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View Full Version : Played around with my surf wave a bit... (92 Supra DD with a surf system)



trayson
08-18-2014, 02:02 PM
So, I had some time since I was the only one that wanted to play on the water on Saturday and we were at the lake all day.

First off, I have a 92 Supra Sunsport direct drive. I've modified it with a surf system similar to Nautique that has a blade that goes out 3" and down 1" on the non-surf side when deployed. This (like all the other surf systems) delays the convergence of the two wakes and cleans/elongates the surfside wake.

For reference:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Jc9lgvF5QEI/U5ydfD9TRXI/AAAAAAAAQhg/US7-vPx5EZQ/s400/20140614_120337.jpg

I also have a custom swim platform that's smaller and doesn't cut into the wave like the OEM platform did.

I have a Flyhigh tube sack that fills to about 350 pounds that lives under my rear seats. It is hard plumbed with a reversible impeller pump. I also have a pair of 750 pound (20x20x50") fat sacks. Finally, I have a "baby bag" that's probably 150 pounds that I can put wherever if we're light on crew.

Here's a pic of the fully loaded setup:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2qKOapIv1FQ/U_ItkZQUrsI/AAAAAAAARaM/EYfmRN3s8o4/s800/GOPR0350.JPG

The configurations I tried were:


1) under seat bag only, surf system deployed
2) Under seat bag and surfside 750, surf system deployed
3) Under seat bag and surfside 750 and surfside baby bag in rear corner, surf system deployed
4) Under seat bag, both 750's and baby bag in rear corner, surf system deployed (i.e. my NORMAL setup).

Basically what I found is that #1 is good for teaching newbies that are only going to lineride. Basically focus on getting up without really any expectation they'll freeride.
http://youtu.be/_t9wGyhwLPo?list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA

#2 was okay, I could freeride it with focus to stay in the small pocket. could do some slashing around, but very easy to fall out.
Clean LOOKING wave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Q3NNnGtSA&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA
Me riding it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo2ND0FFDiM&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA
(wife forgot to shut off the camera, it was a pretty short ride)

#3 was basically similar to #2 but with a tiny bit more power. #3 was obviously the most listed. water about 4" below rub rail at rest. It was the least favorable for the driver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5w7aNjfXYw&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSmbmWgnlss&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA

#4 is what we normally run. BAM, power was back and the pocket was big. easy recoveries, easy for playing. The top portion of the wave isn't as clean as with the other scenarios, but it's by all means the best of them all and brought a smile to my face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhC4SF8JMd4&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Q7f-UnHQ0&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA

I will say that in the #4 configuration, it's not quite as "clean" as it was with #2, but the push, pocket, and drivability made it by far the best setup. The wife actually liked driving with setup #4 the best. so that's a win/win.

Here's a quick vid of what it looks like from the rider perspective. it was getting super rough, so I fell out of the wave REALLY quick and called it a day soon after that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QqPFllXj6M&list=UU_P1wHm8eHcLtb9Q573E8SA

But I have some other vids showing the rider perspective if anyone's interested.

HyperCVAD198
08-25-2014, 01:06 PM
Good Stuff, Trayson.

All the tweaking really pays off when you've finally got a solid "winning" configuration

trayson
08-25-2014, 01:12 PM
Good Stuff, Trayson.

All the tweaking really pays off when you've finally got a solid "winning" configuration

Yeah, in my case, it was really confirming that the setup we've graduated to is actually our best and our favorite.

jtryon
08-25-2014, 03:55 PM
thanks for the info. built a gate last weekend but didn't get to test it that much, so your info here helps save me some testing time!

trayson
08-25-2014, 04:49 PM
my pleasure.

CornRickey
08-26-2014, 12:28 AM
Couple questions- what speed are you running at? It looks fast but probably just the video. I'm surprised your running that much weight. Have you messed with the set up by starting with little weight in and the system deployed then adjust the system to get the cleanest surf wave then add weight until you get enough push to surf then tweak it from there? This may be what the videos are about maybe I missed the description of the weights. What I have learned is once I got a "minimal weight" figured out to surf it took not much more to increase the wave but there was a point of diminished returns. If I overweighed the boat in the back then I had to add weight elsewhere to fix that when I would have been better off removing the weight in the first place. I have found with my system when I get slop over to the surf side I need to decrease the non-surf side to raise the system up to catch it. If the slop over is more of a curl over then the angle causing delayed convergence is needed. If the surf wave is beautiful but flat on top with not enough push then you need to decrease the angle to make the convergence closer pushing the backside of the surf wave up and making it steeper.

