The interior is set up with a stern lounge that wraps around the port side before curving into a double observer lounge in the helm. ![]() Move through the wide passageway and raked safety glass windscreen and into the cockpit. Drinkholders, polished gelcoat and quality deck hardware all add to an impression of quality. The bowpit is American-sized, and the lounges are sculpted and tastefully finished in marine vinyl. Fair, smooth inner skin mouldings, irreproachable paintwork, neatly stitched upholstery, quality fixtures and intelligent design are evident. Deep, high shoulders makes the bowpit and helm position dry, but the boat does lean heavily into turns and the inside corner passenger on the rear lounge gets up close and personal with the water during tight manoeuvres. Its deep-vee hull smooths wind-blown chop while a beam of more than nine feet contributes to exceptional stability. Wake shape and wakeboarding performance is priority number one, but not far behind are responsiveness, handling, looks and social interior layout. Obviously, this boat has come from the drawing board of a keen wakeboarder. At a nimble 6.3m, it's easier to store, costs less to buy, and needs fewer horses to deliver similar performance and wake shape. SOCIAL STUDIES The model profiled here - the Cyclone C4 - is a smaller version of the Avalanche. Once finished, the boats are tested on the company's private lake so any kinks can be ironed out prior to delivery. Likewise for the engine mountings - aircraft aluminium and composite materials are used for rigidity and vibration damping. By the time the hull is finished, it's practically a one-piece affair. Under the deck there's a reverse shoebox stringer system - a design that Centurion says is immensely strong and prevents water seepage into the foam. The outer and inner moulds are injected with expanding foam and are Plexus-fused together. They are then molecularly bonded together with a special resin called Plexus. The hulls are hand built using tri-directional fibreglass and are reinforced with mat rovings. Basically, there's no timber used the glue and joins are actually stronger than the hull material itself the paint and graphics are part of the gelcoat (not applied afterwards) the materials used are light and strong, and the voids are all foam filled. 'GLASS GLADIATOR Plexus, Permalock, Integrated Composites, Reverse Shoebox - geez, is this a Nike ad or what? Nup, they're some of the fancy handles applied to the high-tech Centurion hull. Take a look at the passion-red Cyclone we tested here. Their secret? They use their boats every chance they get and firmly believe they're the best on the market, bar none. Young, enthusiastic and boasting real talent on the board, selling the sizzle comes easy. Centurion Boats importer Brett Swan and partner-in-crime Tim Cantanese are decorated members of the wakeboarding army. Many grew up riding skateboards or skiing behind the family runabout some surfed waves, others the slopes, and some have done it all. Boats are back in a big way with young people. Go for a boat around Echuca on an average Saturday afternoon and it's like Pitt Street the majority of craft are tricked-up wakeboarding rigs driven by people whose waistbands stay firmly south of their armpits - they're not quite at the stage where they'll brain one another with walking frames to defend a plum spot in the carvery queue at the local RSL. I knew wakeboarding was big, but not this big. He tries to sell me his board - he desperately wants this year's model - but my beers arrive just in time and I escape with wallet intact. Fishing? You don't fish in Echuca, man, you wakeboard. He looks at me with the same expression a dog employs when you pretend to throw it a stick but hide it behind your back at the last second. I mention I've come up from Melbourne to do some fishing, and ask where the local perch hotspot is. I'm waiting for a couple of pints at a pub in Echuca on the Murray River, and spark up a conversation with a hip young gunslinger at the bar.
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