Besides the ballast, the key to the size and shape of the curl is the Surf Gate, a Malibu Boats innovation that is like a trim tab that hinges out from the side of the stern. Tanks full? Numbers dialed in? Surfer in the water? Now all the skipper has to do is push the throttles forward and the R8 Surf takes care of the rest.

These fill (and empty) in just seven minutes, and Cobalt carefully placed them over the center of gravity to eliminate bow rise, which can block the skipper’s vision. While he did this, Alex Barry, a longtime Cobalt team member, punched the fill buttons on the Garmin screen, pumping 2,300 pounds of water into the six hard tanks under the sole. Choose 5 and riders will say, “Over my head!” And at 7, it’s “Oh, wow, awesome!” Then he dialed in the Surf Gate trim at 3, which is what he preferred for his demonstration. He started at the Zero-Off dash panel, which sets and controls boat speed precisely using GPS. We had Sam Langley, a championship ripper, aboard to show us what can be done with the R8 Surf, and the first thing he did after loading the tower racks with his choice of boards was to dial in the boat. You’ve entered the world of push-button wakesurfing. Let’s talk waves because the only reason you’ll buy the R8 Surf over the standard R8 is to create some great curls. The Chaparral is 17 inches shorter than the Cobalt and carries 15 gallons less fuel.

Oh, there’s a head with a portable toilet in the portside console, as Chaparral Boats includes in its 26 Surf ($146,666, powered like our test boat). The wide transom platform has the patented Cobalt flip-down “beach” to make water access easy. The tower on our test boat was the available Prisma folding version (nonfolding is standard) equipped with a slide-out shade over the aft cockpit, pockets for lines (the tow ring is above the top), and sleeves for more boards on top. The Zero-Off dash panel makes it easy to customize wakes and waves.

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