Wake surfing without the rope
 

Just recently went out to try out our new wakesetter mxz and do a little surfing. I've only surfed behind a boat a couple of times before and never without a rope. I was wondering if there are some key tips or advice to help me out. We had the stock rear starboard ballast full and the center. Also the wedge and surfgate deployed. (riding a ronix parks thruster 5'1") At one point closer to the boat near the swim platform I felt I could almost let go but not quite. I'm guessing I need more practice. I also got the plug and play 750s for the rear but havent hooked them up yet. Some tips would be appreciated.

Your front foot is the gas. Your back foot is the brake. When your new to surfing i tell riders to take their back hand and try to touch the top of the wave. This will allow you to have weight on your toes which keeps you in the wave. When you shift your lead hip straight over your lead foot you will accelerate. Once your in the pocket even weight will keep you going. If you get too close to the deck line your rear hip with your rear foot then back to even to maintain your drive. Remember to stay straight from your hips to your shoulders. If you lean with your shoulders you will most likely dunk the nose or lose your drive.Good Luck!

All good info above but I would add point the board at the corner of the boat and keep your eyes there as well. It helps keep you in the sweet spot when learning. Plus you need more weight. It will get better with the 750's

With surfgate you need to weight your boat evenly.

Two things, first about boat setup.
I haven't ridden a new MXZ, but I have rode a pre surf gate VLX. The stock ballast needed a little help to get a good wake out of it.
In the setup I have ridden, it had the center, bow, and back tanks full. It also had a 750 in the surf side locker.
With 3-5 people in the boat favoring surf side seating it was a pretty nice wave.
With only 2 people in the boat we filled another bag filled to around 500lbs in the rear corner on the seat surf side. This made the wake about the same as the other 3 people.
WIth these setups the wake was really nice and big and had tons of push.
We also noticed that the wake was a lot cleaner without the wedge deployed. With the wedge deployed it made the wake a little bigger but a lot dirtier and made more wash and spray.
Also being a 21' you had a lot of push really close to the back of the boat and had to make sure to keep a good amount on your rear foot to keep off the platform.
With a longer boat you will have a longer wake, but may need more weight. Also I haven't ridden a surf gate setup, so the weighting will be a little different if you plan on utilizing it. The setup above worked well for a 2012 VLX 21 as a strictly ballast setup but will differ from some from boat to boat.
Depth and water conditions play a part in a good wake as well. Anything less than 10 feet is sketchy and can make your wake smaller and rob you of push. Scout the area you plan to ride ahead of time. If there are any shallow areas, avoid them if you can. Smooth water makes for better riding, but it is very possible to ride in choppier water, that is one of the draws of wake surfing right?
Speed is a big factor too. The faster you go, the more the wake cleans up and lengthens to some extent, but the less push it has as the wake grows smaller. A good speed to start out is 10mph and you can adjust up and down from there. I have ridden setups as slow as 8mph and as fast as 13mph. It really depends on the boat. If it has GPS perfect pass instead of paddle wheel and you have current, you may have to play with the speed a little bit to compensate.

Secondly, as far as technique goes. I'll assume at this point that you can get up consistently and aren't fighting to get to the surf side when getting up. If you are having some difficulty there, routing the rope around the tower to the surf side can help pull you to that side and get you up on the surf side quicker.
-Keep your body sideways facing the wake. You shouldn't be squared up facing the boat, but have to look over your shoulder to see the boat.
-Your feet should be about shoulder width apart, maybe a little more separated. The distance you have your feet in your wakeboard bindings is a good start.
-Your toes should be towards the edge of the board towards the wake face. The edge of the board at the wake face is where some of the push from the wake comes from. You want to have the edge of your board digging into the wake to harness the power.
-Balance is key, on the x and the y axis. X being up the wake and down to the flats, Y being towards the boat to back of the wake. You need to find the sweet spot in your footing that puts you in the center of this and allows you to easily shift your body weight along both axises.
-*The first part is the X axis. If you find yourself constantly drifting up and/or over the wake and having to over correct towards the flats, move your heels back and your toes away from the edge of the board. Reverse this if the opposite is true and you keep falling out to the flats.
-*The second part is the Y axis. With a decent wake and push you should have your rear foot on the tail of the board, possibly all the way back. Your front foot should be just forward of the center of the board. This will vary a little bit from board to board, but it's a good rule of thumb. You should be in a part of balance where keeping your weight centered, you should be staying roughly the same distance from the boat. If you find yourself constantly on your back foot and having to keep putting on the brakes, move your feet a little bit more towards the tail of the board. The easiest way is sliding your front foot back a little bit. Inversely, if you are always falling towards the back of the wake and keep having to lean forwards or pump a lot to stay in the wake, move your feet forward a little bit. Move your back foot more than your front as you want to avoid putting to much on the front and sinking the nose. Move your front foot a little if necessary.
Over all you should work on finding that sweet spot that lets you shift your weight slightly to move towards and away from the boat with ease.

