DIY Wake shaper ideas

Not to beat my own drum, but for the sake of sharing information, here is the prototype of a wake shaper (if you will) that is an attachment to a custom tab:



In very preliminary testing with minimal ballast it showed a lot of promise:

Wave looks pretty clean with your deflector. How does it look if going straight?

haknslash said:

Wave looks pretty clean with your deflector. How does it look if going straight?

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Hard to tell, I was alone and running all-over. But boy, that thing was definitely doing something!

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That thing has potential me thinks! Cam

swatski said:

Hard to tell, I was alone and running all-over. But boy, that thing was definitely doing something!

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It apears you were in a slight turn from the way your jet wash was behind your boat. Call me wife guru that's been on many test runs.

I do have video of the ronix testing we did. I will try and look on our laptop sometime and post. Looking through the millions of photos and videos sucks when I didn't organize them from the start.

jcyamahariders wife said:

It apears you were in a slight turn from the way your jet wash was behind your boat. Call me wife guru that's been on many test runs.

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Yes, it does look that way. Found a video clip from that session (I think I was holding the wheel with my feet while shooting with my phone, lol, so don't mind the quality) but just looking at the wave - that gizmo attached to the strbd side tab was really doing something. IDK...
But I do want to put my ballast in place before I pursue this any further. I did get the Ridesteady, so speed control is taken care of.

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It's tax time and the ridesteady is on my radar for sure.. wishes he would do a group buy as I'm sure there are some of us who would be interested!!

@swatski yeah I think it was your unsteady camera skills while driving with your foot you really need 2 gopros for when you are by yourself I am sure that would have been very entertaining watching you !

Awesome work

I thought I had already posted these images but guess not. I found this guys DIY gate which is very similar to what I was thinking of. Basically use it like a trailer hitch receiver and slide it in then lock it in place. His is mounted much closer to the transom than what I was thinking of trying to use the tow loops to save from have a fixed mount on the hull. He said it worked great on the forum I was reading. Thoughts on why something like this could work for our boats?

I think I found a place that I want to try for tight fitting aluminum tubing. https://alcobrametals.com/products/telescoping-tube/telescoping-aluminum-square-tube/6005a-t6-telescoping-square-tube

Here is a simpler method that would mount to the transom. This does without the need for an "extension arm" and bracing from the tow hook mounts like the first version but it would require drilling 8 bolt holes in the transom. I would like to see some adjusters incorporated so that you could dial in the angle of the gate ± 15° or so of adjustment (that'll be version 3 I suppose ).

I often wonder if those HandleOnDemand style suction cups would work from behind the transom as that would not require any drilling but I'm not sure how well it would hold with forces being applied.

Anyways here's version 2 (transom mount style) that is sort of like a receiver and hitch...



Consists of telescoping aluminum square tubing that is welded to 2 mounting plates. Would likely need to add backing plates inside the bilge area for reinforcement.



The "wake gate plate" gets welded to a smaller telescoping aluminum square tubing.



Holes for securing the two pieces of tubing. I would love to figure a way to use those nice spring loaded push pins so that you simply press in the pin and slide in the smaller tubing until it locks in place. Just like how the Bimini poles retract and go into different positions.



In the end you have two welded assemblies with one that gets permanently mounted to the transom.

I played around with this at the end of last year. My preliminary conclusion was it needed to be much longer and probably would then need two of the suction handles to be secure at double the length. I don't have a pic of it installed but imagine it clamping on to the flat underside of the swim platform. Or hanging from the underside. Because of the moveable suction cups I could try all different angles from extreme flare to even with the side of the boat. Tried both the surf side and opposite seeking the delayed convergence effect. It did have an effect just not nearly enough.

Hey @Rod5

Was that with stock ballast and how was the weight distributed? Interesting using the suction cups underneath. Would you say it helped with push from the wave, height or both? Do you also have the Wake Wedge to clean up the jet wash? Thanks for sharing your gate testing.

Was just using factory bags, evenly weighted, with wife as driver no passengers, no wakewedge, used a large cutting board approx 9 x 12 needs to be 10 x 20 or 24 long, had to adjust speed some too. I'm not sure what it did. It looked like a better wake but I couldn't go Ropeless like it looked like I should have been able to. Sorry don't remember more it was one late afternoon back in October...

Oh lanyard is a must! It only popped off twice in the extreme flare position, all other not so extreme angles were rock solid. Actually very impressed with how much force two suction cups could manage. I used the tie loop as a pivot point for consistent fine adjustments.

Rod5 said:

I played around with this at the end of last year. My preliminary conclusion was it needed to be much longer and probably would then need two of the suction handles to be secure at double the length. I don't have a pic of it installed but imagine it clamping on to the flat underside of the swim platform. Or hanging from the underside. Because of the moveable suction cups I could try all different angles from extreme flare to even with the side of the boat. Tried both the surf side and opposite seeking the delayed convergence effect. It did have an effect just not nearly enough.
View attachment 55984 View attachment 55985 View attachment 55986

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Nice work!
Have you tried to mount this thing under the swim platform (flat underside)? I'm thinking this could be adapted to work quite well holding the "surf flap" in place, something that @COtoFLsurf posted some time ago. Not that his bracket design is bad, I actually copied it and used it very successfully, but those suckers could be a better way to go still.
Other than @bobbie, most yammies rigged for more serious surfing have a wedge (or at least a flap).

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Yep that's exactly how I mounted it under the swimplatform in all the flat space. Allows for lots of different positions and angles. No unfortunately not those angles and positions....

I'll remount it this evening and post some pics.

Rod5 said:

Yep that's exactly how I mounted it under the swimplatform in all the flat space. Allows for lots of different positions and angles. No unfortunately not those angles and positions....

I'll remount it this evening and post some pics.

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Please do, looking forward to it. This must be one of the coolest ghetto-gates I have seen

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