Speed and rope length
 

Beginner old dude needs to know optimal boat speed and rope length for wakeboarding.

what boat?

what is kind of universal is 20 mph at 60 feet to start. the main thing is a clean hard wake[no white wash or curl on the lip]. you can build from there.i recommend getting THE BOOK OR DETENTION 2012.they are excellent instructional dvds.

^ 60ft? Dude thats like in the boat haha

you gotta start somewhere why not in the boat? at least i didn't tell him to wear gloves.

Bwhahahahaha... nice ;)

id go about 75ft and just play with your speen. anything between 21-23 should be ok

just starting out i usealy tell peaple 65are70 depending on boat at about 20-22

Thanks. What does it accomplish by shortening up ? Sorry for (probably ) the stupid question...just trying to learn.

Wake is usually steeper and less distance to clear and more line tension.

Depending on how new you are, I like to start beginners on long lines around 75 feet to get them up and start carving. There is less pull towards the center when you are in the flats with a long line. Once you want to start jumping the wake to clear it, you will want a shorter line, ususally around 60 but you can experiement and can shorten it if you are not clearing it. I wouldn't ride with any balast to start - just wastes gas and you will have to go faster to have a clean wake. Good luck.

I am not sure what you call old but I am older than avg. wakeboarder I guess and in the newb stage. I like 60ft at 21mph. You get a good wake and have a good shot of clearing the wake. My old knees can not take casing the wake and thats what I do half the time at 75ft. I say start at 60 and when you start landing those then drop it back 5ft at a time. Moving in from 70 to 60 and dropping from 22 to 21 mph. really helped me alot over the last 2 weeks. Not sure it will be good for you but its working for me. Good luck!

Man you called yourself old and your the same age as me!!! That sux man I am not old am I?? LOL I also saw it looks like your behimd an I/O boat so i really dont know if that changes anything I have never really wakeboarded behind an I/O so I dont know if it makes a difference.Good luck OLD dude and have fun. Dont worry Robert is older than us!

70 feet is long for beginners. If they are just doing one wake jumps into the middle, 70' is fine so that they aren't landing on the upslope of the inside of the second wake and getting "bumped," but if you're a beginner trying to go wake to wake, you need to be at 55'. The problem that we find at our wakeboard school is that a lot of the high end ropes start at 65' and beginner riders just can't clear that wake to wake toeside and completely ignore their toeside jumps. If you are a beginner, look for a rope that starts at 55' instead of 65'. You can always work your way out to a longer rope, but you don't want to have to tie knots in your $100 rope because it won't go short enough to clear the wake from BOTH directions.

Longer ropes gives more room inside the wakes, as well as makes the wakes easier to cross. Once this is under the belt, shortening helps progress into jumping the wake.

Right now I'm just a carver. Getting up no prob. Started TRYING to jump a little but no clue proper form until I found this site a few days ago. This weekend I plan on practicing jumps and trying surface 180's. We'll see how high I can go and not blow out my knee (Patella tendon for an ACL) again. I think I'll try 55' and 60' and start at 22 mph as I'm north of 230 lbs.