Do all of this whle you still have the rope. When you are really comfortable and aren't having to fight to stay in the same position in the wake by making drastic changes you have your sweet spot down. Remember it, both by muscle memory and visually. Some people use a sharpie or tape to mark their toe positions to help them remember their positioning.
When you have that down and you are riding with slack in the rope for at least 30 seconds you are ready to toss the rope. To start, don't try to throw it in the boat right away. A lot of people tend to move their weight forward a lot when they start to throw it in and lose their balance point forcing them to try and correct and fall. Just toss it to the dark side of the wake. The wash will keep it there, someone inside the boat can pull it in for you. Once you are comfortable with that you can start tossing it in the boat. Just as with anything, it is all in the wrist, it doesn't take a lot to toss the rope and is more like opening your hand forcefully with a light extension of your arm. This is the right way to do it without losing your balance. You don't have to be he-man or a baseball picture, just toss it gently.

If you are still struggling with it and no one on your boat, except for really light guys are able to freeride, add more weight.

I hope this helps you out and have a great time learning. It's a blast and very addicting once everything clicks. Have fun!

Damn, that's a novel Desi. But good insight.

When you toss in the rope, it's helpful to try the "superman" technique. Basically once you toss the rope, put both of your arms out like you're "superman" flying towards the wake and bend your knees... It helps stabilize you and gets you back in the right position, as throwing in the rope will often mess with your body positioning.

What kind of board were you riding? My experience with surf gate was that you needed a pretty fast board in order to stay in the wave.


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Lot's of good info. I will keep it pretty simple. Yes, as Mitch said, if you are going to use the surfgate you need the boat more evenly weighted. The 750s will help. In all honesty we played with a few Malibu's with surf gate and have been doing this for a long time, and it was not completely intuitive how to get each boat set up. It takes time.

If you get some video of both the wake and you riding it will be real easy to tell you what to do and what you are basically doing wrong.

Most people with a wakeboarding back ground, lean back too far, always pulling on the rope. You want to be more squared up over the board, you also want your toes, particularly of your front foot more towards the inside rail. The wake is going to try to push you out, you need to be leaning it in, much like Harold indicated point the nose of the board towards the inside corner of the boat.

Some people have trouble riding the parks carbon. Considering it is 5+',size wouldn't be an obvious issue, but it could be. How tall are you? and how much do you weigh?

There are lots of people riding the Bernard now, so you should be able to find some people that can help you out. If not, I know a few.

Nick

I think it is very helpful to have a good board that will help you progress. A board made by a wake surf specific company will be more responsive and faster. I remember trying to learn to drop the rope many years ago with a crappy board....not fun. I bought a good board and like magic, I was surfing. Give me a piece of plywood and I could surf it now because the technique is learned.

All the comments can help, but something must stick with you. The helpfull hint we use often is to push your front hip toward the boat to accelerate and back to slow down. Practice this on land and you will feel the weight go to the balls of your feet when you push forward. You can also just take your front arm and point it toward the boat.

Just drop the rope to the other side of the wake - throwing it throws you off balance

Thanks for all the good info fellas! I will keep it in mind next session.

Ronix Parks Thruster 5'1"

I'm 6'1" 180lbs

If you ever want to try a custom board let me know I have a few


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Justin, yeah, you are not too heavy for that board. You might try an actual surfboard, something in the 6'4" or larger range. Getting the hang of ridding in the pocket on a typical performance ocean shortboard is a lot easier than most wake surfs. All the extra buoyancy just allows you to cruise along. Also, if you just add some real surf fins to the parks it will perform much better. The 2.3 and 2.9 plastic Ronix fins are actually little trailer or center fins, these are not designed to be used as drive fins.

If you make it up to Austin, I can let you borrow a bunch of boards to try and get the hang of it.
Nick

As you read, point it forward toward the boat and ensure you are neutral balanced. If you get out of the wake, you loose the ability to go downhill and accelerate. Being able to keep your hand over the wake will keep you in a good surfable location. Small weight changes have big results!

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