Is there an alternative to weight in the boat?

Have any of the boat manufacturers looked into anything lake a flow through trim plat in the center of the boat. It seems like it would solve the bow rise problem, also you would be able to adjust the wake size in seconds. Could potentially get the effects of a couple thousand pounds of ballast with the back "wedge" hydrofoil and the center boat trim plates. Just in case i am not explaning well i drew a little picture.

Maybe some of you engeneers can give me some feedback on why it may, or may not work.

I think it would be nice not to take up so much storage room for ballast.

wow, I should read before i post, sorry for all the typos.

There are lots of alternatives, Malibu has the wedge similar to what you describe on the back and Tige has an inverted V hull configuration designed to make a wake, just to name a couple.

Ballast is just the most common approach.

I'd see the first $100K wake boat if that kinda technology was used.

It would only be 100k if the boat companies charged it, i was kinda going through it and i dont think they would need to charge more than 65k with a decent configuration. The one problem i saw while thinking about it thins morning is it would be difficult to put on a trailer, i still got to try to figure that out.

I have been wondeing about the same design for some time & why it has not been used. Older F-1 cars used to air flow over the car to suck the cars to the track, I was wondering why they could not use the same theroy for the bottom of the boat, Just like Xriders post.

BTW: Jeff $100K wake boats all ready exist.

100k=x80

www.wakecoupons.com

I have fully functional designs that are based upon hydrofoil technology. It is simply too expensive to produce and will result in increased maintenance to make it all work. Weeds and debris strikes cause problems. Additionally, the boat can be made to be quite unstable and dangerous to navigate under some scenarios. The result was the need to have a limiting system. When that became too complex without a gyroscope, acellerometer, and small computer (similar to the PP chip), it became unworkable from a cost and complexity perspective. Boat mfgs were not too interested in investing in a new hull configuration that would accomodate the hardware. I share your vision and spent a lot of design and development time on this. Unfortuantely, it is a bust given today's market conditions.

From a general perspective, to produce a wake you need displacement and movement. There are limits to the curves as to how a hull will interact with the water. You cannot, however, produce a large wake without displacing the amount of water weight to produce the desired wake size. The Tige convex hull is simply a semi-displacement hull design similar to that of a dory. Malibu's foil is very basic, but does work for what it was designed to do. You will note that they still use weight ballast.

Commercial vessels and larger yachts do use stabilizers that are computer controled wings under the water to eliminate the rolls that large displacement hulls take while traveling through the water. That technology was was the basis for what I was trying to do. Due to the very limted draft and high speeds of the boat, the technology cannot be retrofitted.

Good thinking. Keep at it. You may be successful where I was not.

grant, have you read about Epic boats? From reading I guess that hull is designed to naturally suck down into the water... I would like to see how that boat handles, holds speed, gas consumption and wakesize/shape

To Quote Sam Jackson from Pulp Fiction: "Check out the big brain on Karl" LOL. Karl thats cool you sound like you have worked on this Idea before, I was wondering why no one had come out with it. You explanation makes sence. Now that you have pulled back the curtan and wreked it ofr me. I will have to think of some more great ideas that would change the boating industry but will never put to use "better known as talking smack" LOL.

Some manufacturers already have something incorporated into their hulls to make them have a better wake. With Skiers Choice, it is called a stepped pocket (sort of like a reverse hook). It is basically where the back of the boat starts to slope up. This allows the water to go up and back rather than just straight back. Hydrodynamics says when water is forced up a surface, the surface tends to be "sucked" down into the water more. This is also how the hydraulic wakeplate is able to be incorporated into their design. The wakeplate compensates for the stepped pocket when down, giving better holeshot and a flat ski wake. For more info check out the 2005 Supra brochure in the back.

Sorry to sound like a salesman by the way.

Here are a couple of pictures of a 24SSV to illustrate what I am saying.

In other words, the stepped hull is basically utilizing the same principle as the Tige convex hull. (Tige has no hook, and is, in fact, convex).

Wow how times have changed that same stepped Supra hull was the reason they had such a GREAT slalom wake