I’m probably a few steps ahead of myself here because I have’nt tried the basics yet, but…
Can you make the wake bigger with weight in the boat?
Or build a form attached to the boat that drags under water to influence the shape of the wake?
(I enjoyed all the videos, BTW)
Josh
Josh, When you weight a boat for wakesurfing you put the weight generally along one side and to the rear of the boat. The side you put the weight on makes a good surfing wake. My boat is rated for 1035 pounds. I’ve run 2,800 pounds of ballast not counting people. That much weight all along one side is scary - I was worried about sinking the boat and getting on the evening news. My boat makes its best surfing wake when its listing at about 20 degrees. It’s difficult to stand in the boat with that much weight and it looks funny to others. Other boaters drive up to me and ask if were having problems and if we need help. A motorist driving over a bridge saw my boat and called 911. Fire trucks and police cars raced up and down the reservoir and a police helicopter hovered over our boat. We had no idea what was going on.
My boat brand in Centurion. I have an older model hull, one that isn’t even in production any more. Centurion has two other models that are two of the best surfwake hulls, the Enzo and the Avalanche. I’m trying to sell my boat so I can buy an Enzo.
There are two hull mounted devices that can improve surfing wakes. Malibu has an inverted hydrofoil and Centurion has a prop thrust diverter, the Switch Blade. The review on these devices is mixed. I used a Malibu VLX for the 2006 Scioto Wakefest. No mater what we did we had a good wake. The one thing we didn’t do is use the wedge. A Malibu promo driver brought another VLX to the 2007 Wakefest. He wouldn’t let us “help” him set up the boat for wake surfing. He used the wedge and I heard nothing but complaints. I’ve heard that the Centurion Switch blade throws a spray in the surfers face and it only works well when surfing on the side of the boat that the prop rotation favors. I don’t have first hand experience with the Switch Blade and I’ve also heard that they made have made changes correcting the spray issue.
This is how we used to get the boat to list - too many people including the local police expressed safety concerns.
80 pounds of weight on the tower to increase torque and list. Add that to about 2,000 pounds of ballast.
This is a 20 degree list. That why people call 911 for me.
Josh and Ed,
Just a caveat…as the President of the AWSA I get to hear all of the legislative issues. We’ve struggled with CO issues, but we have had a slew of proposed regulations that deal with oversize wakes destroying public and private property. Ed, you are familar with these. I do believe that we lost the Idaho battle. We always recommend wakesurfing responsibly, which includes not overweighting the boat and of course avoiding areas where a wake can destroy shoreline or docks.
This wake is with 1,200 pounds of water ballast - within the USCG recommendations for our boat and in a section of water with no private property present.
Ya, Jeff presents the issue well. I have local sculling rowers that don’t care to see me on “their lake”. They’d like to have private use of a public resource. I’ve gone past what is legal and safe on my boat to make a good surfing wake. The problem is that my hull isn’t that great for generating a good surfing wake. That’s why I’m selling it. Regardless of how great a surfing wake you generate you always need to respect others and be aware of your actions and their impact.
I’ve seen that hex grid card board build. Pretty amazing.
Big show, loved the vids, great job! As an avid wake boarder and skurfer from back in the day I was really impressed with your success. We often tried to let go of the rope, but in a 12 foot boston whaler, we didn’t have much of a surfing wake if you know what I mean. That vid made me jealous. Not sure if you ever saw it, but in the movie Apocalypse Now there is a section where they are wake surfing on a river behind a PT boat (I believe). I swear that wake is like chest to shoulder high and STEEP. With that wake and the right board it looked to me like you could surf that thing and even hit the lip (possibly). It had a nice coping right at that top of the face if I remember right. If you haven’t seen it you should go rent it. I think the sheer weight of that boat created the wave without having to list, but maybe I’m wrong. Either way cheers for that!!
Yep, those river boats kicked up a good “surf” wake. Not that I had experience, but I have seen it in a few films + the shot in “Apocalypse Now.” I have a friend that had me build him a board specifically to ride behind his ski boat. What he does is weigh down the stern with gigantic bags of water that were made for his boat, this creates a surfbable wake that’s about chest high. It’s the endless wave (at least until you run out of gas).
If you ever wondered about why Swaylock’s is in a different part of the universe, check http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1298538&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1
It seems that only a handful of the those folks at smag even bothered to read Ed’s post. It’s a challenge that Ed and I do each year at the end of the season, just fun and to make each other laugh. I am so tempted to start a thread asking for input on my design. Do you think if I moved the doorknob away from the rail I’d get better bottom turns? 
What about harder rails in the nose? they are 90 degrees now. I’m a little concerned about weight, do you think 48 pounds is acceptable?
Just for the record, I did NOT make blank used in the project.
wow… biggest smile while checking your work out…does your mind ever stop??? thats some wacky shit!
Bigshow,
Looking at how you have weighted the boat…
(Take this in a good way…)
I know a nutter when I see one! You committment to your hobby reminds me of stories of early big wave surfers, stowing-away on ships to get to Hawaii.
So the wake wreaks havock on private shorelines? Well, surely not a problem in open-ocean. Right I say, lets get a massive boat!
