Surfing in Coves: Is it necessary?

boating on a river, I try to stay away from guys that are fishing if they were there first as it's just common courtesy, but when surfing, you are typically the slowest moving boat of the bunch. if you see a boarder making an effort to stay away from the surf rollers, then do what you can to stay within a path that keeps you out of their way.

it's all courtesy, but at the end of the day, I pay the same launch fees and taxes as the other guys and feel I have the same right to the same water they do.

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Originally Posted by wolfeman131

I take a different stance. Unless it's your lake (i.e. you own it) then no one has any more right to the glass than the other guy.

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Originally Posted by mnpracing

I enjoy pristine water while surfing. Can it be done in less that ideal conditions....sure. But so can wakeboarding, skiing, tubing, etc. Everyone wants clean water (except maybe tubers, or foilers).

I don't mind sharing with other boaters, but I do have an opinion on how to best share the calm water. If drivers follow a set pattern (straight lines, drop your rider, turn around without powerturning, and go back down the same line) it minimizes the number of waves to contend with.

My point is, we all could have had the best water possible (given the scenario of 3 boats running at the same time), by running parallel to each other. That way, we'd only have to hit each other's wave once per run, and the wakeboarder would have to hit the least amount of waves (due to speed as you note above). Perpendicular (or semi-perpendicular) can work too depending on the shape of the lake. We tried to adjust a couple of times, but no way to maximize the clean water when the others are driving circles.

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Originally Posted by sandm

boating on a river, I try to stay away from guys that are fishing if they were there first as it's just common courtesy, but when surfing, you are typically the slowest moving boat of the bunch. if you see a boarder making an effort to stay away from the surf rollers, then do what you can to stay within a path that keeps you out of their way.

it's all courtesy, but at the end of the day, I pay the same launch fees and taxes as the other guys and feel I have the same right to the same water they do.

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At the end of the day, everyone has the same right to use the waterways. It helps if you educate yourself and I would even go as far as trying to politely educate others on proper driving techniques. I personally wakeboard 99% of the time, but surfers don't bother me if they run a line. Tubers, and jetskiers crisscrossing the coves bother me. The whole reason they are doing this is to create waves. Go to the middle of the lake and you will have choppy water. DUH, it shouldn't be rocket science. Other wakeboarders, skiers, and surfers irritate me with circles and powerturns. Just slow off the throttle and turn slowly. Everyone wins. Last note, as someone mentioned above surfers go so slow I usually just cruise past them and only hit there wake once, problem solved. Try to be courteous and share, everyone has the same right to the flat water.

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Originally Posted by wolfeman131

I take a different stance. Unless it's your lake (i.e. you own it) then no one has any more right to the glass than the other guy.

Do you think the slalom skier likes to deal with a wakeboard wake? How about the guys in the 10 ft Jon boat that are looking knock back a few Budweisers and hook a bass or two to mount on the wall?

I'm pulling a pro wakesurfer. She likes the glass and I'll ruin it all day long for some wanna-be-wakeboarding-hero so can get her practice runs in.

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Come on i just bought these new hyperlite system bindings and I know if the damn surfers weren't ruining the glass I would be landing my backrolls and 900's.

I like smooth water for surfing. I stay away from docks so my rollers don't cause any damage. I paid a lot for my boat and will use it how I want to. I do share the clean water; if someone is boarding when we pull up I will let them get their set in. If it is multiple boats then we are boarding. I do pull in a straight line and follow the same line back and forth. I power down when my rider falls and idle back. Here on lanier the tubers find the smoothest water to tear up.

As a lakeshore owner - not a big fan of of large wake generating boats. I can't tie my boat to the dock - it must be on the lift. And fortunately I have my shore rip-rapped with with rock. Have friends that surf and board.

As a slalom skier - pretty much am anti-everyone on the lake when we are skiing.

The real issue that we have is what someone stated earlier up - they were surfing and had been out for 4 hours. It would seem that surfers, boarders, tubers and jet skiiers never get tired. When we go out into the slalom course with four of us - we are normally done in under an 60-90 minutes - with a lot of down-time between passes and sets. Unfortunately even after the big wake boats stop as a courtesy to allow us to go - we have to wait for the backwash to settle out - so it looks like we are not going to go - so they get back up again.

For surfing and boarding, chop or rollers may not be as much fun. For slalom skiers it is actually pretty dangerous. The probability of injury in a roller laden course is very high. The only solutions for slalom skier is to find a private lake or a remote lake that is not busy early morning or late evening. Skiing during the day is pretty much impossible on most public lakes around here.

