Surf possible?

[osukellen]

Anyone had experience setting up an DD for surf? I have a '94 SNOB, and wanting to know if it is possible. I don't have any ballast, and don't want to buy it, then figure out it won't work.

After all I have read on it, it seems some say it works fine, others say no way. Only surfed once, so doesn't have to be the biggest best wave out there.

Any input?

[dski]

I have a 04 206. We are a skiing family mostly so we only surf it a 4-5 times a year. The magic number to be able to surf for us is about 1200lbs. (people and ballast) Nothing great but enough for everyone to go out and give it a whirl and easy to throw the handle and ride.

We have a #700 sac between the motor and back seat and then put the people in the back and side that the person is surfing. We use a basic board (Liquid Force Venture 5' 6"). Trick for us is as much weight in the back and side of the engine that the person is surfing.

We surfed our '99 Eclipse as well using the same setup.

[AirTool]

I have a 04 206. We are a skiing family mostly so we only surf it a 4-5 times a year.

I have a 206 and would like to surf. I have plenty of bags but never loaded them up. Some questions that might help osukellen so I'm not threadjacking.

1. Did you place in bags in the trunk?
2. Which side(s) are you surfing?
3. Do you have any trouble with water coming in the rub rail or the vents?

AirTool

[HS]

Even though I have not set up a DD for surfing, I really think it is a simple matter of weight distribution and then making the adjustment for the location of the engine.

On my old 211 (20'-9"), this was what I would add to full factory ballast: back to front I would put 350 (top of port walk-thru) - 370 (under pass. seat bench) and a 350 (floor of bow). This took some trial and error to dial in, and didn't need a lot of passengers to make a decent wave (one or two adults and a couple kids). Once we added weight forward it really improved things by lengthening the pocket. Vents were above the water line.

I'd think you just need more toward the stern to offset the mid engine location.

At Wake9, they pretty much say start with a 750 on the surf side aft corner and then add weight forward to lengthen the pocket. If I were starting from scratch, I would put at least 400 - 500# on the back corner and see if that gave a person enough "push", to start...(while watching the waterline and vents). When the swim platform is almost ankle deep you should have enough to get you going.

Not sure if you have enough room in the trunk...Can you remove the back seat to make room for a place to lay the sac?

With lower freeboard boats, you want to be very careful about adding ballast until you get the feel of how the boat handles. Big thing on that is this: when your rider falls, just ease off the gas and let the wave pass as you slow down BEFORE you turn to retrieve the rider. I also read that turning toward the side with the ballast is best (I think this is so that if the boat rolls outboard on the turn, you want the weight inside of the turn).

[osukellen]

Good suggestions, I may give it a try this spring. Hopefully I can borrow some sacs before I go out and buy them.

Main thing I was concerned about would be the freeboard. I will make sure I ease into weighting it down.

Thanks for the suggestion on what board as well...any others for beginners of all sizes?

[TRDon]

I ran about 1300 in the port rear corner of my 93 sport. Not the same boat, but I would say it was possible. It made a really decent wave too.

[Sell]

We used to easily surf starboard side behind my old 1980 Ski Nautique.
We ran 500 behind the engine, 300 starboard side biased to stern & generally 2 people sitting on starboard gunwale.
Wave was short but really quite powerful.

[dski]

1. No, I did fill up the #200 tank but it didn't seem to do much. Replacing this solution with a ~#400 bag from flyhigh. The main reason for this was to get all the extra storage space when not using ballast. I am really hoping that I can get a picture of someone with a 206 without the ballast tank in there so I can figure out how the floor is done so I can make a piece for the bottom I do think the extra weight further back will help.
2. We have people surfing both sides. We simply shift all the people from one side to the other depending on who is surfing. We have found that putting the boat into a slow turn towards the side that they are surfing helps clean up the wake. If we only have a couple people then we fill another #350 tube sack to about #300 and then flip it from one side to the other depending on the person surfing. The starboard side is cleaner due to the prop rotation but both sides work fine.
3. Water is still below the vents in the back. We haven't pushed it that far yet.

