Dialing it In

ok, so I have been known to b*tch a bit about my swim platform getting in the way of my wake. And with all the talk about the best boat for surfing and all, I wanted to do an experiment for some time now. I know my Tige is capable of a better wake, but I can just never get past the point where the step starts really cutting in and screwing it up. My goal is to replace the step with a custom step that is as big as it can be without cutting in the wake. As a reference, I figured the best thing to do was to try without the step at all, which was very enlightening for me. My goal is to also put in automated ballast this winter, with about 1300 lbs per side, as far back as possible. So I aimed to simulate that. For each side I had 560 lbs of pop bags and 300 lb of sack on top. Then 200 lbs of pop under side seats. That is 1060 of ballast, plus we had about 600 lbs of people on the side. That is easy, because I am over 350 lb myself, and I sat right on the side. Not on the gunwales or anything.

Before I post the pictures, a NOTE. This is something I only did ONCE, and don't intend to do again. In all the 100s of hours we have surfed, no one has EVER hit the swim deck, so I felt safe doing this, and I only had my son RJ surf, who has very good control when he is not trying new stuff. Also, we noticed that CO could be a hazard. RJ said with the step off you could def smell the exhaust, and even see it. So we only went for a couple of mins and stopped. We were only out for about 2hrs on the whole, and mostly moving weight around during that time.

Anyway, here are the pics, starting with goofy. The problem with my goofy wake before was that it was good, but it had that secondary lip that made the wave harder to launch of. I knew it would be better if I could list over more, but then the deck cut in. So with the deck off, the wake was STEEP, and even though you can see the line from the secondary lip, it is BARELY there, and RJ said you didn't feel it, you could launch all the way from the top of the wave. Also my new system will have a bit more weight, so I believe it will only be better.





RJ liked it, here he is telling me how much more steep it is.



Here you can still see the secondary lip line from the corner of the boat, but it has little to know effect, and I know I can lose it with a bit more weight.



You can see I now have the water up to my rub rail, but still not crazy. This wave is still made with what I would consider a recreational amount of weight. All of our weight was hidden, and I can reproduce this with a custom enzo type sac.





It took a bit to get used to, plus I told him to take it easy due to no step. That is why he is also wearing a helmet. He was def able to launch better, but was a bit spooked.







OK, I am just throwing this in. RJ was trying some new 4wfs fins on the new SMED. The yellow fins were both loser, and drivier, but also, they looked b*tchen.



Here is a good shot that caught some of the steepness.



NOW for the regular side, for those non goofy riders. The reg side has no sign of the secondary lip, and is a clean face with a nice lip to launch from. There is more prop wash then normal, but the deck cleans some of that up. The trick will be to have a step that will keep some of the wash down, and yet not touch the wake.



This is the first time RJ has ever ridden backside.









Here is a shot of what the back of the boat looked like without the deck.



Now last, so you don't think there is any trick photography or what not, I made a quick video. One thing you will notice, is that even though the wake doesn't look as long as it did before in my previous setups, RJ was able to recover from just as far back. The wake being steeper and stronger he was able to recover from far back, and you can see that in the vid. Also, interesting, when we backed off the throttle, the wave actually came up the back of the boat. Never did that before. Combination of the height and steepness, plus no deck I think.

http://gallery.me.com/ragboy/100384

Let me know what you think.

2007 Tige 24Ve with 1100 lbs ballast, all hidden as far back as possible only on side of surf. Plus ~600 lbs of people on side of surf. Speed was 11.6 on both sides. I experimented from 10-13, this seemed best.

(Message edited by ragboy on October 19, 2008)

Nice experiment - how much of the swimdeck do you think you'll need to eliminate on the darkside to allow a clean face? Or will you just use shims to lift it up out of the water?

I haven't decided yet, I think I want to start with what I saw on the Sanger. Cut those corners off.

Waht about shimming up the swim deck, like desiging a spacer to go between the deck and the bracket? or would this not give you the clearance you need from the water?

I don't think so, also the CO issue makes me think I need the swim deck down at that level to keep the CO down in the water. So for now, I think I am going to try creating a new deck with no corners.

New Swimdeck prototype

This has turned out to be WAY more productive than I would have expected. This is also a lot of fun tweaking like this.

So lets start with the picture from last week, without the deck.



You can see from the above picture, that the corner of the boat from the left, is where that water is folding over and cuts across at about a 45 deg angle, which makes the UPPER lip on the wake/wave. The stock deck stock out past this line and cut into the wake. It also seems to have a more dramatic effect, because the bottom of the stock deck has a very harsh 1" lip under it, that would drag and catch water, causing heavy turbulence. So here is the issue, if I list the boat over, so the deck IS NOT a problem, I get something more like this:



There is a lower secondary lip, and even though you can't tell TOO bad on this image, above that lower lip/line, the wake/wave flattens out, it is not at the same steepness. So that when RJ goes to do some aerial, he really only launches from the bottom. Here is an image taken on a sanger, where you can really see it due to the angle. You can see how the wake is flat on the top, which is great for lip slides, but not so cool to launch from.