Having said all that - we are dealing with public lakes and lots of investment in boats. People are going to use them. We just have to be strategic. Lots of stories about people intentionally screwing up water in the slalom course - but that is a different thread.

As has been stated above, yes, even surfing will benefit from smoother water, and you can be damned sure that the rougher the water, the harder it is to surf.

I slalom ski, wakeboard and surf. And if the water is smooth, I'll do them in that order and typically so will the people on my boat. Slalom skiing is the most easily ruined by rough water, so if it's really nice, you bet you ass that the ski is coming out. Also, Slalom is run with no ballast, so it makes sense to ski first before you fill up anything. Wakeboarding doesn't use as much ballast as surfing, so again, it's logical after we ski to then fill up the wakeboard ballast before we finally fill up the last bit for surfing.

Now, on the other hand, there were a couple days this week where I turned on the pumps and moderately filled some ballast for my wife and my 9 year old to work on learning how to get up surfing. For them, having smooth water meant that they weren't getting pushed around and the boat wasn't getting pushed around as we set up for them to have a perfect easy pull. For my wife/son, if the water's rough it's going to make it a LOT more difficult to get oriented correctly to get out of the water. For me, it doesn't really matter--if the boat's moving I can get up regardless of where I start out behind or beside the boat. So smoother water means that they can really focus on getting up.

As far as rollers, yeah of course the surf boats are going to get the tarnished image. However, we boat on the Columbia and Willamette rivers and the 30 - 40 foot cabin cruisers that go down the river at about 7 - 12mph put out WAY bigger rollers than any surf boat I've encountered. I've have more than a few times where I had to cross rollers so big from a 40' cabin cruiser that I simply can't stay behind the boat and I eat it. They are doing more to disrupt things and hurt shorelines than surf boats could ever do. Likewise we have plenty of tugboat and barge traffic in our rivers and they put out crazy rollers that seem to come out of nowhere because they're so far away before they reach you!!


I completely agree that most people don't put any thought into what they're doing and how it'll impact others. Just like the left lane parkers on the freeway. 95% of the people out there are ignorant and oblivious to anyone else. like the 40' cabin cruiser that waves at me as they come at me and pass me when I'm surfing--and I sometimes have to fight the urge to wave back with one finger because I know that even as comfortable as I am on a surfboard that I have a 50/50 chance of their roller engulfing my board and ending my ride.

It sounds like most of us here actually pay attention to the world around us and how it affects us. For example, I know that by simply coming off the throttle gently and turning sideway just after the rider falls, that I'll only really have 2 rollers that need to pass before I can idle to my rider who is still reasonably close. And I realized long ago that doing a power turn to "get back quickly" to my rider actually makes it WORSE for the rider when they go again as they're now eating our own rollers.


That said, if the water is smooth, and I've already skied, and wakeboarded, I do feel a tinge of guilt if I start filling the ballast for surfing. But the bottom line is that I simply don't have the endurance to ski or wakeboard for anywhere close to the duration that I "can" surf. (sure, I CAN tire myself out about as quick by surfing aggressively and cutting and slashing hard constantly--but with surfing, it's SOOOOO easy to just lock the rear leg and ride with pretty much no effort while listening to music and taking a break, that surf rides can last forever. Whereas even when taking a "break" on the wakeboard, your arms are still getting worn out just by going straight and doing 'nothing'.)

Bottom line: surfers like anyone else aside from maybe foilers can benefit from smooth water, but don't "need" it as much as wakeboarders or skiers.

I can echo many other on this thread, everyone else on the lake... no matter what they're doing... are making waves that make everything less enjoyable for us. My local lake, that we only hit on weeknights, is super small with a little island in the middle. The lake etiquette is to go around the island in a counter clockwise pattern... this can lead to a build up of waves pretty quickly. Still though, on the larger lakes we hit on the weekends, we still find people making a mess of things. Go fast boats screaming by at 60+ mph unnecessarily close, tubers in the calm water weaving all around, jet skiers thrashing around. etc. It's usually not the skiers or board sport people causing the majority of the wake on my lakes. I did get a good laugh at a jet skier this past weekend... we were rolling about 20 mph and he starts to jump our wake, ballast was still about 50% full from surfing... I told the wife when I saw him coming "put the wakeplate up, give this guy a ride," he cleared the wake in one of the larger jet skies then wiped out on his second jump (he was fine).

I think the main point is, we all have invested in boats an equipment... we'd all love to have the lake all to ourselves to do whatever we wanted.