'86 Ski Nautique 2001 Surf Gate

I have searched forums everywhere trying to find a way to "SAFELY" surf a 2001 (Without listing & using any amount of ballast but for me specifically 2010lbs). I couldn't find a thing... So I've started designing a surf gate specific for the 2001. And I'm gonna post all progress here for anyone else trying to do the same!

The First Video is my VERY rudimentary design & initial result.. And man am I impressed!


The Second Video is me surfing the first videos wake (aside from the addition of one extra person in the boat minding the rope & transom radio control.)


This was the ballast setup at the time:


Pretty awesome for a 2001 AND NO LISTING!!!! I hated slamming the boat on one side and praying I wouldn't get swamped by another wake. Now I'm weighted EVENLY and I don’t even have the rub rail under water like I used to! (video 1 shows the rub rail about 6" out of the water)

More to come on this for sure as I Design/Test/Re-Design/Test. I'm pretty excited about this! I feel that it’s totally surfable (for a 2001) and SO safe! (for the amount of weight I'm using) With a little training I'd feel comfortable letting anyone drive. (The first season of surfing was with the same weight towards one side and the boat listed/tilted terribly. I was SO scared of someone swamping the boat that I only got to surf ONCE!! After that I was the designated driver and everyone else got to surf)

UPDATED 8/15/14
Here are some pictures of the VERY rudimentary surf gate. Im currently in the process of fabricating an aluminium gate for both sides. This one is currently clamped to the swim deck.




UPDATED 05/15/15
It's been quite some time since I've updated... or even worked on the gate. Had tons of re-upholstery to do on this Nautique to match the new exterior.


AS FOR THE GATE
I decided to raise the swim platform by 3 inches. Fully weighted it was dragging a bit impeding the wake shape a little. Also viewable in the picture is the aluminum hinge plate for the surf gate. Currently in a test/mach up phase but functioning quite well. Current design plan has two identical hinge plates mounted on each side of the boat. Its a quick attach/detach system with a slide pin adjustment that allows for multiple angles off the hinge to find the best angle for the wake.(can be seen on the left side of the picture)






ABOVE GATE BEING TESTED BELOW



ANOTHER VIEW



This was the ballast set up at the time



Oss!

Thaddeus

That's sweet. I've been toying with a similar idea for awhile for our 2001. We surf with the boat heavily listed now. I'd like to see some pics of your tabs if possible to try to fab some up for my 2001. Sure would be nice to get a surfable wave without the listing.

It's both ballast placement and the surfgate. No need to weight the boat heavier on one side anymore though.. Weight her even(well... like the picture below) and let the surf gate do the rest!



Plan is to make them on both sides so you can switch between port & starboard surfing in seconds and easily removable if need be. Also I'm gonna see what I can do about making it easily applicable to all 2001's incase anyone else wants one.

I just drop some coin to make my boat a serious tubing machine and now tubing is on it's way out? Ouch!

quinner wrote: In order to be a surfer, is a strap on device required??

Only in your case Chris, the rest of us are quite adequate with no need for an extension.

That's pretty sweet. Please post a pic of this bolt on device if you can.

Despite the general negativity towards surfing, it's awesome to see people innovating and designing versions of the NSS and Surfgate because it is making the sport a little more safe. If a small attached board can produce the same wake that 1200lbs+ in a listing boat can, it would be stupid to not support it.

With that said, definitely add some more pics of how you built/attached it!

Geez. It's already low impact and slow. Now safe and (with FAE) quiet. What is next? Napping behind the boat?

While I still don't see why someone would wake surf more than once maybe twice just to do it.. I give you props for engineering and fabricating a low cost alternative to a 100k boat!

On weekends in WI, when the water is too rough to even trick ski, Surfing provides me to ways to satisfy some basic needs.

First it DOES indeed require more skill then you would think to stay in that pocket and experience that "invisible" push.