This doesn't really happen on the regular side on my Tige much, but def on the goofy side. So after experimenting, we found that if you list over more, the wake gets steeper, the LINE of the second lip will still be there, but the angle of steepness above the line matches up more with the steepness below the line as you list over. Now this is where the deck problem occurs. Here is an image with the deck cut in the wake.



This is a great image, cuz you can see how the wake is steepening above the line, but you can also see how the wake has that CUT in it, between the second lower lip line and the wash on the right, which should turn into the upper lip. This caught doesn't quite look TOO bad, but if you notice, the wake is STILL flat on the top. The reason the wake is NOT too bad, is because I noticed it, and backed off the list by adding weight to other side to make it less, or go away. So if you lose this CUT, the wake is flat on top, or you list over more to steepen the wake, and you get the cut that destroys the upper lip. Another pic.



So based on all of that, I figured I needed a deck smooth on the bottom that also cut into the area to the left of the RED line below as little as possible.

So the New Deck

So my dad is a handyman, and I figured the quickest/cheapest way to test this was to just make something out of plywood and bolt it on to the swim deck brackets, and get out on the lake. So here is my prototype compared to the old deck. On my first try, I didn't want to make the deck much smaller. Just smooth on the bottom, in from the sides, a bit in from the back. I still want this thing to be fully functional when I am done.





You will also notice that we didn't CURVE the back of the new deck to the boat like the old. This is just to save time, we didn't fee like we needed to do this for the test. Now, here is a picture of the wake without the deck from last week.



Wake is big, steep, still see the line, but its steep above and below. The line is more just a change in texture, not an obstacle. Now with the new deck, we even listed the boat over a bit more by adding more weight. I had 14 pop bags and 300# of sack in the rear locker on goofy side (860#) and 200# more of pop under side seat on goofy side. I also had a 400# sac on goofy side of the rear seat, and 600# of people, for a total just over 2000#, all on goofy side, almost all in corner. Taps was at 6-6.5 and speed at 12. Taps at 8 was a little messy, 6-6.5 cleaned it up.

Here is picture of the sac in rear.



And here are some pictures of the swim deck WHILE we are in this configuration.







This was very cool, because the cuts we made in the deck seemed to be perfect the first time. The line from the corner of the boat, that I didn't want to go over, I was right on that edge. If I wanted to cut the deck any more, I would have to cut the brackets that support the deck, which I was trying not to do, and it seems I got the angle right. A lot of my guesses came from the SANGER surf deck and surfdad's comments, so I had a good idea where to start. Here is one more pic, and even though the deck is being dragged some under water, the smooth underside just let it flow clean.

And Now the Wake

Now for the wake, its very clean and the launch lip is now in front of that curl and it is steep from bottom to top, RJ was stoked.





You will now notice the rubrail is now underwater.

I have to throw this in, a family in a little fishing boat thought they would have fun hitting my wake. As they got closer, their eyes bugged out a bit. They did ok.



Normally, with the curl as pronounced, and the wave seemingly not as long, it hinders you from recovering or slows your speed down. But that was not the case, RJ was able to recover from farther back than I have ever seen, and he was very stoked about it.



Here he is pumping from the back of the wave.



Some more nice shots.







RJ def having fun on the new SMED.





This is a great pic of RJ, he was stoked about the wake.





It was taking RJ a while to get used to boosting more of the top of the wake, and not the bottom like he used to.



(Message edited by ragboy on October 26, 2008)

a bit more

Here a real cool pic whit took, the way she framed it.



Last pic, RJ loves the fin setup we have gotten too, but on top of that, those translucent yellow fins look so cool.



My plan is now, to make a new deck out of aluminum, following the same shape as my prototype, and also curve along the back for looks and put decking on top. I also plan to put a 4 bag Rival system in my boat this winter with my own custom placed sacs based on all of my experimentation. This should allow me to go from killer wake on either side in minutes, although I will lose a lot of storage in sides and rear. But we put NO water in front, so I will be using front storage most. Can't wait. Maybe I can get one or 2 more rides in with the new deck. Not sure, the water is getting low at black butte now also, and the afterbay is not doable either. We need RAIN!

Those clear hex fins are sick, are they super light in comparison to a normal composite fin?

Great write-up Robert, the wake looks great! I'm looking forward to the rival install and the changes that makes in your wake.

Thanks, and yes, they seem lighter, but SMED would probably be able to speak to them more.

I am looking forward to the ballast intall also. Tired of manually moving weight. I am glad I waited though. Now that I know exactly what my boat likes, I can engineer a great system.

