About
Bay Five Marine was started by Will in the summer of 2021. B5M began with the inspiration to simply upgrade a 2003 Malibu Wakesetter VLX with as much new technology as possible. The VLX went through many changes in 2020 and 2021, starting with upgrading the factory ballast by piggybacking bags onto the factory hard lockers in the rear. Testing this with the manual wedge down and an aftermarket wake shaper, the surf wave was disappointing. This led to replacing the factory hard ballast with 1100lb Fly High Fat Sacs in each rear corner and upgrading to higher flow rate pumps. A custom bow sac was then added under the seats with a reversible pump to keep the weight out of sight.
After a lot of testing with the wake shaper, the wave had plenty of power but lacked any adjustability and was too steep to progress. The boat had trouble getting up to surf speed with too much bow rise, so it seemed moving to a trim tab system was the key to the optimal wave.
After 5 different rounds of prototyping throughout 2020 and 2021, the B5M tab was created and the rest is history.
The goal of Bay 5 Marine is to enable customers (and Will…) to be able to enjoy the features only available on new wakeboard boats, without the cost of a new boat. Trim tabs were the first product available, with several other projects under development.
Owner: Will
Growing up with a passion for all things outdoors and on a board, I knew I wanted to end up on a lake sooner than later. After graduating from UW-Madison (Go Badgers!) in 2016 with a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, I was able to rent a lake house with my brother and a couple of my close friends to make the dream a reality. Fast forward to 2019 after owning a couple old pontoon boats, it was time to get into my first wakeboarding boat.
My 2003 Malibu Wakesetter VLX was the perfect platform to get back into wakeboarding and start surfing. After graduating with my Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Johns Hopkins in 2020, I had enough free time to start shaping the VLX into where it is today. My goal was to keep iterating on designs until I was able to have a surf wave comparable to late model boats even with only 1 person on board driving.
After pushing the limits on the '03 VLX, I'm confident this platform can be adapted to any wakeboard boat looking for an affordable way to keep up with the newest boats on the market.