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Old     (bigshow)      Join Date: Feb 2005       05-05-2006, 8:29 PM Reply   
I saw someone post pictures of a Tige’ with spray pockets glassed in. So I wondered if I should consider filling in the spray pockets on my Lighting. I also didn’t want to commit to the idea with out having an idea that filling in the spray pockets would improve the wake. I thought about a number of ways to fill in the spray pockets but eventually found my inspiration from the Red Green show (watch a little PBS folks). I built fill material from Styrofoam sheets and then duct taped them in place.

The filler lasted for about fifteen minutes, then the tape started to unravel and we had to remove the tape and collect loose Styrofoam. The end result – the surfing wake was better without the spray pocket filler. The bottom of the older Lightning hull is really busy, I only filled the last four feet where the spray pockets are located.

Here are a few pictures for a laugh
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Old     (partydock17)      Join Date: Apr 2004       05-05-2006, 8:40 PM Reply   
The RED GREEN SHOW RULES!!!!!!





Danny T.
WWW.OKCBoardShop.COM
WWW.WakeboardOklahoma.COM
Old    surfdad            05-06-2006, 6:28 AM Reply   
Ed, I saw that same thread, was it on TigeOwners or WB.com? The spray pocket on my 23V is pretty substantial: 4" x 4" x maybe 3' long. My understanding from that thread was that eleminating the spray pocket eleminated the lip riffle at 60 feet (which I need with my severe near sightedness) and you're say that it didn't help the surf wake. Did it degrade or just not help?
Old     (bigshow)      Join Date: Feb 2005       05-06-2006, 11:07 AM Reply   
We we're surfing on the goofy side which has been pretty bad on my boat. The size of the surf wake was smaller with the spray pockets filled. The rider said that the wake shape was better without the spray pockets filled. The bottom of my older Lightning hull has a lot of interesting contours, no doubt designed in for skiing. This was an attempt to remove part of that contour to see if there was a noticeable change. I’d say we had a noticeable change, but not one that improved the surf wake.

I think, but I’m not sure, the Avalanche hull is very clean, without the contours found on the older Lightning hull. My guess is that the clean hull with the deeper angles make a better wake, but that’s not something I’m going to see on the Lightning. However my little experiment didn’t really agree with that assumption.

I’ve heard that back in the 1960s they used “John boats” for wake surfing. Do you think they meant the flat bottom kind? It would be interesting to test other fundamentally different hulls.

This year I replaced my 180 pound hard tanks with 750 20x20x50 Fly High Fat Sacks, I added 270 pounds of home mode pop bags and I have about 80 pounds of bar bell weights. Of course we put all the weight on the surf side. We haven’t tried filling both sacks. The extra weight is helping the goofy side, but it’s still not really good. I think the regular side is better than last year but not a lot.

Here's a picture of a 170 lb rider, on a Mojo XL riding the goofy surf wake at about 9.5 mph. We had three in the boat weighing about 700 lbs on the port side, driver, one on the port deck and one on the port seat behind the driver.
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Old    surfdad            05-07-2006, 12:11 PM Reply   
Heey Ed, the only "John" boat I am familiar with is the aluminum Jon boat that you are talking about...I think it was used mostly for line riding though, not wakesurfing like we know it today.

If I am not mistaken, the original "Wave" wakeboard boat that Centurion manufactured had very rounded chines and not the hard ones we see today. The wake in those old pictures from the FIRST ever wakesurf contest looked pretty good.

Do we really have any "fundamentally" different hulls that can be used for wakesurfing?

Old     (bigshow)      Join Date: Feb 2005       05-07-2006, 3:29 PM Reply   
Jeff here are a few ramblings on hulls and wakesurfing. I’m pretty sure that they were surfing, and not line riding back in the 60s and they were riding behind John boats. At least the article in the August 1966, Mechanics Illustrated showed free riding and even had a woman standing on a man’s shoulders while wakesurfing.

I think the basic shapes would likely be V and V variants, flat, and rounded.

V-hulls -
First the disclaimer – don’t surf behind an I/O or outboard! There are a variety of recreational V hulls, I’ll group them as follows:

V-hull type………..……….V depth…………Weight………….Notes
Runabout Outboards……..Deep V………….Light
Fishing Outboards……….Shallow V…….....Light
Runabout I/O…………..….Deep V………….Moderate
Deck boats……………..….Shallow…………Moderate
Ski Type Inboards………..Moderate……….Moderate………..Complicated hull shapes
Wake Type Inboards……..Moderate……….Can be heavy

Flat -
John boats, barges, and one really unique outboard deck boat that I frequently see on Griggs, not sure what else would be flat. It would be interesting to catch up to a coal barge on the Ohio River and see if those wakes are surfable.

