Surf setup 2015 242LS

[swatski]

@COtoFLsurf thanks again for sharing your experience, much appreciated. I think I may trim my flap some more as it is at 16" at the high point right now. Will report back on the performance of the strait vs 30deg angle brace. Once I can get in the water here...

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[haknslash]

See I called this whole rubber mat thing long ago lol https://jetboaters.net/threads/asp-aerial-surf-platform-like-device-for-yamaha.12015/#post-206814

But seriously that is impressive results for such a simple solution Major Kudos! I want to do something similar not for jet wash control but rather wake shaping.

 

[haknslash]

On another note, I experimented with surfgate-style delayed convergence, and it did not work at all. Totally expected some benefit, but nada. The principle behind delayed convergence is to add drag to one side of the boat, which makes it "yaw" and ride at a slight angle, allowing the opposite side wake to build-up higher before converging with the "delayed" wake. Not sure if it is the 242's hull design, dual jets, or combination of both, but I simply could not get this to work. Maybe brighter minds will prevail, but I simply scratched this one off the list.

Did you try it off the back of the boat? What I've noticed with our boats is there is very little hull on the side in the water, so mounting a Ronix or other wake shapers to the side isn't going to do much I think. I want to experiment with making a wake shaper that sits low and deep underneath the swim platform. I am thinking of mounting a bar across like your flap was done but adding in a braced suck gate that will sit low enough to hopefully delay the wake. What did you experiment with on your surf gate idea?

You can see from the pic below even though I'm not weighted down with ballast in the image that the non-listed side would be way out of the water and there isn't enough hull for a wake shaper mounted on the side. But I think if we came up with one that is below the black gelcoat portion on my boat and was angled to play off the boat shape in the rear it could maybe work. At least that's my hope and plan to try.

 

[swatski]

Did you try it off the back of the boat? What I've noticed with our boats is there is very little hull on the side in the water, so mounting a Ronix or other wake shapers to the side isn't going to do much I think. I want to experiment with making a wake shaper that sits low and deep underneath the swim platform. I am thinking of mounting a bar across like your flap was done but adding in a braced suck gate that will sit low enough to hopefully delay the wake. What did you experiment with on your surf gate idea?

You can see from the pic below even though I'm not weighted down with ballast in the image that the non-listed side would be way out of the water and there isn't enough hull for a wake shaper mounted on the side. But I think if we came up with one that is below the black gelcoat portion on my boat and was angled to play off the boat shape in the rear it could maybe work. At least that's my hope and plan to try.

I think you are right, and that is the idea behind the beast, or the new iteration of it (to be tested still), the mini-beast

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[haknslash]

Excuse the crude rough photoshop below but you get the idea I'm thinking of . The yellow brace you could also drill holes so that you could angle and fine tune the wake shaper.

The Wake Spear...err... The Wake Shovel....or something

 

[Minh Nguyen]

Ive side tracked and decided to go the wedge route intead of the flap. The first one was good until the board cracked. So now i have a revised version that's 3/4" thick vs the previous 1/2". I have 1900lbs of ballast. 800 swim deck, 540 port seat, and 540 rear floor.

 

[swatski]

Ive side tracked and decided to go the wedge route intead of the flap. The first one was good until the board cracked. So now i have a revised version that's 3/4" thick vs the previous 1/2". I have 1900lbs of ballast. 800 swim deck, 540 port seat, and 540 rear floor.

Nice looking wave! And not a whole lotta ballast, which is great news. I'm a little disappointed we will not get to see your creative flap cut-out shapes at work, lol. I'm sure @Scuba_ref is going to be bummed, too.

My current plan is to first install and customize my maximum capacity ballast system. At that point, I will need to see how much ballast I can comfortably use with my power train and see if I need to make any adjustments. It will be automated for easy adjustments (and so on), after that I will focus on developing and testing various surf tab attachments. I plan on using one of the flap versions above during all that testing.

After that, there is a good chance I will be purchasing the Wake Wedge, w/automation. My guess is, it is still going to be the best thing out there for what it does.

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[Minh Nguyen]

@swatski i love seeing your experiments and how this thread is ever evolving. I hope your ballast set up works out. Not having bags all over the boat is a good thing, and its something that i might tackle down the road.

 

[Scuba_ref]

@swatski consider me officially bummed!

 

[Scuba_ref]

So I have been toying with an idea and so I put out the big money to attempt it. Just looking for a cheap and easy way to deflect the wash. I call it the surf bumper!

 

[Mainah]

So I have been toying with an idea and so I put out the big money to attempt it. Just looking for a cheap and easy way to deflect the wash. I call it the surf bumper!

View attachment 57448

Following.

 

[swatski]

I'm following as well! But, not having high hopes.

What my own experience is teaching me - we are all going to end up buying the Wake Wedge, or pay those boys some royalties, lol.

