The Quest for the Perfect Wakesurfing Boat

[ragboy]

RJ and I have been on a quest for a year, to have the best wakesurfing boat for our family. We even made a pact, that if we discovered that our boat was NOT the best for what we wanted, I would go to mom, and deal with it, to get a new boat (gasp). We have been very committed to this, especially since last august forward. Here were are requirements:

• clean/steep wake with well defined lip
  clean transition, no disruption from swim platform
  long pocket for recovery and momentum for tricks/air
  good enough wake to practice on for competition
  all sacks hidden
  must retain enough storage for a family of 8
  not forced to sit in specific places for long periods
  great wake on both regular and goofy sides
  quick and easy change from side to side
  100% water, no lead, sand, or steel pelletts

In the end, and if you followed the "Dialing it in" thread, you know this, we found how to make some minor mods to our tige (swimstep) to get what we wanted. I feel very fortunate that we had the right boat for us all along. We had a lot of fun working this all out, and I documented it in a 2 part blog style video. Here is a link to them.

http://wake9.com/blogs/ragboy/2009/0...oat-for-wake9/

Let me know what you think.

Embedded video Part 1 (hit hd for best quality):



Part 2:

[rogersbm82]

nice work. Congrats on ending the quest too.

[eks]

Great wake ragboy! Your kids are awesome surfing.

I am also glad to see that I am not the only one to push my kids in the water...

[ragboy]

Thank you, and yes, I push them/throw them in all the time. All part of the Garcia/wake9 experience.

[G-MONEY]

All that hard work only to find out the boat of you dreams is already on your lift....

The grass is not greener on the other side...

[sparky216]

nice videos Ragboy!

[dogbert]

Nice job, ragboy!

[KonaKing]

Great family Rag there is nothing more important. Strong work.

[ragboy]

All that hard work only to find out the boat of you dreams is already on your lift....

The grass is not greener on the other side...

Yes, that is true. Honestly, after the castaic contest last year we were determined that we would buy another boat if that was the end result of our quest. At the time, it seemed like a possiblity because we could NOT get the wake right, especially on the goofy side. But when we saw the sanger v237 with the new surfdeck and the smooth bottom, it gave us the idea to test changing the deck. That was EVERYTHING. That was all the tige needed. Once that was done, the wake was awesome. The sanger also put out a very decent wake on both sides, but I think the tige is a much better boat, and safer with the higher freeboard. When you weight down many boats, like a Sanger, you REALLY feel like you are sinking. The tige handles the weight MUCH better. The other extreme is the EPIC. That boat has a HUGE freeboard, and you can barely tell its weighted with a few thousand pounds. But it makes a terrible surf wake. And that is from first hand experience.

Great family Rag there is nothing more important. Strong work.

Thank you, and I know. What can I say, I love em and love being around them 24/7.

[Coop]

Again, excellent work, and thanks for sharing.

One question -- no ballast up front? My wake is big but short, and I had heard I needed ballast up front to make it longer. Do your sacs extend up under the side seats?

[ragboy]

The sacs go on both sides, all the way up to just behind the driver seat, about the same on both sides, pass side is a bit longer. No wait up front. Not only did we try every configuration, but keep in mind that I have 350+ hours on my boat right now, and 90% of that is surfing. Here is what I would say about weight up front, you get the same effect with putting taps down, it brings the nose down, like weight would. However, with weight up front, you can't use taps when you want to bring the bow UP. Also, since we lost all of our storage in back, we still have storage up front. The wake you see in the videos, and looking at the video from the pontoon, you can see that wake, with the long pocket, is done with the taps at 6-7 and bow up.

So, first, it isn't really necessary. But second, I think it very much decreases safety. When we weight our boat down, we are taking a risk, but we do it as safely as possible. I am sure you do the same. When you add weight to the bow, you make it much more difficult to get the bow up. When we tested with bow weight, this was an issue. And it becomes important you also control people going up there. So if you have 600lbs in front sac, then 2 people go up front to see something, you are seriously plowing.

So, it doesn't help, and IMHO, I think it really decreases safety.

[Coop]

Good thoughts. Thanks again.

[Duncan]

Wow. Taps at 6-7. Will have to try that. I am usually at Taps 4 but that was when I was over tweaking with a full front sack and a partially full non-wake side rear sack. When I got above Taps 4 in that config, the wake washed out.

Last weekend, off side rear empty and front empty worked like a charm at 12 mph taps 4. Can't wait to try Taps 6-7 in that config!

Also, last weekend was the first we rigged for dark side. I am the only goofy rider and the boat is usually full of people that want to learn to surf--as a result, we stay on port wave. A side benefit of rigging for dark side last weekend was one of our riders discovered he was a "closet goofy" foot

On the dark side subject, the whole boat was VERY envious about just how much better the dark side wave is

[ragboy]

The only thing I would add, is it took the swapping out of the swim deck to get the results I have. You should get good results with your deck, but when you really start listing over to get the best wake the stock fiberglass deck will be a hinderance. I am not sure how a teak deck does, but I know the stock deck is an issue.

We can switch our boat over with a switch in 12 minutes, its a beautiful thing, and the wakes are almost identical.

[Duncan]

well, until you start selling smooth bottomed Wake9 shaped swim platforms, I guess I will have to limp along with my 09 (slightly improved but not enough) fiberglass platform.

I wonder if insets you could glue (or otherwise attach) under the platform to make the edge continuous and smooth would aid the wake?

On that note, the rough edges under the platform have already cut my hand several times. We ride, swim, and surf in the river, so often you have to reach under the platform to arrest you drift. The edge is less than smooth. Anyone smooth that out?