Josh
Lokbox, Back in the mid 1960s our neighbors in Toledo Ohio were making surfboards for Cypress Gardens water ski shows. We had a lake cottage in Michigan and a 16 foot 55 hp outboard. My Dad bought one and tried to get my oldest sister to wakesurf behind the family boat. The boat was great for slalom skiing, it barely made a ripple in the water. However it wasn’t enough for wakesurfing. To be honest I think if I knew then what I know now I bet we could have pulled it off.
One very important safety practice to note is that wakesurfing should only be attempted behind an inboard boat. The reason is that the propeller is well under the hull of the boat and there is no conceivable way that a surfer can become entangled in it.
Wakesurfing has come a long way in the last 40 years.
Josh, I hate winter. I want to be out on my boat but it’s too cold most of the time to risk taking the boat out of winterization. Working on these projects lets m e continue the activity in my off season.
I did go wakeboarding with friends in early December. We had snow on the shoreline, 40+ water temps and low 30s air temps. With dry suits it wasn’t all that bad. My wakeboard bindings are open toed so my toes got a little cold but I would definitely do it again. This year I was wakeboarding or wakesurfing for 9 of 12 months.
Lee, I got in to surfing, or really wakesurfing from wakeboarding. I’m fairly active on a wakeboarding forum. There are a number of forums. I friend of mine runs the Wakeboard Midwest site. It’s easy to post video on his site I go there often. I also go to WakeWorldOnline a lot, way too much. WakeWorldOnline is the best wakeboard web site I know of. It has by far the best wakesurfing sub-forum that I know of.
There are other wakeboarding forums. Some of them draw a fairly immature audience. I don’t particularly enjoy the content of those forums so I rarely spend time on them.
For my surfing interests Swaylock’s looks to be an amazing find. Jeff and Mat S. mentioned it before but it took me a while to navigate my way here. I’ve shared some of my fun, the cardboard surf board and so on. Everyone that posted on this thread had something positive to say or had some appreciation for the effort. I’m sure that everyone appreciates the board for what it is. For me it is a diversion in my off season. Its also a chance to play and learn. Not everything went how I wanted it to go but I had fun. Even though the board is very non-traditional I have learned a lot about surfing and surf board building.
On another Swaylock’s post I’m describing my first traditional surfboard build. I first posted a problem. Members looked at the problem and offered excellent suggestions. Swaylocks suggestions have given me an excellent way to recover from a beginner’s blunder. I have had other excellent suggestions as well.
So, thanks Swaylock’s!
What a GREAT post…!..Good onya mate…I really enjoyed that.
Look forward to more…keep em coming…Your the kinda bloke
who’d be welcome in my workshop for a few beers and a yarn…
Thanks.
Sammy
Dave, Not as big as the boat that you posted, but there’s at least one guy out there making waves with a much bigger boat than the rest of the lake/river surfers.
http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/87668/362043.html?1175981316
I live close enough to the Ohio River that I can get there any weekend I want. There’s a lot of coal barge traffic on the river. I don’t know if there are any legal issues surfing a coal barge wake but it would be interesting to see what it’s like.
awesome use of materials!
JUST DONT LET THE CHINESE SEE IT! ; )
All week long we’ve had great weather. The temperatures have been well in to the 60s, and even broke into the 70s several times. So what do you get after a week great weather, crumby weather. It was fairly windy with temperatures that just broke out of the 40s in to the 50s. Amazingly the water temperature gauge reported 57 degrees. It was hard to believe the water temperature but another boater told us that he was getting 54 degrees. Crumby weather made the occasion more memorable. It will be something we can brag about at work on Monday (as well as on line). You know, chest thumping manly Tarzan stuff. The whole crew can do all that manly stuff Monday morning around the water cooler, well except for Noelle.
The first ride in 2005 with my old boat was a similar experience – crumby weather. After the ride I returned a borrowed snowboard to Dean. We took a picture of the four of us holding the snowboard in front of the boat. Today Dean happened to have about a million snowboards in his car top carrier so we repeated the commemorating photograph. Note to self, don’t ask the nearest fishermen to take the photograph, Dean got clipped. Dean’s a big guy, that’s hard to do.
This is what I use to make a surfing wave - My new boat:)
April 2005
April 2008
I’ve got a really good group of friends. I was thrilled to be able to share the experience with six of them. A couple others had conflicts and a few had to cancel at the last minute. A crew of seven was plenty. It was great to see everyone since the long winter lay over.
Today was the release of a lot of pent up anticipation. Of course there’s the new boat. I spent a lot of time looking at boats this winter, so finally getting the new boat on the water was a lot of fun. I’m really in to wakesurfing and I’ve never surfed behind an Enzo so I really wanted to see the wake and I wanted to see if Enzo surf wake could live up to the hype.
I also built a few wakesurf boards this winter. One was a ridiculous egg create design made from Pizza Hut, pizza box cardboard. The second was a 9-foot long board. I’ve got a third surfboard that’s mostly complete; I just need to finish the electronics before I ride it. I’ll report on the other boards in different threads.