I've been having my a$$ absolutely kicked with failure after failure testing various surf-modified trim tabs (I showed pics of the "beast" somewhere, that was the best I got - but not good enough). I'm coming to believe that it is going to be exceedingly difficult to design a delayed convergence tool that works with Yamaha hull.

My own @COtoFLsurf-style flap experimentation brought me back to the original OP design - fairly short, strait cut, and hanging strait down, working best. The only issue I have with it is that I don't like cruising with it on. Especially when my friends get the wheel... I find it very hard to explain why they need to slow the f@ck down. That thing hanging back there is okay at 25mph but not at 45... And then - when I take it off - it is very hard to store.

So, my continued flap-mod process has been steering me towards changing the bracket - to change the angle - so that the flap is out of the water when up on plane and going. But once you do that - you want the flap to be more rigid... See where I'm going with that? lol.

Here is one of my more recent prototypes - ready for the test pad - in theory I can design it to slide along yada yada. But the bottom line is this: if it works better than the rubber flap. which it likely is, I'm going a full circle here towards the wake wedge. In biology, this is called convergent evolution, btw.

(well, at least I can say: "I have tried!" "Now, here is my money, give me that Wake Wedge")




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[Minh Nguyen]

I made a diy version that allows full use of the ladder and you can go full speed with it on. No turn buckles involved. Anyone interested txt me. Parts totalled under $100. Great project for surfing. 8176581189.

 

[Scuba_ref]

@swatski all I'm trying to do is knock down the jetwash. That fender is 8.5" in diameter which means it covers the top quarter to third of the jet nozzle.

I tried attaching it with rope but that was too loose and stretchy, but it still looked like it had an affect on the wake. Now I've attached it with hardware.

Hoping to get out in the next couple days to see how it looks.

 

[COtoFLsurf]

@haknslash, have you done anything with your wake shovel concept? FWIW, I built something almost identical to that in my initial testing and it did not work for me. I mounted a 2x8 under my swim platform that u-bolted to the tie-down eyes, and used this as a platform for all kinds of testing including several attempts at delayed convergence, a couple wake wedges, directional veins, etc. For delayed convergence I tried different angles, different sizes of fin, different fore/aft locations, and running both level and listed ballast configurations, and was really disappointed to find that nothing worked. In fact, the wake on the fin side was usually better than the intended surf side, which brings us right back to the wake wedge concept. May be hull design, may be the inherent "yaw" stability of twin engines, but delayed convergence never worked for me on my 242LS.

Couple pics from the weekend. Was windy and choppy but decent wave in less-than-ideal conditions, and most importantly big smiles all around.

 

[geohil]

Thanks to @COtoFLsurf for the help - I went with his surf flap design. I agree that it is bulky and cumbersome so @COtoFLsurf do you think using piano hinges on the mat down the center, then cutting the middle of the aluminum c-channel and adding a locking mechanism (like square tube) to allow the whole unit to fold in half would hamper performance? If we could fold them in half it would allow for storage in the engine compartment or center locker.

 

[COtoFLsurf]

@geohil, interesting, yes I think that could work. For my cross-member I used 3/4" aluminum tubing with 1/8" wall thickness, so would be a simple task to just cut the entire thing in half and use a solid 1/2" square bar to reconnect them, maybe some small screws as stops so the 1/2" bar does not slide down the tubing. If you used channel, then I would first try using another piece of larger channel to tie the two halves together with bolts or pins; aluminum shapes come in precise dimensions so next larger channel would like fit snugly over your existing channel. The cross-member definitely bends when surfing, and the rubber flap itself contributes a bunch to the overall rigidity, so your piano hinge idea should maintain the overall effectiveness. BTW, when I remove the flap it is just a long flat piece of rubber with metal tube at the top, fits very nicely and very easily in my ski locker right along with our surfboards (takes up very little space in there), the 21X probably has a smaller ski locker but seems it should not be an issue fitting in there once your ballast is drained.

 

[geohil]

@COtoFLsurf I just picked up the u-channel of aluminum I'll use last night - If it fits in the ski locker when the bag is drained then I won't bother making the cut. I may still play with the ability to vary the angle manually. I'm thinking the 30 degree may still have use for slalom skiing since that takes speeds of 32-36mph (and I dislike the jet wash as I cut). Great concept and it is kind of fun to experiment anyway.

 

[swatski]

@geohil and @COtoFLsurf Could the flap also be modified to use a sliding shorter flap, 36" or so, one side at the time? Say, mounted on a square tube that slides over a (smaller) square rod - between reg and goofy side - with just a locking pin.

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[geohil]

@swatski I was looking at the same thing but since the mat is cut tapered to shape the wake you would need to physically remove it and flip it horizontally. I'm not sure how a flat square would behave. I have lots of mat left so if I have time this weekend I'll cut a chunk and test it out.