.”

For more information, visit Nautique.com/models/2016-g23-g25.