Has anyone seen this wake shaper yet?

[F.M.]

These guys out of southern TN claim to have designed a wake shaper that works on jet boats. It actually mounts on the bottom of the hull instead of the side. He mentions that he worked with someone in Atlanta to design and test. They are selling them in limited quantity on the Facebook page, but wants to do more testing before going to market with it.

 

[haknslash]

Interesting but I need pics and vids to see it to believe it. There are a few members on here who have tried to use their trim tabs in a similar fashion much like many of the wake boats have today. I believe @swatski even had a massive tab made for surfing si liar to the GoSurfAssist system but even a beast like that didn't help too much IIRC. The issue is unless you're blocking the jet thrust in addition I just don't see it helping overcome such a force of thrust for a delayed convergence, especially on a twin engine. I can easily convert mine to lay against the bottom but I am skeptical it would really do anything. Apply a little bit of list and lots of ballast, deflect the thrust on a twin and they will put out a wave for a jet boat.

I know from experience making my surf gate that mounting anything on the side of the boat that would actually generate some divergence causes the boat to pull to the side like a wild bull and you end up having to countersteer which just throws the thrust all over the wave you're trying to shape.

Everything was looking promising with no ballast and just a few humans. It took some balancing of steering to not countersteer too much but it looked like it may work.....





However once you add in ballast (~1400 lbs) things went downhill quick! The surf gate looked good sitting low and just above the water line but the force this thing generated would just pulle boat HARD. Too hard to overcome without destroying the wave with thrust....







Took off the surf wedge and a single engine actually puts out a pretty decent wave. Not being a twin there is not jet wash being thrown into the wave s this helps us single guys. I'd love for a device to come out or mod mine so that it actually creates more push but that's going to come from displacement and not shape. Need to get more of the hull down in the water not just the mid and rear so may try more ballast up front too to push even more of it into the water.

 

[swatski]

These guys out of southern TN claim to have designed a wake shaper that works on jet boats. It actually mounts on the bottom of the hull instead of the side. He mentions that he worked with someone in Atlanta to design and test. They are selling them in limited quantity on the Facebook page, but wants to do more testing before going to market with it.

If you want to surf behind a Yammie, gotta buy the Wake Wedge. The original. That's been my conclusion, and I have tried as hard as many others here. Gantlin is the way to go, and these guys have the machining prowess to deliver a superior product.

I appreciate the efforts these new guys are making, I myslef experimented with several contraptions from strait wake wedge knock-offs to crazy out-there ideas, also played with the "flap", and a bunch other flaps - yes, there are many things out there that work, somewhat.

But, the original Gantlin Wake Wedge is the deal.

I'm always curious to see new gizmos, but IMO all those delayed conversion contraptions are going absolutely nowhere.

You have to list a yammie's (shorter) hull and the surfgate-type devices come out of the water, but even if you figure out that they don't, the jets ruin the wake surface due to steering constrains. Etc.

I doubt this guy has any idea what he is talking about, lol, but I sure hope I am wrong!

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[jcyamaharider]

I would have to see it to believe it. I don't think that forcing one side up would have any benefit at all. I have tried the convergence and it didn't work with even weighting. @swatski tried the trim tab thing. The only other thing that i will say is I don't have to sell the Wake Wedge, our customers do that for us.

*EDIT* Just did a quick search on youtube, no video of it being used on a Yamaha.

 

[haknslash]

Yup the wake wedge by Gantlin is the way to go. It will deflect the jet and allows the ballast and listing to form the pocket. It transformed @Bill D 's wave once he had it dialed in. I'd be willing to modify my DIY gate to go off the bottom but like the others say I doubt it's going to make any difference on these boats. Lots of guys have tried all sorts of things and mounting on the bottom would be like a trim tab which has been tried before. Gotta see it to believe it. The Gantlin wedge below...

 

[swatski]

I would have to see it to believe it. I don't think that forcing one side up would have any benefit at all. I have tried the convergence and it didn't work with even weighting. @swatski tried the trim tab thing. The only other thing that i will say is I don't have to sell the Wake Wedge, our customers do that for us.

*EDIT* Just did a quick search on youtube, no video of it being used on a Yamaha.

Correct. Bringing lots of memories of fruitless testing of my "surftab" designs, lol.
LOL, And I didn't just try a tab... I tried ten something different "surf" tab attachments, have a small collection of various attachments we constructed for that very purpose - to lean the boat and shape the wake - AKA as scrap metal now, lol.
Main issue is (without getting into details, but I commented on this somewhere else) - one needs to compensate for surftab-induced drag (on the non-surf side) basically steering the jets into (your newly found) the wake...
Which's not working too well.

