So start with the goofy side, same setup as the beginning of this thread, but a couple more people. However, I was NOT in the boat. I was in the chase pontoon with the Canon 60D.
This isn't a surf pic, but have to share this one of Dennis. You don't catch him smiling much, but I caught him here. He took of his wetsuit and then jumped in the water to "relieve himself". I asked if he was feeling any better since he was sick and he said he still had a sore throat. I suggest that might be because his nuts were probably in there now. ;-)
So Rob and Jannelle Harrington were out with us, and Jannelle is one of my new Wakesurf guinea pigs. There is a bit of a story behind that, I will summarize. ;-) When we went to Texas to help with the Z3 testing and prototype we very much stressed adjustability and the transition. Jannelle rides a skim board and is not a newb, but not an expert either and she is more sensitive to a wake that is too steep or has an abrupt transition. You can watch her riding on video especially and you can really see the benefits or weaknesses of a wake. She rode our 24Ve at the last polar bear event and loved it, wanted to take it home. She rode the 2012 Tige RZ4 the next week and struggled holding her edge on the steeper wake. The Z3 was engineered to be more adjustable and to have a nice transition. Here is a good shot of her and you can see the transition pretty well. She enjoyed the wake a lot. Can't wait to get her out when its warmer. It was VERY cold, air temp of 52-58 at best and water temp of low 50s.
Couple good pics of RJ.
Good picture of the length from the side.
This one is a good shot of the height, its very difficult to get a good shot from the side that shows the height. The Z3 makes a much larger hole than the other boats we have had and so you have to be right up next to the boat to see it. But RJ is down in the trough to get speed for an air so it shows it.
This is a great picture of the crew in the boat, but also shows how well the board storage on the Z3 works even with thicker boards and arch bar style traction.
Moving on to the regular side... I am skipping Dennis for now, but you can see some great pics on flickr. Dennis was sick and didn't ride as much.
Rob Harrington had a blast on his TWP, he kept whooping and hollering, so I am pretty sure he enjoyed the ride. I think there was even a few YeeHahs thrown out.
Now on to mitch. At first, the wake was not right. We don't have our plug and play custom sacs yet, so we are still manually filling a few sacs and we figured out later that we screwed up in the rear locker and so didn't have all the weight on that side right. It was too cold and windy to take it out and redo it, so we made do. But about halfway through mitch's run we moved enough people around and stuff and it wasn't great, but very good, and he really liked it, as he said above. He kept talking about the lip.
Ok, so this is a bit off topic, but when I saw this shot, and mitch's form fitting wetsuit and girlish figure, I thought to myself, we gotta do everything we can to keep this boy out of prison.
Ok, so here are the shots that show him enjoying the lip. I haven't seen mitch get air like this before.
Check out this solid indy grab.
Mitchy the kid is launchin.
Speaking of launching… Chris Wolter had the worst conditions. The wind got bad, and that problem in the rear locker was the worst and we were almost going to just come in, but let him ride. He had a great attitude and made the most of it. The wake was short and steep and just not right during his session, but he still launched. The first big air he did, several of us stood up, it was that big.
Nose bleed warning. Keep in mind, low 50s in the air and water, full wetsuit and booties and substandard wake and wind.
Now on to my buddy Frank. Like Frank said, he is 310 lbs and the boat has got to have push for him. Since the wake was messed up for Chris, I got in the boat from the pontoon to make it better for Frank. Something happened that I have not seen yet. Frank has surfed on every one of our boats. On every one we have to turn the taps up higher to like 6 and slow down the boat to 10.6 mph or so to steepen the wake for lots of push. Works great but shortens it up a bit. Frank rode at 11.2 and taps at 4. RJ rides 11.4 and taps at 4. Frank also rode longer and more comfortably than I have seen him ride before. You can see in this picture, the rubrail is a few inches off the water, just like with everybody else.
It was a great day and lots more pictures in our flickr feed. I can't wait to get the regular guys out again when we have our custom sacs and its warmer. The Z3 is still exceeding our expectations, especially pushing frank with the same setup as RJ. We also really got a chance to test the list angles and see that when you list this boat over to 10+ degrees the wake goes out of shape. It wants that magic 8 degrees or so of list only.
