Waxing a wakesurfer

[AdaminMN]

I've found a couple of threads about this but found no definite answers...

Has anyone waxed the bottom of thier wake surf boards? I've heard mixed opinions from a few people, but have had no discussion of the topic itself. I was told it would help speed my board up. On the contrary, I've also heard wax has a higher drag cooefficient than gelcoat, and can therefore slow down a boat. Anyhow, I tried waxing my board, now it seems slower than before. Any opinions out there?

I realize my board (LF Venture 5') isn't a speed demon to begin with. I surfed on a CWB Ride this weekend and that's quite a bit faster than the LF. I'm just trying to squeeze anything I can out of my current to get throught the rest of the summer, then I can look at upgrading over the winter.

[chpthril]

yep, we had the LF "slug" as our first board, then moved up to the CWB Tsunami. If you want to make the LF faster try a 15hp Johnson or tie it to the transom

[Surfdad]

Wax will slow it down. The fastest bottom is a speed finish. It's basically 1200 wet/dry in a circular motion. The water sticks through what is called a boundary layer...it's not very deep but it's maybe 1/4". The wax on the surface of the board doesn't impact anything other than the few molecules along the area where the water and wax meet...the rest of the boundary layer is untouhed.

The rough'ish finish creates a bit of turbulance that will impact the boundary layer and as such offers less resistance overall.

What I've found is the rough surface is "like" a speed finish, the wax smooths that out and actually diminishes the speed.

Great experiment!

[AdaminMN]

So basically you're burnishing the surface. I've seen this done with hulls of racing sailboats, we wouldn't wax those either.

Must be the same principal.

Hopefully I'll have time to try this before the weekend.

[Surfdad]

I've heard arguments about sailboat hulls being different because of the differences in speed and depth, however from a casual observers standpoint it would seem to me that they are the same principle.

The test for the proper amount of sanding is running water over the surface. If it beads up in large units, more sanding is needed. The water should just run off in a sheet. That's the fastest surface. You want to just hit that "sheeting" point as too much sanding does increase drag, finding the exact point of no return is a slow process.

[AdaminMN]

Any idea of how tight of a circular motion? Small circles or big circles? I have a 1/4 sheet sander that would make very small circles say 1/4" or so, or I could go the old fashioned way, by hand. By hand is probably the safe bet.

[Surfdad]

I've never experimented with anything that tight. An alternative to the 600 wet/dry paper is a 3M Purple Pad, which works well also and typically is done by hand - so that creates a minimum of 4 inch circles? That's the smallest I've ever tested.

[AdaminMN]

Well here's some answers to the experiment...

I stripped the wax off the board w/ acetone and wet sanded the board with 1500 grit wet/dry sandpaper. Ran water over the board to see if water was still beading. Acetoned and sanded again until no beading occurred.

Went out to the lake today (82 degrees air temp, 80 degrees water temp), I'm just saying that since it's mid September in MN and really not relevent to the experiment. Filled up the 800# of ballast and gave the board a try. The board that surfed like a slab of plywood last time was a chit load faster. I it was fast enough to free ride, and still pick up enough speed to catch up to the boat and almost hit the platform. The pocket on my wake is quite small and this is the first time I've been able to free ride behind my boat for any length of time. I even got cocky and tried beersurfing. Only a quarter of a beer today.

I'm trying to decide to leave well enough alone and just work on the ballast quantity/placement, or start sanding with 1200 wet/dry to see what happens. I will be board shopping in the spring for something faster, just because it's cheaper than buying a different boat that can produce a larger wake.

Going out again tomorrow, and I'll update with any new info,