Bottom turn around a buoy

[Surfdad]

There was a picture of Wes Beck, floating around, that showed him in a bottom turn around a buoy. I don't remember seeing a sequence where he made it, but it looked like great fun! James decided that he wanted to try. Getting the spacing correct seemed to be the biggest issue - it's hard to go past the bouy, at speed, within 6 inches and adjust to 18 inches

[Surfdad]

I hope I can do this, I tend to pick the wrong string to copy from YouTube. Anyway...as I mentioned it took some practice to get the spacing correct, on this video we were too close, but James was yelling at me to watch out for the second buoy he though I was going to run it over and "I heard" him say - hit it. I love the WHOA! expression as the second buoy sneaks up on James.

[AdaminMN]

Awesome!!!

What makes even better is that they're NO WAKE buoys!

[Surfdad]

LOL I know. It's at the very end of the cove we surf, beyond it is a bunch of submerged trees that they left while filling the the reservoir. There's never anyone back there, so we typically get really close - although this was WAY close.

[jwanck11]

LOL!

That is sweet!

It looks like you could be farther away and he could still get back to the wake.

[Surfdad]

Yeah, I'd think so - well James could, I couldn't. I'm pretty sure I could HIT the buoy, but not get around it. There were so many variables - we hit it on a turn to give James something to pump in to and also allow him to spot the buoy. Trying to maintain the same "arc" and also spot the bouy at about 18 or so inches of the side of the boat proved more difficult than it sounds. It was great fun.

[jbort]

love that!!! Where's the triple? quad?

[NICKYPOO]

That is awesome! Rock on!

[KonaKing]

Nice SD. Now just do 5 more and you have a slalom course. Switching sides could be tough though.

[rmason256]

Thats freakin awesome.

[Ewok]

SWEET! Did you have an extra set of eyes to help line up the buoys or did you eyeball it all from the drivers seat? either was that is some impressive driving and riding!

[Surfdad]

Thanks guys - KK, that's funny, wakesurf slalom. It was just Judy and I in the boat, she had the camera and I was at the wheel. I couldn't keep the spacing consistent, it was interesting how even a few inches impacted where the buoy would cross the wake. In the sequence shots you can see that James' aim was a little off too, he got super close to the buoys!

Tommy Czchein just released a trailer to his wakesurf movie, and in one sequence he is doing an acid drop from the deck of a floating port-a-potty onto the wake of the boat as it goes by. I want James to try that!

[Weil Thing]

SD, would you mind posting your ballast, speed and taps setup? That's a beautiful wake...and it looks like you are going faster than I normally pull my guys.

TIA

[Surfdad]

Hey Weil, sure thing and thanks for the compliment.

My TAPS is broken, waiting on the parts to fix it, but I did bak the ram down so that it's about at a setting of 4. That's what we normally used and adjusted it as we burned gas. Full tank of gas. Just two people in the boat, me driving I'm about 190 and my wife Judy is about 100 she was taking pictures sitting about directly across from me on the port side.

We have a custom fat sac that theoretically holds 1,300 pounds, I am probably getting slightly under 1,200 in it. It fills up the entire rear compartment and extends up under the bench seat.

No weight in the bow.

A single 250 fat buddy on the port side seat at the very back just in front of the rear compartment.

Speed was GPS'ed at 11 mph.

A Picture of what our wake looks like without the turn.