Help Needed! V-drive Wake Size Research

[jslipher]

Help needed here! The committee and board for the lake I live on just made an announcement that they will no longer allow any V-drive boats to be on the lake (excluding those grandfathered). This decision was made without any prior announcement that they were even considering such a vote. They are also considering outlawing wakesurfing as well (it should be noted we already have a no ballast, no surf paddle rule, and no boat longer than 20’). I’m nearly 100% confident this decision is being made to reduce how wavy our lake gets, yet they have not outlawed IO’s and said nothing about requiring rip-rap along shorelines. Our lake is nearly 100% lined with seawalls, causing a bathtub like affect if even a couple boats are out enjoying water sports. The smoothest part of the lake is actually where there is a small number of houses that opted for rip-rap vs seawalls (not a coincidence here).

Does anyone know of any research done comparing the size of small v-drive wakes (unweighted) vs IO’s vs Direct Drives? Also any additional information on the benefits of rip-rap vs concrete block seawalls (this one is much easier to find). It really does feel like they are picking those that own v-drives as the community is more heavily weighted to pontoon, IO, and direct drive owners. So I would like to provide them with some unbiased research if at all possible.

I am a new father as of a couple weeks ago and was really looking forward to seeing my son grow up on the lake enjoying all types of water sports and doing so in a v-drive boat given that they provide the best of both worlds (performance with family style seating). It just kills me that decisions that were made above are negatively affecting his ability to experience it all in the future, and unfortunately since this is the only lake that is communiting distance to the city where my wife and I work moving isn’t an option either.

*Note: I realize that it is highly likely that members on our lake and board committee are also members of this forum and may be reading this post. This post is nothing personal against you, but just a cry for help to support my family and other v-drive owning families here on the lake. Hopefully you can understand my intentions.

[NautiqueJeff]

Have you contacted the WSIA yet? They may be able to offer some suggestions. Not sure how much they can help though if this is a private lake.

http://www.wsia.net/contact/

[Neptune442]

I'd find an owner of one of those "grandfathered" V-drives and make them an offer they can't refuse...

[scottb7]

Not the help you want, but why not just get a nice i/o and b happy? I had a blast with my i/o's before getting nautiques. Yeah, my wakeboard wake is bigger, but so what.

And with all due respect, "looking forward to seeing my son grow up on the lake enjoying all types of water sports" is not going to be a compelling argument for v drives.

I anticipate the same thing happening on my wake pretty soon. And when it does, I gonna just get i/o or move...No big deal at all.

[mikenbike211]

Help needed here! The committee and board for the lake I live on just made an announcement that they will no longer allow any V-drive boats to be on the lake (excluding those grandfathered). This decision was made without any prior announcement that they were even considering such a vote. They are also considering outlawing wakesurfing as well (it should be noted we already have a no ballast, no surf paddle rule, and no boat longer than 20’). I’m nearly 100% confident this decision is being made to reduce how wavy our lake gets, yet they have not outlawed IO’s and said nothing about requiring rip-rap along shorelines. Our lake is nearly 100% lined with seawalls, causing a bathtub like affect if even a couple boats are out enjoying water sports. The smoothest part of the lake is actually where there is a small number of houses that opted for rip-rap vs seawalls (not a coincidence here).

Does anyone know of any research done comparing the size of small v-drive wakes (unweighted) vs IO’s vs Direct Drives? Also any additional information on the benefits of rip-rap vs concrete block seawalls (this one is much easier to find). It really does feel like they are picking those that own v-drives as the community is more heavily weighted to pontoon, IO, and direct drive owners. So I would like to provide them with some unbiased research if at all possible.

I am a new father as of a couple weeks ago and was really looking forward to seeing my son grow up on the lake enjoying all types of water sports and doing so in a v-drive boat given that they provide the best of both worlds (performance with family style seating). It just kills me that decisions that were made above are negatively affecting his ability to experience it all in the future, and unfortunately since this is the only lake that is communiting distance to the city where my wife and I work moving isn’t an option either.

*Note: I realize that it is highly likely that members on our lake and board committee are also members of this forum and may be reading this post. This post is nothing personal against you, but just a cry for help to support my family and other v-drive owning families here on the lake. Hopefully you can understand my intentions.

Follow the link Nautiquejeff supplied, the WSIA is the go-too for this issue! We had the same potential issue on our lake. Basically, the people that tried that here realized the wave produced from a weighted v drive, is about the same as a bow rider wake plowing by their dock at 5mph. Tons of valid fingers to be pointed, at both parties. The real solution to the issue is responsible boating practices for ALL (including us). I can’t begin to tell you all the irresponsible things I’ve seen “ballast boats” (what they are called on my lake) do in regards to safety issues and just plain disregard for boating etiquette. I’m just saying all parties have fault. With that said, I think the key here is for marinas to educate every boater they sell a boat too. Most issues can be solved right there.

[DealsGapCobra]

It won’t help with this item but get on that committee!!! I was on a home owners association board of mostly reasonable and well meaning folks. At times they would start talking about voting on a policy that would target a particular family and all it took was for me to point out that what they were proposing just wasn’t right.

As for this issue, I would get as much data as you can, ask for a face to face meeting and discuss their decision and rationale in a calm reasonable fashion. Then you will know what you are up against. Also read the bylaws carefully to make sure they can do what they did.

