Need advice on Yamaha 242x wake surfing

[foreveryoung65]

I bought a 2019 Yamaha 242x and yesterday was my first time trying to wake surf on it. I filled the ballast tanks and the gas tank is pretty full and I had about 1800 pounds of passengers on board and the wake surf kit on the rear. I could not get the boat up to 10mph which shocked me. I think the maximum weight is like 2400 pounds but is it that sensitive to weight that you can't get up to speed? What is the max load of people/ballast that people have done on a 242x successfully? I'm surprised how little power this has for loads. Hoping I'm missing something.

 

[Liftr]

Hmmm. That doesn’t sound right. I have an 2018 242X.
I was surfing last week with all bags full and 8 people on board.
No problem pulling me up, and quickly getting to 11-12 mph.

 

[3 green tornados]

What were the RPMs? Any debris in the water? How was the weight distributed? Any signs of cavitation or vibrations that seemed abnormal?

 

[3 green tornados]

Water depth?

 

[3 green tornados]

Clean out plugs seated properly?

 

[foreveryoung65]

60 to 90 feet deep and 6500 RPM's. I don't know what cavitation feels like but the boat just felt incredibly sluggish. It has like 15 hours on it so nothing should be wrong. I'm on a lake in montana which is crystal clear. Haven't been able to check the inlets because it is docked in the water. I looked at the plugs in the swim deck and they seem to be in place. Appreciate any advice!

 

[Scottintexas]

What is your elevation?

Did you try to move passenger/weight forward to help get on plane?

 

[jcyamahariders wife]

So you had about 9 or 10 people in your boat ? Where were they sitting ? Anytime we have a large amount of people on the boat we definitely reduce our ballast bags percentage based on where they are sitting. We have some larger friends come on our boat to surf and we totally have to change our setup to accommodate the weight.

If that ends up not working you can find a few threads jcyamaharider has done about us changing out our impellers and the inside of the jet pumps were not aligned(sorry not sure if this the correct lingo) think swasti had the same issue had to make the wall on the inside smooth. We tried to get yamaha to fix it under warranty but after that battle jerry fixed it himself. It has been perfect ever since.

 

[Julian]

Yeah....what is your elevation?
How dirty is the hull?

6500 rpm sounds low.

 

[OrangeTJ]

Spark plugs fresh? I also second the question about altitude.

 

[foreveryoung65]

We are at 3000 feet. Pretty sure the plugs are seated right. Did not try to move people around. Had most of them on the back assuming that was a good thing. I used the Connext and set it to get to 11.2mph and it could not get to that speed. I do notice there is water in the bilge fairly regularly which I'm not used to (my last boat was a pursuit and it was dry as a bone inside all the time). It's a new boat (under 15 hours) so I can't imagine the plugs are fouled and I put premium no ethanol gas in it.

 

[foreveryoung65]

I just double checked the clean outs and there is no debris in there and they are seated right. Hull is in new condition with no growths on it. Has been in the water a total of 3 weeks of its life

 

[OrangeTJ]

We are at 3000 feet. Pretty sure the plugs are seated right. Did not try to move people around. Had most of them on the back assuming that was a good thing. I used the Connext and set it to get to 11.2mph and it could not get to that speed. I do notice there is water in the bilge fairly regularly which I'm not used to (my last boat was a pursuit and it was dry as a bone inside all the time). It's a new boat (under 15 hours) so I can't imagine the plugs are fouled and I put premium no ethanol gas in it.

Move some people forward. I bet that will cure what ails you.

 

[Jim Davis]

Make sure you have the wake wedge on correctly. I had it slightly off or in the wrong hole one time ( I forget which) and it was doing something similar to what you describe. Took a ton of power to get up to 10mph. Readjusted the wake wedge and solved the problem.

 

[BigAbe75]

We are at 3000 feet. Pretty sure the plugs are seated right. Did not try to move people around. Had most of them on the back assuming that was a good thing. I used the Connext and set it to get to 11.2mph and it could not get to that speed. I do notice there is water in the bilge fairly regularly which I'm not used to (my last boat was a pursuit and it was dry as a bone inside all the time). It's a new boat (under 15 hours) so I can't imagine the plugs are fouled and I put premium no ethanol gas in it.

There’s your problem (or one of them). Bump up your set speed to 13.5 and see what you get. Depending on who is on our boat and who is in the water, my rider profile will say anywhere between 12 and 13.5. Then, use a GPS speedometer on your phone to see how fast you’re actually going. You want around the 10.7 to 11.3 range as you said. ?

 

[Cambo]

X2 the set speed can be adjusted while under way using the buttons by the rotary knob . Same thing I have a rider profile set at 11mph but need to bump the speed up to 14 mph . We should start a thread of rider settings for wake surfing and wake boarding . I would say that these boats need settings geared more for the amount of passengers than what the specific rider needs. One setting is zero ballast just to get quick use of the speed control for wakeboarding the cruise control is not as accurate . Then once the speed control is locked use the cruise buttons to adjust the speed for different riders beginners get 15 to 17 mph advanced riders get 18 to 19 mph and I will direct passengers to shift sides to clean up the heel side edge for a nice clean take off for wake to wake jumps .

 

[foreveryoung65]

Really appreciate all the advice and help! I think we got it dialed in between less ballast and moving people forward. Wanted to enjoy the 4th with the family and we did as a result of the advice here. Thank you!

 

[mistercool88]

Had a similar issue and realized it is the auto profiles as stated by @BigAbe75. Switched to manual controls and no issues.

 

[TommyG]

I bought a 2019 Yamaha 242x and yesterday was my first time trying to wake surf on it. I filled the ballast tanks and the gas tank is pretty full and I had about 1800 pounds of passengers on board and the wake surf kit on the rear. I could not get the boat up to 10mph which shocked me. I think the maximum weight is like 2400 pounds but is it that sensitive to weight that you can't get up to speed? What is the max load of people/ballast that people have done on a 242x successfully? I'm surprised how little power this has for loads. Hoping I'm missing something.

I know this post is from a year ago so disregard if you've gotten it figured out:

If you have the issue of noticing the boat taking on some water, consider reseating and retightening your drain plug. At one point I thought I had it in pretty tight but didn't want to over tighten it. I notice I would take some water on while out on the lake. Nothing major but bilge pump would activate or I'd run the bilge pump and pump out a little water. I took the plug out made sure any debris was out of the grooves and screwed it in nice and tight. Unless I'm washing it down, It's has been dry as a bone ever since.