SAN 230 Surfing Setup Summary Thread

[charlesml3]

Wave looks great! How do you have youÂ’r 230 set up? I.E. how much ballast, where is it placed, what speed and what are your NSS and hydro gate set at. 230Â’s, when set up properly, sure do throw a GREAT surf wave!


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All of that is covered in great detail in this thread.

-Charles

[sbaird4000]

Thanks, Charles. I completely understand that. I’ve actually contributed a bit to this thread. A few of my posts are actually above on this page. I was just curious as to what he used to achieve his best results. I was wondering if he added any lead and whether or not he used any extra weight in the bow. Not a huge deal but I figured the more information we divulge on this page the better off future 230 owners will be.


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[charlesml3]

Gotcha. He said he "followed my setup" so I'm assuming it's the same. I've been moving that 50 pound shotbag from the bow back down to the port side and I'm beginning to think it's a little better there than up front. It's 50 pounds so unlikely to make a HUGE difference anyway.

I just took delivery of my 2019 SANTE 230 and it's weighted exactly the same as my previous 2017. It is nice to be able to control the Hydrogate from the Pebble now.

-Charles

[sbaird4000]

Congrats on your new 230! I really like the new helm setup and touchscreen.....maybe in a year or two I’ll upgrade.


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[PapaBear]

Hi All! This is my first post on this site as I've been lurking for awhile since acquiring a new-to-me 2015 SAN 230 in March. This thread has been invaluable to me to get ideas on how to dial in the surf wave, as we are new to surfing and had to learn on the fly. Through research in this thread as well as trial and error, we finally found the best setup (so far) for our family, so I thought I'd post it to add to the collection of info, as well as my process of getting there.

Our crew is 7, but 5 of those are kids under 11, and as a whole family, we only weigh 600 lbs. 210 lbs. of that is my chubby self, so when I'm surfing, there is only 390 or 400 lbs of human ballast in the boat. We have the pro ballast bags, but with my novice surfing ability and my first board (a quad fin setup that in retrospect I feel was too "loose" and "skittish" for me at this point) I wasn't having much luck with push or stability.

Based on this thread, I added 500 lbs of LeadWake ballast biased to the port side (300/200) in the rear lockers as outlined in this thread. The wave was certainly much more impressive to look at, and the lighter riders in our crew did fairly well with this, though again, we are all novices and I don't think I started with an ideal board. I still didn't feel like I had enough push. If I'd been using a more "beginner" board at this point, I may have just stopped.

However, since I was still having trouble with staying in the pocket, I went ahead and added the Wakemakers exact fit 650s. When full, you can't quite close the locker lids with the storage trays in place (more on this in a bit). I kept my 500 lbs of "lead" as well but took it out of the rear lockers and initially distributed it 300/200 Port/Starboard relatively evenly along the floor under the seats. We were really getting somewhere at this point, but the wave seemed tall and beautiful but maybe a bit short, and we were a little bow up given that my kids all want to ride in the back and watch their siblings surf. So I took 150 lbs of that "lead" and moved it to the bow, as far up as I could get it. 100 lbs of this came from the starboard side, so at this point I had increased my port-side bias to 150 lbs of lead. Lastly, I decided to leave the starboard storage tray in place but remove the port tray. This is a nice compromise from a storage point of view, and the benefit of this is when I leave the starboard locker lid closed with the tray in place while filling, I prevent it from filling all the way before overflow and probably leave about 100 lbs of water out, further biasing our ballast to port.

WOW! This setup was the eureka moment. So much push...so far back...so much fun. Running 10.6 mph, NSS 0, Manual hydrogate at 3. We also switched over to a more "beginner" board which has been beneficial as well. With the new bags and "lead" ballast, leaving about 100 lbs of water out of the starboard side bag, we are at 3000 lbs of total ballast biased about 250 lbs to port. With people on board, we are at about 3400 lbs of total ballast weight.

I know by the numbers this is pretty similar to the amount of total ballast a lot of people have posted. I do think this much ballast really is needed, as it wasn't getting the job done (at least for us) until this point. I was glad I could get the bow weight I wanted without an IBS.

Sorry for the long post, but as a newbie, I was hungry for as much info and detail as possible, especially as I was never quite sure how the Exactfit 650s would work with the trays. Thanks again to all who contributed to this thread!

[charlesml3]

Yep, perfect! There's more than one way to get there and it all depends on your individual needs and how you like to surf.

With factory ballast plus shot bags, I'm at 2950 pounds. We're also running at 11.2mph which stretches the wake out even longer.

-Charles

[PapaBear]

Thanks! Are you still using NSS 2 at that speed? I will continue to tweak the settings this summer to find what’s ideal for us. We had tended to stay at NSS 0 for wave length.


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[Beach-TJ]

Try NSS at 5 to get a nice shaped wave, then bump the speed to 11.2 to stretch the pocket out. That combo works great on my buddies 230. Great shaped wave with a nice long pocket.

Edit: our crew surf's, i don't think i know anyone that skim's. So the above is for a surf wake. If you skim then a NSS around 0 and a slower speed will probably be more what you want.

[PapaBear]

Thanks! I’ll give it a shot.


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[charlesml3]

Thanks! Are you still using NSS 2 at that speed? I will continue to tweak the settings this summer to find what’s ideal for us. We had tended to stay at NSS 0 for wave length.


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Nope. We stay at NSS 0 for the most part. Every now and then someone will bring a surf style board on and they'll want 3 or 4. That's about it.

-Charles

[PapaBear]

Nope. We stay at NSS 0 for the most part. Every now and then someone will bring a surf style board on and they'll want 3 or 4. That's about it.

-Charles

Thanks!


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[markj]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the higher the number, the less extended the NSS is, right? That said, the higher the number, the shorter and longer the wave is. That said, my opinion is sack it out as much as you’re comfortable with, set NSS at 0 and adjust your speed to whatever looks/feels best to you.

[markj]

Here’s a screen shot. Almost 5000 lbs of total ballast plus three passengers. NSS at 0 and speed is about 10.3

[charlesml3]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the higher the number, the less extended the NSS is, right? That said, the higher the number, the shorter and longer the wave is. That said, my opinion is sack it out as much as you’re comfortable with, set NSS at 0 and adjust your speed to whatever looks/feels best to you.

That isn't entirely correct. Yes, the higher the NSS setting means the plate is LESS extended, but the longest wake is at NSS=0. The steepest wake is NSS=5.

And be careful with "sack it out as much as you're comfortable with." You can overweight these boats and wave will suffer. If you have so much weight that water is washing over top of the NSS plate, you have too much.

[markj]

Not sure I agree with your statement on the NSS based on my experience. As for weight, I said a year ago (and in another lengthy thread that preceded this one) that I run just under 5,000 lbs total ballast (1000 lbs more than you) with custom sacks and Leadwake sacks. I think that’s the sweet spot. I’ll let the pic speak for itself.