Boating Innovations to Watch in 2011

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iPhone Meets Ski Boat
Innovation: Touch-screen dash systems

How It Came to Be: Dan Gutierrez, design and marketing director at Tigé Boats, chuckles recalling a company meeting during the winter of 2008. Tigé owner Charlie Pigeon walked into the meeting, held up an Apple iPhone and proclaimed, “I don’t want anything else in our boats until we can do this!” “And he meant it,” says a laughing Gutierrez, who was then tasked with creating TigéTouch, which would become the first touch-screen instrument panel on a ski boat. The system emerged in the 2010 Tigé line and created quite a stir. Joining the party, Malibu Boats is launching its own version of touch-screen technology in select model-year 2011 boats. The Malibu Touch Command (MTC) dash was designed with the same technology partner used by Tigé (Medallion Instrumentation Systems) and even offers a touch-screen digital ignition button.

Why It’s Unique: It offers a glimpse of the future. While it remains to be seen if broader applications will apply outside the highly specialized ski-boat market, many manufacturers have taken notice.