MotorActionMedia.com interviewed Dustin Motzouris on the new Kommander K1 and Anna Glennon, the owner of MotorActionMedia.com took one out for a spin. Check out the video and the full interview that you can find ONLY on MotorActionMedia.com.

Dustin, could you tell us a little bit about the background and concept behind the recently released Kommander K1 hull?

Well, we recently released the new Kommander K1 and basically, what made us decide to build it was that we wanted something different than what was readily availible on the market at the moment. I have been lucky enough to ride all the previous best of the best hulls out there, and I just felt that I needed something slightly different and more suited to what I wanted. We basically took a lot of the different ideas and knowledge I gained from riding these different crafts and we used some of the best ideas and features, and then added to them to see where we could make some of these features a little better. From all of this we ended up with a really well-rounded package.

It was a lot of work for sure, we did a lot of R&D, a lot of fiber glass and grinding [laughs]. But it was worth it in the end. The R&D never stops though, the hull is constantly evolving. The actual boat itself hasn’t changed much at all, but testing bumper rails, ride plates, intake grates, we are always playing with these; and we will keep pushing them to find what works best.

What features do you think are most important for an after market hull?

Well, you know when you think of a stock hull, it is really forgiving and fairly stable but they don’t hook up very well. When you want to build a good race hull, you want something that hooks up really well; that is what I think is almost the most important. The way you drive through the water — especially on a rough track — that is pretty much the most important. Secondly, I would say corner grip. That’s kind of a two part thing; how the hull leads into the turn and how it transfers into its rear keels so it has a lot of tail grip through the turns. It’s also important that it doesn’t get sketchy in your straight-aways. It takes a lot to get all of those things working together. Our plan for the K1 was to build something that hooked up really well, had lots of grip but was also stable. I think we really knocked that out of the park.

A lot of the racers who are involved in the Pro Ski classes think they need an aftermarket hull to be competitive. What are your thoughts? Would you a recommend a K1 to those guys who haven’t gone aftermarket yet?

You know, to be honest with you, the aftermarket hulls have just progressed so rapidly in the past few years. I don’t think you can really be competitive on a stock hull anymore in the Pro Ski classes. The technology in all of these aftermarket hulls is just so much better. When we developed the K1 we wanted it to be easy to ride. In my opinion it would be a great hull to start off with. There are a lot of good hulls on the market, but they each have their pros and cons. I’m not going to run down anyone else’s product, I just think people need to buy what suits them as a rider. And work with the company that they think will treat them they way they want to be treated. But yeah, our boat wsa designed to be easy to ride and have great performance; some of the other boats have great performance but are hard to ride, and others are easy to ride and don’t have that peak performance. I think we have a really good overall balance.

We’ve heard that there is a Kommander Yamaha hull in the works, and potentially a four stroke motor package from Kommander… Could you confirm any of that for us?

Well Kommander is now a Yamaha dealer, so whenever we have the opportunity to work with Yamaha we take it. We will definitely be doing a two stroke-triple Yamaha K1, and we will also have a hull coming that is really developed for the twin-cylinder Yamaha. It will have handling characteristics similar to a SuperJet but will feature a wider top deck and tray. It will be great for those guys who still want to run the Yamaha powerplant. Moving into the future, I think that four stroke is an important way to go; we will definitely be moving down that road. There is talk of a new Yamaha 3-cylinder four stroke coming out, and that will be the direction we will be going. Yamaha produces great product, it’s reliable, parts are readily available so it’s a great motor package for us to be able to use with the K1.