Good luck.


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[jslipher]

Thank you all for the advice and resource to WSIA. I'll check with them and see what they can provide.

[jslipher]

Also, does anyone have any data on % sales of v-drives vs direct drive boats? Not a good data point for the argument, but since the committee members only own direct drive boats they may not be aware the market has changed and would like to have that figure.

[brit_hunsicker]

We had this same thing happen on a local private lake that my uncle and several friends live on. It is a very nice neighborhood with lots of money and people were buying into the surfing more than anything. They tried banning any boat that has a wake enhancing device from the factory or aftermarket. This would have banned roughly 40 out of 200 boats on the lake. After 6 months of meetings they finally settled on something that ultimately was good for the water sports community. This did not happen by convincing the people on the board when this got brought up to reconsider. This happened by all of the people with wake boats stepping up and getting on the board. Several of them had to fight to get on the board. Even though they had overwhelming support to get on the board, they were denied, but ultimately got their spot on the committee. The first thing they did was survey every membership to get opinions and concerns. After gathering this info they could come up with a solution to please most people.

I don’t believe they put a length limit on the lake, but they did put a weight limit. A boat cannot be over 6k pounds when weighted down. The largest boat on the lake is a 2016 Malibu 22 VLX and all they had to do was remove their plug n play. Another strong selling point was house values. There are several realtors that live on this lake and they spoke up to confirm house values would decrease if they banned water sports which is what they were essentially trying to do for the most part. They also have certain times now that you can and cannot do certain types of water sports. Most of the time its a free for all but on the weekends they do have times allotted for nothing but non-motorized boats and vice versa.

This is what happens when you have new people move to the lake and all of the sudden think they can change they way things have been for the last 20 years just because they want to go kayak straight across the lake on a Saturday afternoon. Sorry but ain’t happening when you’ve got over 300 houses on a 200 acre lake. It’s funny because the 3 people on the board that were pushing to ban water sports had all lived on the lake for less than 3 years and most of the water sport driven people have been on the lake for 15 years plus. The lake was built in 1966 and had never had any water sport restrictions.


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[fjroa]

Just an FYI - This issue (February/March 2019) of BoatU.S. magazine on pages 38 and 40 has an article entitled "Don't wake me!". Also on page 39 there is a 1-page ad entitled "Wake Responsibly" by wsia. Finally a link is included too Take the pledge wakeresponsibly.com. Hope this helps. .

[homer12]

How about a zero tolerance policy on power turns!? That will help the bathtub effect.


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[75Tique]

No good advice, just sharing our situation. Small lake, about 150 acres, controlled by an HOA. A few years ago, someone was surfing with a weighted boat. Flooded a guys seawall/yard, instant board meeting. Surfing was banned with corollary rules.must use a rope and rope must be > 30 feet long (I guess that was in case someone didnt understand the no surfing rule.) Non-factory ballast was also banned, which is silly, because based on these rules, I could go down the lake wakeboarding behind a fully ballasted G23 (the length limitation on our lake) The reason factory ballast was allowed was there was a guy with a ballasted boat on the board that made the argument that some bigger sailboats (silly on our small lake) have ballast tanks, (That's what you get when you have people who know nothing about boats setting the rules.) Anyway, In the OPs case, I think banning v-drives was silly. I can see banning ballast, and surfing, but not the boats. (I am a skier, not a wakeboarder or surfer and therefore concur that surfing is not appropriate on a small lake like ours, also with seawalls, also turns into a wash tub very quickly) Like OP said, no different than I/Os. Its how they are used, not the boats themselves. I would campaign using a little logic (often lost on HOA members) for banning surfing and ballast but not the boats. We had a similar situation. Jet powered craft were banned to eliminate jet skis, good idea. All for it. But the wording meant legit jet powered boats, (not the big block flattie kind, they wouldnt work on our lake either) but the Sea-Doo kind. Again, people with no knowledge making the rules. That one was finally modified to allow boats (i.e. craft over 16 feet long), while retaining the jet ski ban. And also to the OP's point, other than pontoon boats, the boat of choice on our lake is those big deck boats, 21-23 feet. When a few of them get out on the lake towing their tubes (the "sport" of choice on our lake) they do as much damage as any v-drive. I say arm yourself with WSIA data and campaign to lift the ban with the concession that weighted surfing or all surfing can be banned. I'm OK with that because I really dont get the whole surfing thing anyway. Have fun with your kids teaching them to ski, wakeboard, trick ski, barefoot.....(all lots more fun anyway...well except maybe the trick skis, they can be a little tedious)

Also, as someone above mentioned. Get on the committee. I did. Primarily to protect the interests of skiers. I've tried to get a couple regs loosened to accomodate skiing with little luck. I did get one reg tweaked a bit but failed with a couple other proposals. A sad reality is people who know what they are doing dont get special treatment over the knuckleheads, so the rules are aimed to keep the knuckleheads in line while punishing the people who actually know how to run a boat. Two examples. In NC, you dont need an observer, just a mirror, but in our neighborhood you need an observer. I tried to tweak that but too many knuckleheads. Also, wanted to bend the speed near shore rule to allow dock starts, but didnt get that passed either. Sad thing about the observer rule. Doesnt make the knuckleheads any safer. Kids dont pay attention, distract the driver, have their heads buried in their phones....