Looks like a cool mod Robert! I rode on a MC a few weeks ago that could use a similar mod on the swimdeck.

Surfdad - as for the hexalite fins... they are about 20% lighter. You can definitely feel it in your hand when holding a normal fin vs. the hexalites. I haven't had a chance to ride those particular ones myself as they went straight to RJ. : ) I notice he's been riding these yellows lately instead of the green fiberglass ones... hmm...

The cool thing about that fin design is that they
1. have a long base for added drive
2. are similar to a Vector 2 inside foiled fin,
3. this is the really interesting part --- they also have a slightly curved foil on the inside of the leading edge -- similar to a symmetrically foiled quad trailer fin, but just less pronounced on the inside -- the idea being to loosen them up even more...
4. and of course they look cool - which is most important!

RJ was running the green ones and liked them, but then we tried on the yellow ones, and I instantly saw his face that he felt a big difference. He said they were both looser AND more drivey/faster than the greens. We expected either more drive, or more maneuverability, but not both. Very cool.

So I had the new step fabricated out of aluminum, and it is all mounted and ready for the gator grip and then hit the water. It is perfectly smooth underside, and with the size and shape difference, I think it will make a big difference. Can't wait to try it out.

Love the action shots of the kids testing the step out! Hey Rag, what's the weight of that aluminum step in comparision to either a fiberglass or teak step?

I didn't weight the fiberglass step, but I guess I can. I would guess the fiberglass step without the mounts was like 50lbs or so. Maybe more. The aluminum step is 125. Its def heavier, but we are always trying to get more weight back there anyway, right?

I have no idea about the teak step.

Oh, don't bother weighing the old step. The fact that it's heavier is all I was looking for. You gained several advantages with this. One is that it's not digging into the water, the added weight is sort of a bonus and having the smooth underside rather than the fiberglass lip will also keep the wave face smooth. Great job on that.

Yes, I wasn't thinking about weight when I started, but was definitely thinking of shape, and definitely wanted the bottom perfectly smooth. The shop that cut the metal for us, wanted to do something ribbed, or with edges so that we could have same strength but lighter. I said no, because I wanted perfectly smooth on the bottom. It was at that point I realized it was going to weigh a lot more, but didn't see a down side to that except that I would need to mount very securely. The edges are even softly rounded, so it should produce no turbulence in the water.

How are the swim step mounts attacked to the boat. I've seen brands that through bolt them with a reinforcement block on the inside (mastercraft) and some that just heli coil into the fiberglass (centurion and MB), and i have seen this style pull out with too many people on the step. With the new step being more then double the weight of the old step it is a consideration i would take into the design.

Looks great love the thread. Fresh Air Exhaust?

@WAlove
They are through bollted with 6 countersunk bolts on each side. We saw the wood prototype get ripped off the mounts and made a "note to self".

@WakeMikey
Its a definite possibility.

Hook up that FAE and your set! Nice job and post Robert, I can't wait to get the boat out of the garage. (April 11th maybe) keeping my fingers crossed.

GREAT job Rag!!! I never thought about the swim step issue. I LOVE it What did the aluminum cost you to have fabed?

We have surfed w/out the platform and it does make a huge difference in the drive of the wave - thanks for the thread. I was thinking about trying to buy the Sanger platform, but I am sure that would be cost some serious coin, now I will make one out of Aluminum and call it a day (probably powder coat it to reduce some of the heat and match the boat). Great Job ! ! ! ! !

Well, this was some coin also. The cost of the aluminum, and having it cut, was like 1400. It wasn't cheap, but its what I wanted to do, and seemed the best way to get what I was looking for.

How much was the aluminum by itself and what is the thickness? Thnx.

It is 3/4 " thick, and I think I don't remember. My dad helped me run around with the aluminum and he just told me price cut, I have the invoice somewhere.

I was planning on throwing the blue gator grip on there, even though I didn't like it to get on the water. But I got a nasty cold, along with the rest of the family, and then 2 more weeks of cold and rain. So I ordered the black grip and finished it right. The new lift is installed this week, and the boat goes in the water this week, very excited, and the step is complete and looks great.

niiiice, I like how clean is that wake

Well, I hit my prop before I got to do any REAL testing, but here is a quick YT HD video of the new deck in action, you can clearly see how even when I dig the deck in the water, it doesn't efffect wake. I put about 1000 directly in corner, with nothing else, so it created a heavy enough list. This much list with my old deck, would destroy the wave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAhsy8vfKzs&fmt=22

You can also see the deck eliminates the rooster tail issue I had when I was deckless. Yes, I said DECKless.

Very impressive,I have never seen such a clean and smooth transition on a ve.I bet a lot of people will do the same thing.

that is really clean..
do you think that ( the deck you made ) would work on a wakesetter VLX 2000? and are you going to try and market them or??

It would work, but it would be too expensive to sell. I am checking on a few things, will let you know.