Wakesurfing questions

So I've been out 3 times now and I'm hooked! I have a 2008 Moomba LSV loaded with 750lbs in the rear locker, 400 in the floor locker, 550 fat sac in the front and 550lb fat sac on the rear seat and the wakeplate at 3/4. Usually have around 4 people in the boat. My question is this: What is the key to staying in the sweet spot on the wave? I watch these videos of guys just standing there like it is nothing. So is it just experience or getting the right wave setup? Any tips out there?

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h93/skiav8/IMG_0150.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h93/skiav8/IMG_0125.jpg[/IMG]

The more you ride the bigger the sweat spot gets, so yes experience helps.

Looks like your riding an IS 4-skim, a good board. I weigh 220 and have ridden the 4 skim one or two times and I generally ride on a good wake to a very good wake. Even with a good sized wake the 4-skim is a little small for me. I can ride the board fine but it’s more work than I like. I’ve ridden a tinny tiny Trick Boardz Free Style; I can do it and ride for quite a long time but I have to slow the boat down to something like 8 or 9 mph. So board size, rider weight, wake quality, board speed, and boat speed all figure in to sweat spot or pocket size too. The IS boards are generally pretty fast, the Red, Blue, and Yellow are all fast. I’m sure that you’d have a longer sweat spot with a Blue. They have some new models coming out but I haven’t seen them first hand.

If you fall back in the pocket simply pushing up and down on the board will increase your speed and help you get back, that's pumping. A more effective method is to carve up and down the wave. Carving lets you pick up the speed needed for more advanced trick; tricks I can't do.

Enjoy

Neal in the second picture you have slack in the rope but the tip of the board is pointed away from the wake. If you want to just stand still and free ride, keep the tip pointed at the rear corner of the swim deck. Try placing your front foot closer to the toe edge of the board. Then just experiment with putting a little more weight on your front foot until you feel like you are free riding. You will get it in no time.
Here is a pic of me just standing with the board and my feet parallel to the wave.
I saw that you ride in Kailspell, MT. We will be up there with our Sanger in late July and early August. We should get together for some surfing.
Sue

That's a lot of weight for that wake not being real big. It's nice and long but there isn't much height. Maybe try moving some from the bow to the rear. It will give you a smaller sweet spot but it will make it taller and that may help you get the hang of staying in it. Also, as others have said, you should be closer to the back of the boat.

When I am teaching people how to wakesurf without the rope I like to tell them that their front foot is the gas and rear is the break and that small movements/shifts of body weight are best. If you move too much or too fast you will be in a constant battle with "shooting" towards the boat and then falling all the way back and having the rope go tight.

Neal what is your speed we go from 11.2 mph to 12 mph in the first photo it looks like u r goiing fast and that will gave u a longer wave

We were using 11.2 mph. The weight in the front made the wave a lot longer. Remember those are just 2 pics taken out of a whole day of riding. I definately want to ge the wave taller and will play with weight and the wakeplate. Thanks for the info. Taking the boat to Lake Tahoe for the first week in June!

Neal,

I have an '08 SUPRA Sunsport 22V, a very similiar hull design to your moomba. I am using the 750 LB rear fly hi sacs and the stock 400 lb center ballast sac. The best setup I have found for goofy-foot (drivers side) is completely fill the drivers side rear, do not use the center ballast at all. We are setting the speed at 10.2 MPH with wake plate all the way up and load us many people on that side of the boat. I have a love seat behind the drivers seat and always have two people sitting in it. This is creating a very nice curled wave that allows the surfer to have a large area of sweet spot areas. With this setup we can throw the rope in without any problems and surf away.

When we have a surfer on the pass. side, we load the rear fully, no center ballast again, 10.8 MPH with wakeplate at 1/4 down, and as many folks on that side of the boat and it is producing a nice curled stretched out wave.

The deeper you can drive that rear end down the larger wake you will have. Having the wake plate is a great tool to dial in and eliminate prop washout. When we first started this year, we were getting a good curl but the wave was too short, this setup seems to be our best formula yet.

I am going out Friday this week, I will try and shoot some pictures and send them this way.