Way too much fun.
This isn't a surf pic, but have to share this one of Dennis. You don't catch him smiling much, but I caught him here. He took of his wetsuit and then jumped in the water to "relieve himself". I asked if he was feeling any better since he was sick and he said he still had a sore throat. I suggest that might be because his nuts were probably in there now. ;-)
So Rob and Jannelle Harrington were out with us, and Jannelle is one of my new Wakesurf guinea pigs. There is a bit of a story behind that, I will summarize. ;-) When we went to Texas to help with the Z3 testing and prototype we very much stressed adjustability and the transition. Jannelle rides a skim board and is not a newb, but not an expert either and she is more sensitive to a wake that is too steep or has an abrupt transition. You can watch her riding on video especially and you can really see the benefits or weaknesses of a wake. She rode our 24Ve at the last polar bear event and loved it, wanted to take it home. She rode the 2012 Tige RZ4 the next week and struggled holding her edge on the steeper wake. The Z3 was engineered to be more adjustable and to have a nice transition. Here is a good shot of her and you can see the transition pretty well. She enjoyed the wake a lot. Can't wait to get her out when its warmer. It was VERY cold, air temp of 52-58 at best and water temp of low 50s.
Couple good pics of RJ.
Good picture of the length from the side.
This one is a good shot of the height, its very difficult to get a good shot from the side that shows the height. The Z3 makes a much larger hole than the other boats we have had and so you have to be right up next to the boat to see it. But RJ is down in the trough to get speed for an air so it shows it.
This is a great picture of the crew in the boat, but also shows how well the board storage on the Z3 works even with thicker boards and arch bar style traction.
Moving on to the regular side... I am skipping Dennis for now, but you can see some great pics on flickr. Dennis was sick and didn't ride as much.
Rob Harrington had a blast on his TWP, he kept whooping and hollering, so I am pretty sure he enjoyed the ride. I think there was even a few YeeHahs thrown out.
Now on to mitch. At first, the wake was not right. We don't have our plug and play custom sacs yet, so we are still manually filling a few sacs and we figured out later that we screwed up in the rear locker and so didn't have all the weight on that side right. It was too cold and windy to take it out and redo it, so we made do. But about halfway through mitch's run we moved enough people around and stuff and it wasn't great, but very good, and he really liked it, as he said above. He kept talking about the lip.
Ok, so this is a bit off topic, but when I saw this shot, and mitch's form fitting wetsuit and girlish figure, I thought to myself, we gotta do everything we can to keep this boy out of prison.
Ok, so here are the shots that show him enjoying the lip. I haven't seen mitch get air like this before.
Check out this solid indy grab.
Mitchy the kid is launchin.
Speaking of launching… Chris Wolter had the worst conditions. The wind got bad, and that problem in the rear locker was the worst and we were almost going to just come in, but let him ride. He had a great attitude and made the most of it. The wake was short and steep and just not right during his session, but he still launched. The first big air he did, several of us stood up, it was that big.
Nose bleed warning. Keep in mind, low 50s in the air and water, full wetsuit and booties and substandard wake and wind.
Now on to my buddy Frank. Like Frank said, he is 310 lbs and the boat has got to have push for him. Since the wake was messed up for Chris, I got in the boat from the pontoon to make it better for Frank. Something happened that I have not seen yet. Frank has surfed on every one of our boats. On every one we have to turn the taps up higher to like 6 and slow down the boat to 10.6 mph or so to steepen the wake for lots of push. Works great but shortens it up a bit. Frank rode at 11.2 and taps at 4. RJ rides 11.4 and taps at 4. Frank also rode longer and more comfortably than I have seen him ride before. You can see in this picture, the rubrail is a few inches off the water, just like with everybody else.
It was a great day and lots more pictures in our flickr feed. I can't wait to get the regular guys out again when we have our custom sacs and its warmer. The Z3 is still exceeding our expectations, especially pushing frank with the same setup as RJ. We also really got a chance to test the list angles and see that when you list this boat over to 10+ degrees the wake goes out of shape. It wants that magic 8 degrees or so of list only.
Way too much fun.
awesome.
Is that the most weight you can run without that rub rail in the back affecting the wave?
Comment