Surfing on an old boat
 

Anyone try it?
There are a few of these around for sale and I would guess they put out a pretty good surf wake.
http://detroit.craigslist.org/wyn/bod/3166430880.html
I wouldn't think their wake would be too good for wakeboarding, so I haven't gone out to puchase
one, but for 1/10th the cost of a new surf boat, I wouldn't think you would have to compromise on surf wake quality.

I've been thinking that they would. Would love to see someone try it.

You can surf behind it, but the fuel cost is gonna be a lot!! I would like to have that in addition to my surf boat, for overnighters!

I'm sure keeping that tug boat at a consistent speed would be a challenge.

How about a late 70's - early 80's Century Arabian? My father-in-law had one of these when I first met my wife and it was a heavy pig that had a huge wake to cross while skiing. They were v-drives, and usually had trim tabs. I'm wondering if you could weight this thing down enough to surf behind it?

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/boa/3189503729.html

My buddy has a late 70's Araiban and we have surfed it. We put two 400lb bags on the surf side and a 370lb bag in the ski locker and it made a decent wave to surf. Big just not a long pocket. But yes it sucks the fuel down.

Inboard should work.
I have a 30 ft cruiser with twin I/Os , dual trim tabs are normal so we can lean the boat. It throws a huge wake but even after I added whale tails for other reasons the prop wash is still bad. We tried it goofing around one day and could surf behind it but maneuvering a boat that big around every time someone falls becomes a big pain real quick . Not easy for a driver to see a surfer 6ft below the deck either.
Wake boarding behind them is better than surfing.

Every time I see one for sale close to here, I want to go buy it! My wife always says, "sure, but you need to get rid of your current boat". It pretty much ends right there. The wake length is probably not helped with the boat only being 19'. Maybe it would be better as a wakeboarding boat, but that boat with a tower would be a sad sight to see.

About a year before we got into surfing i had a 30' sport fisher with a 10' beam and twin direct drives but only had the port engine in it ( a new black scorpion )
I still wonder about how awesome the wake would have been for surfing ..... the boat had a gentle list and when we put a bunch of people on the port side it would have a great list to that side ..... the back deck was 9' x 11' and there was enough storage for fat sac heaven!!! Gotta believe you would want jet ski tow ins though!!