Hydrophase Ridesteady GPS Speed Control JETBOATERS.NET Member Discount, Feb 2020

[anmut]

No software updates I'm afraid. It has been crazy with COVID this year just trying to keep enough inventory, so that's been the primary focus.

Do you find manually offsetting the jet thrust makes a big difference in the surfable wave?

It does, next summer I'm going to play with it more to find a good sweet spot. My issue is that I love that RS sync's the engines, which is awesome for everything but messing with the twin throttles and surfing. The menu option for that is deep and a PITA to switch on and off between surfing and cruising.

It would be cool if you had a "surf side: port/stbd/off" option on the main screen and a deeper "surf side reduction RPM" in a deeper screen. So you could set the reduction you wanted and then change your surf side on the fly and easily go back to sync'd motors after the session.

BTW, Ridesteady was THE BEST mod I did on my boat last year, hands down. Turns a decent water sports boat into an actual water sports boat. Also, since I like to surf and my wife has to drive, possibly saved our marriage.

 

[swatski]

It does, next summer I'm going to play with it more to find a good sweet spot. My issue is that I love that RS sync's the engines, which is awesome for everything but messing with the twin throttles and surfing. The menu option for that is deep and a PITA to switch on and off between surfing and cruising.

It would be cool if you had a "surf side: port/stbd/off" option on the main screen and a deeper "surf side reduction RPM" in a deeper screen. So you could set the reduction you wanted and then change your surf side on the fly and easily go back to sync'd motors after the session.

BTW, Ridesteady was THE BEST mod I did on my boat last year, hands down. Turns a decent water sports boat into an actual water sports boat. Also, since I like to surf and my wife has to drive, possibly saved our marriage.

Not to pollute this thread with surfing nuances, if this offset trick had been discussed somewhere else would you mind pointing it out. I've never been able to convince myself the throttle differential helps build my wake surfing wave (manually adjusted with the RS auto synch off) but was out of it this year and maybe something new came up? It could also be a 212 thing, possibly.

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[anmut]

Not to pollute this thread with surfing nuances, if this offset trick had been discussed somewhere else would you mind pointing it out. I've never been able to convince myself the throttle differential helps build my wake surfing wave (manually adjusted with the RS auto synch off) but was out of it this year and maybe something new came up? It could also be a 212 thing, possibly.

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Geeze, put me right on the spot! It's not my idea for sure, but I found it mentioned either here or on one of the Yamaha FB groups. Like I said, I messed around with it this past summer - I even contacted RS a few months ago to ask them to include this feature. The reduction in throttle on the one engine makes the driver have to counter steer which turns the jets out of the pocket - I noticed a cleaner wave for sure, however because of how much of a PITA it was to test, I didn't mess around with it more than once or twice. I'd rather surf than science.

 

[swatski]

Geeze, put me right on the spot! It's not my idea for sure, but I found it mentioned either here or on one of the Yamaha FB groups. Like I said, I messed around with it this past summer - I even contacted RS a few months ago to ask them to include this feature. The reduction in throttle on the one engine makes the driver have to counter steer which turns the jets out of the pocket - I noticed a cleaner wave for sure, however because of how much of a PITA it was to test, I didn't mess around with it more than once or twice. I'd rather surf than science.

LOL, I'm just very interested. Forgive me if I'm being too direct.
I was unable to surf and experiment this season and it's been killing me!
In general, I'd spent countless hours trying to improve the surf wave behind our (240 in my case) jet boats; this differential throttle business should be easy enough to test, one would think, by manually controlling the binnacles with the RS auto-sync off. In the past when playing with this I could not get consistent results, IIRC, a part of the problem is the non-surf side pump is up and tends to cavitate if pushed too hard so it is difficult to actually achieve the effect you are talking about - which would be most desirable!

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[anmut]

LOL, I'm just very interested. Forgive me if I'm being too direct.
I was unable to surf and experiment this season and it's been killing me!
In general, I'd spent countless hours trying to improve the surf wave behind our (240 in my case) jet boats; this differential throttle business should be easy enough to test, one would think, by manually controlling the binnacles with the RS auto-sync off. In the past when playing with this I could not get consistent results, IIRC, a part of the problem is the non-surf side pump is up and tends to cavitate if pushed too hard so it is difficult to actually achieve the effect you are talking about - which would be most desirable!

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How much weight were you loaded down with and what was your speed? I'm putting 2000lbs worth of bags in my 21' boat and running 10-11.5mph depending on water depth, never experience cavitation (that I'm aware of) when trying this. Boat easily started to steer towards the surf side.

 

[swatski]

How much weight were you loaded down with and what was your speed? I'm putting 2000lbs worth of bags in my 21' boat and running 10-11.5mph depending on water depth, never experience cavitation (that I'm aware of) when trying this. Boat easily started to steer towards the surf side.

In general, I don't have any cavitation. I have both of my OEM/factory 6AP10 impellers swapped with the OEM 6CWs (from single 1.8) which have monster low end and no cavitation, plus my pumps are sealed with epoxy and ported anyway.