Its a balance between weighting the boat, boat speed and adjusting the system. What gains have you achieved with you system? Sorry If you have already addressed it. thanks.

trayson
08-26-2014, 01:01 AM
Couple questions- what speed are you running at? It looks fast but probably just the video. I'm surprised your running that much weight. Have you messed with the set up by starting with little weight in and the system deployed then adjust the system to get the cleanest surf wave then add weight until you get enough push to surf then tweak it from there? This may be what the videos are about maybe I missed the description of the weights. What I have learned is once I got a "minimal weight" figured out to surf it took not much more to increase the wave but there was a point of diminished returns. If I overweighed the boat in the back then I had to add weight elsewhere to fix that when I would have been better off removing the weight in the first place. I have found with my system when I get slop over to the surf side I need to decrease the non-surf side to raise the system up to catch it. If the slop over is more of a curl over then the angle causing delayed convergence is needed. If the surf wave is beautiful but flat on top with not enough push then you need to decrease the angle to make the convergence closer pushing the backside of the surf wave up and making it steeper.

Its a balance between weighting the boat, boat speed and adjusting the system. What gains have you achieved with you system? Sorry If you have already addressed it. thanks.

Purpose of Videos = trying different configuations
The videos were just that. To evaluate the system with different configurations. However, I really haven't tried less than having the dual 750's when I'm equally weighted. In fact, I've found that when we have a light crew, I need to put the 150 pound baby bag in the surfside corner to compensate for not having people weight.

Optimal Weight
I have found that around 2000 pounds of weight seems to be the best setup I've tried so far. Don't forget that I have a direct drive, so I don't have the advantage of the rear engine weight that you have with a v-drive and I also can't get my 750's nearly as far back as you can.

Combinations
Also, I built my blades tall enough that I really never get to the point where they'd be all the way submerged. However, there's literally so many combinations I could try that it's hard to exhaust all the possibilities. my blades are infinitely adjustable from all the way in to 3" extended out. (you have angle, I have excursion). With Nautique, the full 3" out is surf and the lesser amount extended = skim. So I've got weight quantity, weight placement, blade excursion, and speed as variables. There's a LOT of combos for sure.

Boat Speed
As far as speed, I've played around with that too. I've found that if we have at least a moderate amount of passenger weight (2 adults and a kid plus driver) that 8.5 to 9mph was good. I think the fastest we've played around with it is 9.5mph. So our typical range is 8.5 to 9.5 mph. this is with Perfect pass wakeboard pro with the paddlewheel, as we almost always ride in a river current.

Gains with system
Before I did this, I would double stack bags to put all the weight in the rear corner and along the surfside with no weight forward of the engine. It was a great wave, but the boat porpoised and water was a few inches below the rub rail at rest and running at or above the rub rail to halfway up the gunwales. So it was slammed and effective, but not fun to drive or fun to be in while weighted like that.

With the surf system, the boat sits basically level. the bow is down enough that I can drive sitting down (I sit on my small fenders to give myself a few inches of poor man's booster). The boat handles way better and isn't working as hard. We get a wave that's just as good as being slammed. We can chill out with the boat weighted and have lunch and be comfortable. We can be at rest and NOT worry about taking water on from rollers of other boats that pass by. Once the bags are all filled, we can switch from regular to goofy and back in under 10 seconds per switch. With the bags on the floor, we aren't stressing the boat's upholstery as much by having a huge bag killing my rear cushions. It's more comfortable for passengers to be in the boat when weighted evenly. We can also be filling and draining BOTH of my big 750's simultaneously with two pumps. Before with bags double stacked, we'd have to fill the bottom one, then the top one. Before we had the system, we just flat out wouldn't surf goofy. I had honestly never done it because the rare time that we had a goofy rider, it would have been such a production to drain and refill that we just didn't do it. (I mean, if it's 8 minutes to fill or drain a 750 and with double stacked bags you have to do them one at a time, that means that it'd be easily 32+ minutes to drain two bags and then refill them on the other side. Who's gonna do that!?!?!?!?

