Your weight and the quality of the wake your boat makes have a pretty big impact on your choices. Early last year I began trying to surf my wake on an old Thruster, I tried my kneeboard and I tried my wakeboard, neither of which worked for me.
Eventually I bought a Broadcast 5.6 and I’ve had good success, no 360s though. It took me a few outings to ride without a rope. Now it’s easy for me to ride even with a light crew – driver, watcher, and stock port ballast.
You’ll find that the wake on one side of your boat is better than the other. Left handed prop rotation makes the port side surfing wake behind my Centurion Lightning better than the starboard wake. Most boat brands are left handed, Correct Craft is a notable brand with right handed rotation and so the starboard wake should be better. Regular footed riders will prefer to surf the port wake and goofy footed on the starboard wake.
I weigh about 210 and I ride a nice wake on the port side behind my boat. One of my crew, an experience surfer, is about 260 and has a lot of difficulty surfing on the starboard side using the broadcast. Another of my crew weighs about 160 and can surf my Thruster on the starboard side, but almost always rides the Broadcast.
Last season we steadily improved the surf wake on the mighty Centurion by making simple adjustments. The most important thing to do is get ballast on the surfing side of the boat and to the rear of the boat. This coming season I’m planning on adding about 1200 to 1500 pounds of ballast.
So, how much do you weigh, what kind of INBOARD boat do you have and how much ballast can you put on either side?
(Message edited by Bigshow on January 31, 2006)
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