Tips for surfing without rope?
 

We can't seem to get the hang of surfing without the rope. We are riding behind a wakesetter 247 rx d-drive with left ballast, wedge down, and 350lbs of people on the side. The wake is definitely big enough (I've rode smaller wakes w/o a rope) but I can't seem to get the positioning right. Does anyone have any tips?

I'll attach a vid we just took. It looks pretty small in the video but it seems big enough in person. Thanks everyone who is giving some insight.

http://youtu.be/3zMQyh-8sRk

move your front foot closer to the toe side edge, lean over towards the wave more, looks like your trying to ride it like a wakeboard, and point the board towards the boat

I run #2200 lbs of ballast for surf... Your wake is way to small for push.. add ballast..

more weight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there is no replacement for displacement

See this thread:
http://www.wakeworld.com/forum/showt...157&page=99999

I also second more weight, or playing more with what you have. Lately we have been running about 1850lbs to surf, ~350 under rear seat, 750 beside the dog house, 750 on rear seat and other 750.
Before we used to run the same setup but swap the 750 on the floor by the doghouse for a tube sack about half that size.
The positioning matters too, we tried to position the 750 behind the doghouse and 750 on the side of it and it was really washy with very little push.

Has anyone been able to freeride your boat and you can't, or can no one? If no one can. It's not you, it's the boat's setup, maybe a little to do with the board as well.

What helped me when trying to surf was to have someone pull the rope from me instead of me trying to throw it and look cool and also reaching forward toward the back of the boat with my my front hand helped too

Like everyone else said- more weight. That big boat has more displacement & needs more ballast to push it down. Even on our 21ft '13 VLX, we run full ballast (1250), little bit of wedge, 750 sac in left side rear locker, 750 sac on left side seat, 400 sac in bow (if we don't have a dude up there). Over 2000lbs seems to be the magic number. I also agree with Tonyv420 - gotta get the toe closer to the edge on the front. That surf wave should be up near your hip when you are low in the pocket near the platform. The wakesetter 247 should & will throw a monster wave! Also, what is your speed? We run between 10-11mph. Your boat is throwing a nice long wave - but too short in the height.

no replacement for displacement. sick that boat. get the rub rail touching the water when its just sitting still. and add weight in the bow. get the gangsta lean going. we have people come up and ask us if we were ok cause they thought the boat was sinking. hahahaha

More weight + squaring your upper body up should fix the issue your sweet spot is way to small 05 Mastercraft X2 750lbs on surf side 650lb front bow piggy backin off full 200lb center sack plus body weight. Go big !

Exactly. If you're listing a boat, you're not doing it right until you have the coast guard called on you to save you from "sinking"
Listing it to the side helps more than just sinking the back.

after u add more weight, straighten back leg to lean fwd and point board toward center of the boat into the wave. which board? looks like LF Fish which are known to be stable but lacking in fwd movement for bigger guys is word i've heard.

I tend to disagree with the above advice of wear to point the board. You are basically riding down the water coming up from the behind the boat rushing towards the crest. This puts the tip of your board pointed more towards the rear corner of your surf side than the center of the boat. The only time my board is towards the center of the boat is if I'm slashing up on the wake and carving it up. Especially if you are riding a skim style board that tracks with the edge of the board and not the fins, you are going to be pointed more towards the corner more so than surf style boards.

The best advice I've gotten from this place was to put a good majority of your weight on your forward foot big toe. Made all the difference for me.