ragboy custom ballast

[ragboy]

There were many reasons on the pop bags, first and foremost, they are a pain on the butt. Great for experimenting, which I needed. bUt pain to move around, my lift barely lifted my boat, you can totally feel them towing, etc.

Once I got my experimentation done, and I did my huge sacs, I don't need them.

They could not do my 3rd step, but after doing it, and stuffin them, it works, so I am not concerned, I just thought it would have been cool, and more custom if possible. Plus I made cool drawings!

If you didn't see it, here is my wake, with just those large sacs and not as many people as I normally do. I personally have not seen a CLEANER wake anywhere, and then it is great size and shape, with only about 1000lbs of 100% water. I couldn't put that much water in JUST the corner before. If I did, it drug the swim deck a certain way, and destroyed the lip of the wake. So we fabricated a new step, out of aluminum, new shape, to NOT cut the wake, and perfectly smooth underneath, to NOT create turbulence. What a difference!

So here is the video, and you tell me, have you seen a cleaner wake, a cleaner transition? Also I lower the camera later in the video, so you get better view of shape.


Be sure to click the HD button for better quality.

[ragboy]

Here is also a good image, where camera isn't TOO low, so you get FALSE view of size, but right from the walkthru. You can see its very big, and extremely clean, and this is my goofy wake. REG is as good or better. you can see that LINE that is where the secondary lip would be, but when you LIST over more you can only see its remnants. The line is there, but it doesn't produce the second lip, so instead you have a full working wave, all the way to top, and a good lip at the top to launch of off. And of course no turbulence from the step. Now, we can still get turbulence, when we list over TOO much and drag the rub rail. But that is easy, just adjust human weight, so rub rail is NOT causing cut in wake, and wake is still perfect. The problem before was that you could only list til the deck cut in, and you still had the secondary lip.

Here is the good pic.



OK, here is a pretty good picture from last july. The wake is pretty clean because we are NOT listing over so far to get deck cutting wake, but you can see the secondary lip. This means, if RJ wants to launch he has to make a decision. Either launch early, back from the boat to have the higher lip, or go up farther with more momentum, but the lip is halfway down the wake, and mushy at top, see it?



With the new wake, RJ immediately noticed the difference, and so could we with his surfing. This issue is not much of a big deal with casual surfing, but you can REALLY fell the difference, my daughters also love it. SKIMMERs may also like the old wake better, that flatter mushy top is great for spins and slides and stuff.

So, at the end of the day, I love the wake we can produce with the tige 24Ve, and my son is competing at the higher level now, and he will continue to do so. I am able to produce a great wake, and still be under mfg guidelines for safety, and 100% water. Which makes me feel good.

[ragboy]

Here is one more picture. Here you can see the lip is getting mangled, and that white water getting thrown around.



This is when we were multisurfing, and I didn't care about the lip, and I listed the boat over more for a bigger wake, but wasn't worried about the lip. You can see the cut, and the froth, but if you look at new picture up top, it isn't there. Thats all because of the new deck.

[LovinPowell]

Very nice pics and video.

So I'm assuming that you would say that the Pop bags are not worth it.

[ragboy]

I would say they were worth for quickly throwing weight around experimenting, but for long term, I am glad to be rid of them.

And the lift did make a lot of difference. With the bags in, the lift didn't get my boat out until almost full. Now it lifts the boat VERY easily.