Round or Rounded -
Sail boats and the original Centurion Wave (Per Jeff’s comments.)

Other thoughts -
So has any one loaded up a deck boat with a ton of ballast one side and then looked to see what the wake looks like? How about a large 24 foot john boat?

I’ve heard that a deeper V, like the deep V on the newer Centurions is good for wakesurfing. How deep of a V is good, where do you reach diminishing returns, and where do you go beyond diminishing returns to a V so deep that the surf wake gets worse?

Tige’ TAPS convex hull sounds interesting, in theory the convex hull lets the back of the boat sit deeper in the water with less weight.

I also understand that a deep V makes the wakeboard wake a little more tricky. If your boat is weighted more to one side while wakeboarding the wake on that side will be good while the other side is foamy. Wakes behind wake boats with a deeper V will be more sensitive to tow boat left to right weight distribution. So you might build a hull with a nice deep V for wakesurfing, but the deep V might make wakeboarding more challenging.
Old    surfdad            05-07-2006, 7:13 PM Reply   
Ed, it seems to me we have to define a good wakesurfing wake first. I read so frequently of folks equating GOOD with LARGE. Wakesurfing isn't like surfing in the ocean, where you have a huge wave with so much mass PUSHING you forward. In fact, if you ride perpendicular to the face of the wave for more than a second, you're ride is over.

To me, the transition of the wake in relation to height is more important than height alone and probably just as important is the length of the pocket...LONGER being better.

For the sake of argument...I say the perfect wake (barring Dentard's 38 foot Ex-Navy boat :-) ) 2.5 to 3 feet high. The transition is just as wide and the length of the pocket is 20+ feet from the BACK of the swim deck at an avrage speed of 10mph.

What would create our perfect wake (however that is defined by an individual)?
Old     (bigshow)      Join Date: Feb 2005       05-07-2006, 8:39 PM Reply   
I expect that there are a few boats that make a real quality surfing wake, by anyone’s definition. There are a few like Jeff Page, your Tige’, and a few others that have one of a kind modifications that are excellent examples. Not many have ridden the hot Board Stock set up or other highly customized ones.

I have to agree that defining what makes a wake good for surfing is one of the first steps leading to making an improvement, not many have ridden on enough surf wakes to be able to define what is good. So a lot of what everyone is doing is trial and error. It would be nice to know what works and what doesn’t. That’s why I made my little experiment and posted my subjective results.

I started off last year trying to ride on a small board that wasn’t made for wakesurfing and so I had little initial success. By the end of last season I was getting what I thought was a pretty decent surf wake, have a drink while riding, and was able to cut and ride for pretty long runs.

This year I stepped up my ballast from 180 lbs per side and maybe 160 lbs of free weight to 750 fat sacks, 270 lbs of home made pop bags, and the same 160 lbs of free weight. The goofy wake is better, but still short. The regular wake looks really nice when I’m running about 12 mph, but I can’t keep up with the wake, so I’m riding at 10 mph. At 10 mph the more heavily ballasted boat is making an OK wake, I’m not sure that I’ve made an improvement yet.

I suspect that Switch Blade equipped Enzos and probably the Avalanches as well are pretty good out of the box solutions. But like the transition from ski boats to wakeboard boats many people will work on modifying the boat that they own rather than buying new. This forum is a really good place to exchange these ideas for people making these conversions.

From my experience I’d say that it takes some effort to “dial in” a surf wake and a little dedication as well. The first success is getting a wake you can free ride. After you have some success free riding you can begin to work on what is better. To make wakesurfing more widely practiced I think we need improvement in understanding how to set up existing boats. I’m still dialing in for the 2006 season. I’ll post results when I have them.
Old    walt            05-07-2006, 8:48 PM Reply   
I havn't seen the Red Green show in a long time. Is it still on ? That show is too funny !
Old     (bigshow)      Join Date: Feb 2005       05-08-2006, 4:03 AM Reply   
"If the ladies don't find you handsome they should at least find you handy."
Old    surfdad            05-08-2006, 8:22 AM Reply   
I do agree with you Ed, understanding of how to modify to make the activity enjoyable is best. I do want to clarify one thing in your post about the wake at the World Wakesurfing Championship. As far as a competition level wake, that one was great...both regular and goofy stance wakes were great. However, in order to achieve that, the boats were RIPPING. 12+ mph. I do believe they took the Am-women's out at 13+ before slowing it down for the rest of the day. I was pushing so hard to keep up with the wake, in my heat, that I was winded at the end of my 2 minute run. I really believe that for recreational users the top speed is in the 10.5 mph area, beyond that and it's work. :-)

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