What is the boat wake suppose to look like?

walb0244 · Outlaw Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 122 City: Terre Haute

I saw someone in one of the post where a guy posted a video tell the guy to fire the boat driver because the boat wake was white capped. i was gonna see if you guys had pictures of your wakes behind your boat so I could see what it was suppose to look like. On one side of my boat about 30 feet behind the boat the wake is vary crisp and before and after that is is white capping. the other side of the boat never gets crisp except when we are turning.

get_sum · Soul Rider Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 395 City: Edmond

While going absolutely straight, shift some weight from the "crisp" side to the "washed-out" side. It also looks like you're going a little slow. Try about 20-22. If it's an i/o boat, add weight to the front and trim the boat up slightly.

ssuter · Outlaw Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 191 City: Nashville

Id tone it even down a MPH or two to 18-20 if jus beginning to ride. If its an I/O def trim the prop up a little. i usually never go over a 1/4 but thats just my boat. It usually cleans up the wake real nice. And like get_sum, said shift a little weight around. You want to have the weight close to equal on both sides which will help the wash.

ssuter · Outlaw Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 191 City: Nashville

Theres my wake 18ft Tahoe I/O with just some bench weights spread evenly around the back of my boat. (total weight added 200lbs.) Trimmed up a 4th of the way and that speed is 21Mph with 70 ft rope.

walb0244 · Outlaw Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 122 City: Terre Haute

I found out while home i was wakeboarding too fast first off. I had been running around 25 miles per hour. When we slowed it down alittle the boat was still doing the same and not making and crisp wake. I had 3 people in the boat. My driver and then i had two people sit up in the front of the boat. We are trying to run slower but we currently have a 21 pitch prop on the boat and it doesn't want to stay planned out at slower speeds real well.

walb0244 · Outlaw Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 122 City: Terre Haute

I emailed my father in law and told him to take his Tom Tom out on the boat with him so we can see if the speedometer is accurate or not.

Correction on the above post. I had 4 people in the boat. But I thought I had the weight spread out over the boat pretty well. I had 2 of the people ride in the front so that it would help the boat plane out at lower speeds.

ssuter · Outlaw Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 191 City: Nashville

What kinda boat and what kind of motor.

that wake above looks like your slowed down big time.

walb0244 · Outlaw Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 122 City: Terre Haute

My boat is a 1991 19' Caravelle with a 4.3 I/O. The wake juse above is not of my boat. The wake in the picture at the top of this forum is the wake behind my boat.

pet575 · Posted: Sep 08, 2009 9:09 am Post subject:

I agree with ssuter-that wake looks like you're going SLOW. Looks like you're doing more like 15 MPH. If you can't hold the boat on plane in the 18-21 range, you're going to need to change props. Something more like a 4 or 5 blade 17 or 19 pitch prop would do you much better for holding plane at lower speeds. Will cost you some top-end speed, but will help you hold speed where you need it once you figure out what speed makes the best crisp and foamless wake for you.

Here is a pic of my brother eating ch!t when he cased the wake trying a wake-to-wake jump behind my I/O at about 19 MPH. You can see something close to what the lip of the wake should look like at the length where you are riding:

walb0244 · Outlaw Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 122 City: Terre Haute

We were looking at getting a 4 blade 14 inch 18 pithc aluminum prop but the company i was looking at ordering from states on the site that they recommend 4 blade props for outboard motors. I'm still leaning toward that prop tho. I don't care anything about if I loose top end speed. I don't care anything about seeing how fast I can fly across the lake. I would just like to be able to get my boat to plane out at lower speeds.

Hopefully when my father in law takes his TOM TOM out on the lake with him we will find out if the speedometer is correct or not. That will atleast eliminate some of the questions on the speed the boat is running. If the speedometer is accurate then we are definately getting a new prop for the boat.

Now on ballast bags or what ever you want to call them. Does the weight need to be spread out equally over the entire length of the boat or will putting weight in the front make it plane easier. I would think weight in the front would help. Right?

pet575 · Posted: Sep 08, 2009 9:58 am Post subject:

Don't throw too many things on the pile at once.

First, get your speedo issue resolved.

Second, figure out what speed you need to be at to get your wake cleaned up.

Third, figure out if you need a different prop to hold that speed (my guess is that you most definitely will).

Fourth, add weight. For an I/O, start by putting the weight in the front in between the bow seats. After you get to 400-600 lbs, then any weight that you add should be toward the back. Once you add weight to the front, move the trim level around a bit to find a place where the wake is clean WITH the weight. You MIGHT also have to adjust speed to clean it back up again.

NOTE: adding weight will multiply problems caused by not having the right prop.

walb0244 · Outlaw Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 122 City: Terre Haute

Great. So this is like everything else on the water there are like 50 million different combinations. Just like with everything you do behind the boat. Another thing it is looking like i'm gonna have to fix while i'm here in iraq is the trim sender unit. Mine currently doesn't work. When you guys start off do you have the trim all the way down and then start moving it up alittle at a time to clean up the wake? We are currently leaving the trim all the way down pretty much all the time. The only time we mess with the tirm is when we are trying to see top speed.

Boost Deuce · Criminal Joined: 24 Apr 2009 Posts: 94 City: Fort Collins

i have a 21p prop on a Rinker 212 with mercruiser 350 and anything above 15mph and it will hold plane.

With the trim, i always start out with it all the way down. It takes forever to plane out with it up at all, unless there are 3 people sitting up front.
Sometimes i don't even adjust it. It really cleans up the wake though if the weight distribution on the boat is uneven. Sometimes the wake on one side will be bad due to that, and raising the trim cleans it up a lot and makes it nice.

But my wake with the trim down and with the trim up a little bit isn't different enough for us novice riders to really notice. We are just doing Wake To Wake, nothing special, so with it all the way down, we can still get way out into the flats on a w2w jump, and we can still crash just as hard as trimming it up.

SPARC · Newbie Joined: 17 Jul 2009 Posts: 47 City: Charleston

Boost Deuce

When we ride with the "other" parents on their boat I usually tell them to leave the trim alone as well. They have a Bayliner 185 with the 3.0L Merc and it can be quite challenging trying to keep it on plane with the trim up about 1/4and 17-19mph. We decided to have them leave it down when I not driving because it's much easier for them to hold speed, which to me is more important than having the cleanest wake. We usually don't board behind it often and when we want to go big or get tricky we just pull our 24V out and tear it up.

BTW: No saying you can't tear it up behind an I/O. My wife and I both learned behind one, just saying that we quit trying to get the wake perfect without a near perfect driver to keep it going smoothly.

ssuter · Outlaw Joined: 21 Apr 2009 Posts: 191 City: Nashville

walb0244, Ya def start with it down all the way, adjust it once it planes out. If you have alot of weight on the boat id say put most of it up front. with that motor you could easily have 2 people on the back and one up front and beable to plane out fine. i know with my boat if i load it down to much it gets hard to hold speed and hard to stay on track. just alot of trial and error to fine tune your boat to your likings.