I experimented a little with putting a #350 bag in the front. It ended up taking down the size of the wake and making it longer. I am guessing that would only work with a bunch more weight in the back. I am sure that with more weight we could get it quite a bit bigger but for the kids to mess around it has been plenty.

Biggest wake we got was with #700 in back and (2) #350's stacked on one side with 3- 150lb people on that side. Was really nice but everytime we stopped we had to have the people jump to the other side to keep from taking some water in. Was a big dicey for my taste so we went with the single bag on the side.

Here are some pics with the #700 sac, (1) #300 and 2 kids that weigh about 150lbs. Works great for when we do it.

[DealsGapCobra]

I am working on the same issue with my DD 200. I picked up a board Sunday (Broadcast 5-4) and have two 400# sacs coming this week. As for "possible", yes it is possible for a 150 lb person to surf a SN 200 with no ballast and two small people on board at 9.5 mph...but this is only an academic exercise as I had to be about 1" away from the platform to toss the rope. We are a ski family but I can't wait for my sacs as I think this will be fun for everyone if I can get a usable wave. I will let you know as soon as I try it out.

[TRBenj]

We used to easily surf starboard side behind my old 1980 Ski Nautique.
We ran 500 behind the engine, 300 starboard side biased to stern & generally 2 people sitting on starboard gunwale.
Wave was short but really quite powerful.

Now THAT is some cool info! I was curious if we could surf our '80 when we finish it this spring. Sounds like it'll do it- thanks for the tips.

I have surfed my '90 and my buddy has surfed his '94. With enough weight in the right places, it is most definitely doable. The limiting factor seems to be the hull size... Ive surfed behind a '83 2001 and it threw a very respectable wake... but the rub rail was planted from about 3' in front of the windshield, and the water was probaby 4" above it at the stern. Definitely pushing the limits.

[xlair]

Word of caution for everyone with low freeboard DD's looking to slam their boats for surfing... once you start putting some serious weight in the corner it makes the boat VERY interesting to drive and also VERY susceptible to taking waves over said corner. You also basically lose all steering in one direction. In my Pro Air we have people hop to opposite corner when idling back to rider to keep from swamping but I'm always pretty nervous of that rogue wave that will swamp the entire boat. Just make sure you have a very competent driver.

[Capt. Moe]

dski-
You will get a bigger wave if you goto deeper water. 15+ feet. UT lake on a good day out in the middle is only 11 at best. Most of the lake is 8-9. Try Deercreek. You will notice a big diff. Just sayin.

[dski]

Capt, you are very right! As you say, the wake that the boat creates is much better with deeper water. In fact, that is close to the entrance to mud lake where we only had 5-7ft of water most of the time.

We ski the course at Utah Lake and just do some surfing every once and a while when we are done. It is not the main activity, just something we mess around with.

[DealsGapCobra]

Update, this last weekend I had a chance to surf my SN 200. We added two "V-drive" sacks (400 lbs each), on sideways in front of the rear seat on the port side and one next to the motor cover on the port side. We also had about 475 lbs of crew in the boat. I tried a few different speeds and settled on 10.8 mph and ended up with a barely surfable wake for a new guy. On the up side, there was still plenty of freeboard left and I was not at all nervous about our farily new driver swamping the boat.

[Chexi]

Word of caution for everyone with low freeboard DD's looking to slam their boats for surfing... once you start putting some serious weight in the corner it makes the boat VERY interesting to drive and also VERY susceptible to taking waves over said corner. You also basically lose all steering in one direction. In my Pro Air we have people hop to opposite corner when idling back to rider to keep from swamping but I'm always pretty nervous of that rogue wave that will swamp the entire boat. Just make sure you have a very competent driver.

This is true of the smaller v-drives too, like my 2000 SAN.