the open bow disadvantage

[MHayes]

I have skiied a few times in the Brisbane River in Qld, AUS, and the water there is so murky that you cannot see the thousands of bull sharks Yellow_Flash_Colorz: swimming under you. Comforting, I think............ NOT !

That just sent a chill up my spine! Yellow_Flash_Colorz:

[WakeSlayer]

indeed. and the locals don't think anything of it really. They give me crap for being nervous about it......

[AuMDLST]

Tanic Acid = Coke brown

[AuMDLST]

$300 plus two friends for a night out drinkin (not on a Nautique) = Two dead gators and one good cookout for the neighbors

[peterkarlsson]

These things never happen when you power turn! Or I don't understand the concept of power turns.

To do this, you would kill the throttle really fast, then turn quickly enough at idle to hit your own 1st wake straight on.
If the water can't escape the bow fast enough, and it will not because in most cases it will get into the storage under the cushions and only slowly go backwards to the bilge then the next wake will be even worse.

So to avoid this, throttle down slowly, turn slow so you get hit by your wakes from the side and you'll be safe all the time even with huge wakes.

Another alternative is to throttle down and keep going straight in idle then turn in idle and maybe even go into reverse to go back in your own path. In the middle there will be almost no wakes at all.

[Fast351]

These things never happen when you power turn! Or I don't understand the concept of power turns.

These things can and definitely DO happen when you power turn.

I come from I/O's where it seems stylish to power turn, which is REALLY bad for the gimbal bearings. I had to reeducate my wife, and myself (although I seem to have picked it up much faster) after watching "The Book". They have a specific lesson on driving, including the correct way to turn around so you don't screw up the lake.

Anyway, if you're surfing at 10 MPH, and you turn at that speed to pick up a fallen rider, you'll swamp the boat every time. If you're wakeboarding at 20 and you turn hard enough to nose into your own wake, you will also take water over the bow. I've done it. It's repeatable. It happens when you power turn.

Another alternative is to throttle down and keep going straight in idle then turn in idle and maybe even go into reverse to go back in your own path. In the middle there will be almost no wakes at all.

This is the right and safest (and least destructive to the quality of the water) way to turn around. I haven't found a need to reverse the boat, but if you wait until the hull settles into the water and stops, and let the waves go by, you can almost turn the boat on it's own axis and roll back the way you came. No way to take water over the bow then.

BTW, my dealer did ask if I'd owned a boat before and if I was comfortable with it's operation. They even explained the differences in backing up with an inboard vs I/O. Some do it right!

[peterkarlsson]

Sorry for possibly confusing ya'll, where I come from power turns are when the boat is going at planing speeds which for most boats are above wakeboarding speeds.