MasterCraft

MasterCraft is an American performance boat manufacturer founded in 1968 by waterskier Rob Shirley, who built his first hull in a two-stall horse barn in Maryville, Tennessee. The company is now headquartered in Vonore, Tennessee, where it hand-builds thousands of boats per year at a single facility on Tellico Lake.

The core range targets the watersports performance market - tournament ski, wakeboard, and wakesurf - with fifteen production models spanning the NXT, XT, X, XStar, and ProStar families. The flagship X26 (7.92m, seating for 18, CE Class C coastal certification) and the XStar 25 (7.8m, 630 hp Ilmor supercharged 6.2L engine, 18 seats) sit at the top of the range and are the models we discuss with superyacht programmes. Both carry the deep-V hull, ballast-management systems, and high-gloss gelcoat finish that translate directly to the tender role.

MasterCraft entered the superyacht tender segment formally in 2013, when MasterCraft Boats UK was appointed the brand's worldwide superyacht tender dealer. That programme covers specification advice, certified lifting solutions, logistics, and crew training - which matters when a 26-foot inboard towboat needs to live on a davit. The build quality is consistent: fiberglass laminate construction, Ilmor marine engines built on proven V8 blocks, and a five-year bow-to-stern warranty standard across the range. We'd put the X and XStar families alongside the known European tender suppliers for fit-and-finish; the differentiation is the depth of the watersports capability behind the boat, which few purpose-built tenders can match at this size.