Average price of ski/wakeboard boats in the U.S. 2013
More statistics and facts on recreational boating
Wakeboard and water skiing boats - additional information
The cost of a wakeboard or ski boat has increased from an average price of 26,944 U.S. dollars in 2000 to 77,032 U.S. dollars in 2013. This is an increase in average price of over 50,000 U.S. dollars in 13 years. This rise in cost could explain the drop in the number of inboard boats sold between these years. In 2000, 13,600 ski/wakeboard boats were sold in the U.S., compared to 6,100 in 2013. During this period, the fewest inboard boats sold was in 2011, in which 4,850 ski/wakeboard boats were sold. Since 2011 however, there has been an increase in the number of ski boats sold year on year until 2014 in which 7,100 inboard boats were sold.
Wakeboarding and water skiing boats are designed especially to allow participants to be towed behind them. Water skiing and wakeboarding are relatively new sports, water skiing originating in the 1920’s and wakeboarding in the 1980’s. In 2013, waterskiing was the more popular of the two sports in the U.S. with around 4.2 million waterskiing participants, compared to 3.32 million wakeboarding participants. A 2014 survey which analyzed the most popular camping activities in the U.S., showed wakeboarding to be a less popular camping activity compared to other recreational boating activities such as kayaking and canoeing.