Second and more importantly, as everyone around us is pulling tubes round and round churning the lake like a bathtub, I make slow passes back and forth down the middle throwing a monster wave. The worse case result is those nimrod tube drivers have to constantly stop and circle back to pick up the tube rider that inevitably fall off when they hit my wake. The best case result is that a lot of the tuber's pack it in and head back to the shore when they take water over the bow, because they don't know how to handle a large wake.

Another added benie is that it allows guests who have no interest in doing any waterskiing, because they remember the muscle ache that they received post tubing (not from my boat) or skiing in the past. I get a lot of people up on the surfboard with big smiles on their face.

So Thaddeus keep on innovating, I am an avid barefooter and slalom skier, but because I like to use my boat weekends and I only have access to public water littered with crazy's, surfing is a good activity for me AND way better then tubing. Anything that makes it easier, more consistent and can reduce the ridiculous amount of ballast I have to load into the boat is a GOOD thing.

Thaddeus, I applaud your effort. Can you provide some more pictures from different angles and some basic dimensions? It looks to me like the surf gate is intended to lengthen one side of the hull, so that wake formation is further aft on that side and the point of convergence of the two wakes is shifted to the gate side--allowing the non-gate wake to grow in size. So then I guess the goals would be to (i) keep the gate fairly close to the aft end of the hull, (ii) align the bottom line of the gate with the aft line of the hull, (iii) extend the gate aft as far as the platform provides solid support, (iv) make the gate tall enough so the top remains above the waterline. Does that sound right? I'd still love to see more pics and your basic layout. It could be that you've got something beneath the platform, as well.

Thanks.

Steve

Since the video: the clamps have been flipped so that the there are no blunt objects sticking up from the deck. I made my gate different from Malibu's design for a couple reasons. One being the gate seems to protrude out the side of the boat... It looks to be creating a lot of drag while making the delayed convergence. I did not want to replicate Malibu's design for fear there may also be a ton of pressure on that gate which of course would be transferred through the actuator to the hull. I also felt like this would most certainly affect my ability to turn the boat. Another reason I chose a different route then Malibu is the possible spray that may occur with a shallow (height) of the gate AND because the weight I put in the boat puts the swim deck underwater. Testing, Re-Designing & re-testing different lengths and heights of the gate are in the future for sure. A lot of testing is still needed. Now of course all of this is speculation because I have never been behind a Malibu with Surf Gates. But to put my thoughts on paper might make it easier to see why I chose the "Design" I did. Now again keep in mind this is just a pictorial. The gates are not to size and angles and lengths may be exaggerated +/-.

I chose to use a longer gate at an angle ALMOST parallel with the hull. I feel by doing this I MAY be getting the delayed convergence affect WITHOUT unnecessary stress to the hull and little to no drag on the gate itself. Essentially I've made one side of my boat longer than the other instead of Malibu's Design where the gate seems to protrude and drag. I feel my design lets the water continue to slide along the hull and release off the end of the gate as if the starboard side of the hull was just longer than the port side.

I have not been able to do as much testing as I'd like because we've been using the prototype gate on almost every outing. We use a very small stretch of the lake to surf to keep from TRASHING the lake for other riders and fisherman. Luckily the lake we're on is dead during the week... which is why we mostly surf on weekdays.

Oss!

Thaddeus

btw, here's a video of the Nautique Surf System (NSS) waveplates.

Also, this 12 page thread is worth a read. I don't think the side forces are an issue for the platform brackets.

We haven't even talked about a DIY wedge yet, to avoid all that ballast. Now that would be a mounting nightmare... and not sure there's enough power.

I just hope my kids don't get that into surfing. I don't mind a detachable surf gate, but I sure don't want to go through all that effort to fab up something that fancy! Looks good, though. I think I enjoy watching them slalom and wakeboard more than surf...

I bought the parts for my prototype last night. Hope to have it ready to try over Labor Day weekend. Busy time with my son in football, though.