Starcraft SCX 231 Wakesurf Review

While new to the wakesurfing world, Starcraft is made by Smoker Craft, which is a heavy hitter in the pontoon, fishing, deck boat and runabout manufacturing world.

While this might be the first iteration of a wakesurf boat for the company, building boats is certainly not, and it shows through in the SCX 231‘s construction and features. The SCX 231 is a sterndrive propelled by Volvo’s brand-new Forward Drive system, which safely tucks the propulsion under the hull and allows for wakesurfing on a sterndrive.

The SCX 231 doesn’t fit neatly into a category of boats like most of the others in this list — in fact, it doesn’t even look like the rest of the sterndrives — but it creates a surf wave, and there are facets of its unique deck layout that you’ll come to appreciate. The SCX’s wave doesn’t have as classic of a look as some of the Forward Drive competition, but it hides a surprising amount of push that puts it ahead in that extremely important category. Common to a lot of the Forward Drives, the pocket isn’t as long as you would get on the same size inboard hull, but with more than 25 feet of hull to work with, you still get plenty of wave on the SCX 231.

Top-Notch Trait: At first, the Starcraft SCX 231 might conjure up images of a deck boat, and we’re here to tell you that’s not a bad thing at all. It doesn’t look like your typical inboard, but the open layout actually works really well on this boat. If you think of the SCX 231 like a pontoon that you can surf behind, you start to understand the genius behind this design.

Stat: The Volvo Forward Drive system has two counter-rotating propellers that attach to the front of the lower unit. Instead of a rudder that protrudes from the hull like the inboard boats, the entire lower unit of the Forward Drive system rotates from side to side and tilts up and down, effectively acting not only as the steering but also the trim.