we have successfully surfed our Mariah for the last few years. I would put a 750 beside the engine and then a 400 on the Surfside seat in the back and another 400 sitting on top of the 750 and the bag on the seat. we usually put one person up in the bow on the surf side and the other person would just sit on the engine cover handling the rope. definitely no problem surfing without the rope and can easily carve around on the wave. we are usually on a reservoir that is not too busy and never worried about taking water over the bow unless we were crossing our own wave and then you just have to throttle up a little bit to go over it. I also made a different swim platform for ours so that it doesn't dig into the wave and put a 13 by 10 1/2 acme prop on. Those items made a huge difference

in case you haven't pulled the trigger on the one you were looking at ours will be going up for sale since we just purchased a new boat. feel free to give me a call if you're interested 260438zero195 or it'll be posted up here probably in the next week or two.