Boat Speed for the Pros?

Hey yall, I recently heard that most pro's ride with behind a boat speed seed between 26 and 28mph, with a 90 ft rope. Is that true? All the videos I've seen say to ride between 18 and 23mph. So whats the deal?

When you ride out at 85 to 90 you need to bump up the speed, so thats why you hear they are riding at 24 to 28.

The video is telling you what you need to do! As their title states pros are in a different class. I ride 22.5 @ 75'

Most pros ride around 83' at 25 or 26, but this varies depending on the person. You should ride at a speed you are comfortable with and a length which you can jump wake to wake consistantly. As you improve you will find what speed and length best suits your riding style.

Wouldnt riding that far out and that fast make the wake pretty small?

pros put so much weight in the boat that it really doesn't matter

When beginning you can slow the boat down and bring the rope in to help clear the wake consistently especially toeside and also it will make falls a lot less painful.

T-Bag,

Ridding on a longer rope lets you bring more speed into the wake, and ridding at 28 mph lets you cut in even faster, so they are making up for having a slightly smaller wake by going alot faster.

when you ride faster and longer line the wake does get smaller, quite a bit in fact. however, the wake gets way harder causing you to get way more pop and go bigger. riding a longer line gives you more hangtime and more time to generate speed when cutting in.

like stated before, ride at a speed and length thats comfortable for you. as you progress you will find that riding faster and longer will be more comfortable. push your limits to get better but dont push them to where your completely out of control

The wake at 26-28 mph isn't that small when you consider that the boats generally have 3-5K worth of EXTRA ballast.

On my X-star we ride at 85-88 feet, at 27 MPH, depending how many people are in the boat. We put 5K of ballast in the boat so its slammed. The wake is Huge at 27 well above your knee about mid thigh.

A Longer line and a faster speed allows you to maintain a taller body position while still being able to generate a ton of speed into the wake and not creating a ton of rope tension. On a lot of moves, take backside spinning, you need a tall body position. So with the faster speed you can stand tall and still blast a backside 3 or 5 into the flats.

The more you slam a boat the faster you have to ride to get a clean wake. If I pull people with no ballast, I get a clean wake around 18MPH and if I have 1500lbs and a couple of people in the boat I get a nice wake at 21.5MPH and higher. Throw in another 1000lbs and the wake will not clean up unless we are going at least 23MPH.

Now put in ballast that pros ride with then 22MPH is just not an option.

(Message edited by bmartin on October 15, 2007)

Andy,
that makes me want to pee in my pants and cry like a little schoolgirl just thinking about itlol. got any pics?

Andy,

I can only imagine what the wake looks like at 21-22 mph...5K I would need like 3 of my exgirlfriends to come out with to get that kind of ballast.

Andy, is that your old x-star, or did you get a new one?

It my old one, I am in the market for an 04' Mastercraft X-star, if you go any lead hit me up, heres a few wakshots.






These dont really do it justice.

aye andy...that last pic of you hittin that d-up is something nice...NICE...looks like you grabbed that beezy nice and long...hahah

That last pick is Collin Ryan.

I think the last pic was one he had put up on another thread and it was a triple if my memory serves me correct. Either way thats huge.

WOW.