'86 Ski Nautique 2001 Surf Gate

Hey Guys been gonna do this for a few years and never got around to it to my Martinique which I didn't mind weighting out. Sold now have a BFN and don't want to weight it out that much. Did you ever get out and get more pictures. Pat

Sorry, should've given you the link.

carb leak thread

boardersdad wrote: Sure, give me a few days. Football games this time of year. It's also in the 40's here, so I've been doing indoor stuff.

85 degrees now at 10 pm in Atlanta. We'really just getting into the best time of the year here. Bimini free boating from now until Thanksgiving.                                                                          

Boardersdad and Thaddeus - Very impressed with what you guys are doing. I'd like to build something too. Can you guys post pics/ plans/ dimensions of what you have done for your setups? Also, since Boardersdad is pushing his design a little further out into the flow, maybe I'll try something inbetween the two?

camspruill@yahoo.com

Great stuff guys!

Can't argue with that, Joey!

Kevin, I don't like tubing, either. But some people love it. I don't get it, really. I guess the kamikaze banzai dual tubing might be fun if I was still young and stupid. It doesn't take any effort to learn how to do it, so it's fine for some people who don't boat much. When I was a little kid we tubed on those old black tractor tire tubes with the big metal Schrader valve tube in the middle--talk about stupidly dangerous. As soon as I could ski, I don't think I ever went back on a tube. But we did all sorts of stupid stuff, like starting off the dock on a slalom ski with a 100 ft rope just to flip off the lake cop who bitched that 75 ft was too close, skiing into the dock to grab the pole and swing up onto the dock without getting wet, skiing onto the beach and jumping out of the ski (faceplanted that one once), skiing in really shallow water and getting arms stuck in the mud then praying the boat will arrive before you run out of breath--young and stupid. So now I try to teach my kids to not be as stupid as I was. That doesn't take much, really.

I suppose I'm being harsh. I appreciate a good surfer (when they aren't trashing the water for anyone else). I'm just not for it, where as tubing I'm definitely against. My own interests or abilities have no bearing on that stance either.

Post pics either way!

Nothing revolutionary about surfing behind a boat. It has been around for about 50 years. If you are looking for low pressure and impact stay on the dock. No risk = no reward.

I bought the parts for my prototype last night. Hope to have it ready to try over Labor Day weekend. Busy time with my son in football, though.

I just hope my kids don't get that into surfing. I don't mind a detachable surf gate, but I sure don't want to go through all that effort to fab up something that fancy! Looks good, though. I think I enjoy watching them slalom and wakeboard more than surf...

btw, here's a video of the Nautique Surf System (NSS) waveplates.

Also, this 12 page thread is worth a read. I don't think the side forces are an issue for the platform brackets.

We haven't even talked about a DIY wedge yet, to avoid all that ballast. Now that would be a mounting nightmare... and not sure there's enough power.

Since the video: the clamps have been flipped so that the there are no blunt objects sticking up from the deck. I made my gate different from Malibu's design for a couple reasons. One being the gate seems to protrude out the side of the boat... It looks to be creating a lot of drag while making the delayed convergence. I did not want to replicate Malibu's design for fear there may also be a ton of pressure on that gate which of course would be transferred through the actuator to the hull. I also felt like this would most certainly affect my ability to turn the boat. Another reason I chose a different route then Malibu is the possible spray that may occur with a shallow (height) of the gate AND because the weight I put in the boat puts the swim deck underwater. Testing, Re-Designing & re-testing different lengths and heights of the gate are in the future for sure. A lot of testing is still needed. Now of course all of this is speculation because I have never been behind a Malibu with Surf Gates. But to put my thoughts on paper might make it easier to see why I chose the "Design" I did. Now again keep in mind this is just a pictorial. The gates are not to size and angles and lengths may be exaggerated +/-.

I chose to use a longer gate at an angle ALMOST parallel with the hull. I feel by doing this I MAY be getting the delayed convergence affect WITHOUT unnecessary stress to the hull and little to no drag on the gate itself. Essentially I've made one side of my boat longer than the other instead of Malibu's Design where the gate seems to protrude and drag. I feel my design lets the water continue to slide along the hull and release off the end of the gate as if the starboard side of the hull was just longer than the port side.

I have not been able to do as much testing as I'd like because we've been using the prototype gate on almost every outing. We use a very small stretch of the lake to surf to keep from TRASHING the lake for other riders and fisherman. Luckily the lake we're on is dead during the week... which is why we mostly surf on weekdays.

Oss!

Thaddeus

Thaddeus, I applaud your effort. Can you provide some more pictures from different angles and some basic dimensions? It looks to me like the surf gate is intended to lengthen one side of the hull, so that wake formation is further aft on that side and the point of convergence of the two wakes is shifted to the gate side--allowing the non-gate wake to grow in size. So then I guess the goals would be to (i) keep the gate fairly close to the aft end of the hull, (ii) align the bottom line of the gate with the aft line of the hull, (iii) extend the gate aft as far as the platform provides solid support, (iv) make the gate tall enough so the top remains above the waterline. Does that sound right? I'd still love to see more pics and your basic layout. It could be that you've got something beneath the platform, as well.

Thanks.

Steve

On weekends in WI, when the water is too rough to even trick ski, Surfing provides me to ways to satisfy some basic needs.

First it DOES indeed require more skill then you would think to stay in that pocket and experience that "invisible" push.

Second and more importantly, as everyone around us is pulling tubes round and round churning the lake like a bathtub, I make slow passes back and forth down the middle throwing a monster wave. The worse case result is those nimrod tube drivers have to constantly stop and circle back to pick up the tube rider that inevitably fall off when they hit my wake. The best case result is that a lot of the tuber's pack it in and head back to the shore when they take water over the bow, because they don't know how to handle a large wake.

Another added benie is that it allows guests who have no interest in doing any waterskiing, because they remember the muscle ache that they received post tubing (not from my boat) or skiing in the past. I get a lot of people up on the surfboard with big smiles on their face.

So Thaddeus keep on innovating, I am an avid barefooter and slalom skier, but because I like to use my boat weekends and I only have access to public water littered with crazy's, surfing is a good activity for me AND way better then tubing. Anything that makes it easier, more consistent and can reduce the ridiculous amount of ballast I have to load into the boat is a GOOD thing.

While I still don't see why someone would wake surf more than once maybe twice just to do it.. I give you props for engineering and fabricating a low cost alternative to a 100k boat!

Geez. It's already low impact and slow. Now safe and (with FAE) quiet. What is next? Napping behind the boat?