But, the thing is - if you want to push different RPM on twins to the point it makes impact on the wave, while fully ballasted, the non-surf side is going to cavitate and slip, no question about it. If that's not the case, I would like to see it. I tried very hard and could not see any benefit from running different RPM, lower on the surf side. Yes, it does make sense, in theory, but in practice I have not seen it.

As far as ballast, our best setup is with the Custom Gatlin Transom 800 lbs bag on the surf side, filled to the max, center locker ~800lbs filled to the max, and we may or may not fill the rear storage bags (~600lbs per side) depending on other load in the boat. Typically, the corner of the swim platform will be submerged on the surf side by about 2-3".

I run about about 6,500 RPM at 10.2-11.0 mph with RideSteady.

I have not seen a larger wave behind any Yamaha, and certainly nothing much larger, as compared to mine. We usually surf only regular side.
Kate is 5'8" for scale:

YMMV

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[anmut]

In general, I don't have any cavitation. I have both of my OEM/factory 6AP10 impellers swapped with the OEM 6CWs (from single 1.8) which have monster low end and no cavitation, plus my pumps are sealed with epoxy and ported anyway.

But, the thing is - if you want to push different RPM on twins to the point it makes impact on the wave, while fully ballasted, the non-surf side is going to cavitate and slip, no question about it. If that's not the case, I would like to see it. I tried very hard and could not see any benefit from running different RPM, lower on the surf side. Yes, it does make sense, in theory, but in practice I have not seen it.

As far as ballast, our best setup is with the Custom Gatlin Transom 800 lbs bag on the surf side, filled to the max, center locker ~800lbs filled to the max, and we may or may not fill the rear storage bags (~600lbs per side) depending on other load in the boat. Typically, the corner of the swim platform will be submerged on the surf side by about 2-3".

I run about about 6,500 RPM at 10.2-11.0 mph with RideSteady.

I have not seen a larger wave behind any Yamaha, and certainly nothing much larger, as compared to mine. We usually surf only regular side.
Kate is 5'8" for scale:
View attachment 137377

YMMV

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She's 5'8 as well. This wave was in not as deep of water as it could be, only 10'. 500lbs on the floor, 750 locker, 750 platform, three adults in the boat. Not messing around with the thrusters in this shot. I think this shows the difference between a 212 and 242 wave fairly well.

 

[dels]

@Ridesteady, do you plan on running another group buy this year? Also can other users confirm it is holding up good for saltwater use? Our boat should arrive sometimes in the next few weeks and this is definitely one of the first mods I want to add!

 

[suke]

@Ridesteady, do you plan on running another group buy this year? Also can other users confirm it is holding up good for saltwater use? Our boat should arrive sometimes in the next few weeks and this is definitely one of the first mods I want to add!

I'll be in for one this year on my 2020 212x. Didn't have it for the group buy last year, thought the RPM hold would be ok, but it's quite useless for things like tubing.

 

[Ridesteady]

@Ridesteady, do you plan on running another group buy this year? Also can other users confirm it is holding up good for saltwater use? Our boat should arrive sometimes in the next few weeks and this is definitely one of the first mods I want to add!

Thanks for the inquiry, @dels. We don't know of any salt air failures so far. We do what we can to minimize the impact - conformal coated circuit boards, sealed connectors on the engine side, gold plated connector contacts, etc. The key is to keep the circuit boards from being in contact with water (in particular the throttle nodes). Fortunately, where you mount the throttle nodes is pretty far away from the bilge. The times that throttle nodes have had to be replaced from water damage is typically when it rains and the engine cover was left open for some reason. Yes, it would be great if we could seal the throttle nodes but that would add a lot of cost and complexity, and generally water intrusion isn't an issue.

Thanks much for your interest - yes, we will be running another group buy, probably in late Jan or late Feb.

 

[Ridesteady]

I'll be in for one this year on my 2020 212x. Didn't have it for the group buy last year, thought the RPM hold would be ok, but it's quite useless for things like tubing.

Ridesteady has true closed-loop GPS speed control. Which means you can add as much weight in ballast, people, gas, beer, etc. and as long as you have enough engine power to maintain the set speed, Ridesteady should converge on it (in other words, you won't see an "offset" develop when you add more weight that you need to account for by changing the set speed higher than the speed you want to go).

 

[dels]

Thanks for the inquiry, @dels. We don't know of any salt air failures so far. We do what we can to minimize the impact - conformal coated circuit boards, sealed connectors on the engine side, gold plated connector contacts, etc. The key is to keep the circuit boards from being in contact with water (in particular the throttle nodes). Fortunately, where you mount the throttle nodes is pretty far away from the bilge. The times that throttle nodes have had to be replaced from water damage is typically when it rains and the engine cover was left open for some reason. Yes, it would be great if we could seal the throttle nodes but that would add a lot of cost and complexity, and generally water intrusion isn't an issue.

Thanks much for your interest - yes, we will be running another group buy, probably in late Jan or late Feb.

Awesome, perfect timing then! Please tag me when you do

 

[white2kstang]

Still one if the best additions to our 195 so far.

 

[Ridesteady]

@dels (and anyone else) 2021's member discount has started here: https://jetboaters.net/threads/hydr...etboaters-net-member-discount-jan-2021.31139/