All week long we’ve had great weather. The temperatures have been well in to the 60s, and even broke into the 70s several times. So what do you get after a week great weather, crumby weather. It was fairly windy with temperatures that just broke out of the 40s in to the 50s. Amazingly the water temperature gauge reported 57 degrees. It was hard to believe the water temperature but another boater told us that he was getting 54 degrees. Crumby weather made the occasion more memorable. It will be something we can brag about at work on Monday (as well as on line). You know, chest thumping manly Tarzan stuff. The whole crew can do all that manly stuff Monday morning around the water cooler, well except for Noelle.
The first ride in 2005 with my old boat was a similar experience – crumby weather. After the ride I returned a borrowed snowboard to Dean. We took a picture of the four of us holding the snowboard in front of the boat. Today Dean happened to have about a million snowboards in his car top carrier so we repeated the commemorating photograph. Note to self, don’t ask the nearest fishermen to take the photograph, Dean got clipped. Dean’s a big guy, that’s hard to do.
April 2005 with the Mighty Centurion Lightning
April 12, 2008 with the Mighty Enzo
I’ve got a really good group of friends. I was thrilled to be able to share the experience with six of them. A couple others had conflicts and a few had to cancel at the last minute. A crew of seven was plenty. It was great to see everyone since the long winter lay over.
Today was the release of a lot of pent up anticipation. Of course there’s the new boat. I spent a lot of time looking at boats this winter, so finally getting the new boat on the water was a lot of fun. I’m really in to wakesurfing and I’ve never surfed behind an Enzo so I really wanted to see the wake and I wanted to see if Enzo surf wake could live up to the hype.
I also built a few wakesurf boards this winter. One was a ridiculous egg create design made from Pizza Hut, pizza box cardboard. The second was a 9-foot long board. I’ve got a third surfboard that’s mostly complete; I just need to finish the electronics before I ride it.
Chris was the only hardcore wakeboarder. We set up to pull Chris first since the rest of us were there to wakesurf and the wakeboarding set up is simpler. My boat has two side tanks. We filled both tanks. I also had 270 pounds of bag weight in the bow. Considering the size of the crew and this is early in the season, well that was plenty of ballast. I was driving so I didn’t get much of a chance to look at the wake. Chris is going to be riding in Florida next week, that will be warmer. Since Chris was the first rider we didn’t really have our camera gear out so I don’t’ have any wakeboarding pictures.
Then we set up for regular surf. We moved the bags to the port side bow and dumped the starboard side tank. We also put a 750 FH fat sack in the port locker. For some reason it didn’t get completely filled. Compared to what I did to build a surf wake on my old boat this was a pretty simple set up. Right out of the box the wake was as reported, very good.
The regular side wake was nice and clean and had plenty of push. I expected a longer pocket than I got. That might be due to a number of factors. I was surfing on cardboard, I gained a little more weight over the winter than normal, it was the first ride of the season, cold water is more viscous generating more drag than warm summer water, and we don’t have sense for how sensitive the Enzo is to different set ups. I’m sure I’ll post more on the Enzo wake and set up.
Given my first assessment of the Enzo wake I’d say that I must have really had the Lightning surf wake dialed in. Give us some time and we’ll barrel wakesurfers.
We had heard that the Enzo surf wake was fast. Most boats run about 10 mph while we had heard that Enzos run about 13 mph. We rode around 11.5 to 12 mph.
We swapped the weight for goofy side surfing. About then the wind picked up another notch or two. The goofy wake had more spray than the regular wake, no wait the regular wake had no spray. When we went against the wind the goofy wake looked better but the surfers had to fight the wind. I also got a cold spray in my face so I ducked my head behind the windshield. Going with the wind the spray kicked up in the surfers face near the back of the boat. Again I was driving so I didn’t watch the goofy surfers a lot. I kept hearing that Noelle was able to surf way back in the pocket.
We need to work on learning how to set up the Enzo. As much as I’d like to buy an Enzo sack I have other priorities. I do have one simple idea, a set up modification, that might help the goofy wake. If this idea works I’ll share it. Haven’t tried this one on the Lightning. It should be simple to make. Maybe I can have it ready for next week. There was another set up that I made to the Lightning that helped the goofy wake. I might try that in a few weeks.
Here are some pictures from today:
Pizza Hut cardboard surfboard
Home made long board
Almost got to the nose
On Steve's 07 IS Yellow
Jac is on another kind of leash as well, sorry ladies
Steve refused to get in to the water until the boat was running and everything was set to roll.
A little switch going on with ease. Steve has been practicing at a water park.
I had strict instructions to make sure that Corey didn't get anymore pictures in this report than Noelle.
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I kept hearing that Noelle was surfing pretty far back on the goofy side. I guess here's the proof.
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2 What pose is this?
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4 More proof
Dean is the MAN. Everyone was wearing dry suits and wet suits, everyone except Dean. OK, Dean has a little walrus thing going, maybe that helps.
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