Could surf tabs work? Yes, but not like what these guys are showing.
The system would need to be able to simultaneously 1. keep the boat going strait, 2. without steering the jets to plow through the wake, 3. while listing the hull. Not trivial.

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[F.M.]

Since we purchased our 242 in late October and only took it out twice, I got to play with the ballast and cruise presets, but haven't actually surfed my boat. So I have no first hand experience as to how good or bad the wake is. I feel that I'm going to have to do something to fix it though from all the discussion here. The photos of his device on other boats looks promising, but they aren't twin engine Yamahas.

You guys definitely know more and have a lot more experience about this subject than I do, so I'm going to trust your wisdom here.

I did speak with him last night and he said he found a guy with a Yamaha at Tim's Ford and would be testing it out on a twin engine in April sometime. I volunteered to come up next week for testing, but he didn't seem interested.

I'm going to have to try to surf my boat before I'll be able to purchase a device to fix the wake. Or let the wife try to surf it so she'll want to fix it. I don't think I'll be allowed to spend more money on it right now since "it hasn't even been in the water yet". But when the time comes I'll be giving you a shout @jcyamaharider.

 

[jcyamaharider]

Just for reference.

 

[haknslash]

It would be interesting if someone would make something like a reversed hydrofoil like the Power Wedge. Basically a power wedge creates an additional 900-1500 lbs of ballast by pulling the stern of a Axis or Malibu boat down creating more displacement. I don't know if our transom would be strong enough to handle those kinds of forces. It makes me think that it would also allow the attitude of the boat and nozzles to point even more into the water thus eliminating even more jet wash into the wave. Someone do it but don't sink your boat testing in the process by ripping off your transom lol. It's about the only thing I think we haven't tried aside from the NSS type system. This is a power edge below....

 

[GoVols01]

I've been texting with the owner of Inland Curl because he's located near Tims Ford Lake, which is where I like to boat at times. He and I are planning to get together to perform some real world testing using my 212X in the next couple months. I will certainly report our findings.

 

[F.M.]

I've been texting with the owner of Inland Curl because he's located near Tims Ford Lake, which is where I like to boat at times. He and I are planning to get together to perform some real world testing using my 212X in the next couple months. I will certainly report our findings.

When you get out to test, if you want to test a 242 also. You know where to find me.

 

[haknslash]

Whatever came of the Surf Stream Wake Enhancement device? https://jetboaters.net/threads/2017-surf-stream-wake-enhancement.12314/

 

[swatski]

Whatever came of the Surf Stream Wake Enhancement device? https://jetboaters.net/threads/2017-surf-stream-wake-enhancement.12314/

@haknslash you are killing me, hehehe - making me relive another bitter memory!!! LOL.
(thank god for the wake wedge, all I'm going to say)
https://jetboaters.net/threads/surfstream-diy-edition-prototyping-in-ar240.16075/#post-276180

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[Chillypilot]

The Wedge really seams to be the best solution. However, I'm surprised that with all the innovators on this board more people haven't made their own version of the Wake Wedge.

 

[swatski]

The Wedge really seams to be the best solution. However, I'm surprised that with all the innovators on this board more people haven't made their own version of the Wake Wedge.

I have! I actually did make a couple shameless knockoffs and a few other novelty items. But - at the end of the day - I'm finding the quality of my DIY projects to not be completely satisfactory.
I've seen the Wake Wedge in person, these guys are real machinists. You can not fake that, LOL, LOL. (I tried!)

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[Chillypilot]

There is no doubt about it the boys at Gatlin have designed a great product but at $800 each and a crappy Canadian $$$ I just couldn't justify the cost. Besides I love a challenge. Made these back in 2015, still going strong.

 

[jcyamaharider]

I think it is a matter of supporting your fellow jetboater. Sure I could make a set of steering fins, but I would rather support the people that support me.

 

[haknslash]

All this talk has me jonesing for some surf action. Come on warm weather hurry up and stay here! @Bill D I may have another board for us to try this season

 

[Chillypilot]

@jcyamaharider Don't take my comment the wrong way, I think you created an amazing product and have promoted it on many occasions. Certainly building your own isn't easy and definitely not for most people. However, there have been quite few others on the board have gone to extreme measures to create a great wake and build crazy devices only to have them fail. I'm just a little surprised that no one seems to have made their own version of the most successful wake enhancement product for our boats out there.

 

[jameskeller76]

Rumor on the street is @JetBoatPilot will be coming out with a surf add on soon!