Also, If we want, we can only fill the 350 under the seat bag (my only hard plumbed hidden ballast) to make a mini wave that's suitable for teaching beginners to get up and to line ride.

Downsides
Honestly, the only downsides of how I have things setup is that the wave isn't quite as clean as I'd like. I'm not totally sure why yet. It's possible that even in the closed position my retracted surfside blade is creating a little turbulence. I'm really not sure. And I guess with bags on the floor on BOTH sides, we don't have really much floorspace while surfing. But before, all we put on the non-surfside floor is bags and gear, so no big loss.

Summary
There are probably still configurations to try, but we've found something that seems to be working well.
The surf system has a LONG list of things that are fantastic and positive from a rider, driver, and passenger perspective.
The drawbacks are minimal if any.
It's still not a v-drive so there's only so good I'd be able to get it anyway, but this allows me to play like WAY more expensive boats and still enjoy mine to the fullest.
It makes it easier to keep my boat and not be forced to upgrade. It makes me able to deal with having my boat because I can't afford to upgrade!!

CornRickey
08-26-2014, 02:37 AM
Makes a lot of sense. I couldn't imagine that much weight in a boat like you had before. I've spent a lot of time being pulled behind my boat just looking at what is impacting the wave and what isn't. I especially spend a lot of time when I was trying to figure out a way to leave them both on. As of now I think the only thing to change is the platform itself but I'm not to motivated to make any shape changes. I think I'm going to skin the underside of it over the winter with thin HDPE. One thing that helped me was putting my gopro on a monopod and sending it over the sides to bet better views of things while underway. It helped a lot when trying to figure out things in the back. My PP and speedo are off a little at different speeds so calibrating them is a little touchy but going my GPS I'm not able to get below 9.3 before the wave collapses. It appears that the speed it collapses increases with added weight. I surfed this weekend with a additional bag placed on the floor and I struggled with getting things dialed in.

Zim
08-27-2014, 09:20 PM
Makes a lot of sense. I couldn't imagine that much weight in a boat like you had before. I've spent a lot of time being pulled behind my boat just looking at what is impacting the wave and what isn't. I especially spend a lot of time when I was trying to figure out a way to leave them both on. As of now I think the only thing to change is the platform itself but I'm not to motivated to make any shape changes. I think I'm going to skin the underside of it over the winter with thin HDPE. One thing that helped me was putting my gopro on a monopod and sending it over the sides to bet better views of things while underway. It helped a lot when trying to figure out things in the back. My PP and speedo are off a little at different speeds so calibrating them is a little touchy but going my GPS I'm not able to get below 9.3 before the wave collapses. It appears that the speed it collapses increases with added weight. I surfed this weekend with a additional bag placed on the floor and I struggled with getting things dialed in.

Your boat and my boat have very similar hull designs, you just have a couple extra feet and a little width. I've been messing around with mine quite a bit lately, and found that the best wave comes from me filling my surf side full (750lb bag), then putting one 400lb bag on surf side seat along the gunnel, and one 400lb bag on the floor on surf side. Puts a lot of weight in that corner. I also fill my 400lb bag in the locker full. From there, I use my wake plate to adjust for length or height. Seems to work better for me than putting a bunch of extra ballast up front. If I have more people in the boat, I'll skip the bag on the seat and have people sit there instead, and throw the 400lb bag up in the bow on the floor instead of on the seat. We usually have someone sitting on the sun pad being the "rope guy" as long as the water patrol isn't close, and for the people that don't fit on surf side seat, they sit on the rear bench as far to surf side as possible. Leftovers get thrown up in the bow on surf side. If I have a full boat of people, I usually skip the 400lb bags all together and just move people into their places they'd normally be. I run in RPM mode with a 14.25x14.5 OJ prop, and run about 2650-2700 RPMs depending how much weight is in the boat. More weight means I have to faster to clean it up nice. Been getting monster waves lately... hope that helps.