AutoWake questions

[goose]

Okay Matt (and anyone else that wants to chime in):

So we’ve now had the boat for about 40 hrs. and I’ve had a chance to play around w/ Autowake and manually for surfing, and I have a few questions:

1. I surf goofy on starboard side and it says my factory defaults are 80 for port surf plate w/ a goal of 5 degrees roll. Does that sound correct? If so, why is there such a difference from regular where the surf plate is set at 65 and roll is -3 degrees? I’ve actually had more success w/ the surf plate closer to 65 on the goofy side.

2. Matt, your tutelage has allowed me to really get the hang of dialing in wakes for others. But when I get behind the boat, others are having trouble getting a good wave for me! I’m really struggling to drop the rope at 6’5” and 260 lbs. Even w/ autowake, the pocket is tiny and I only feel like I get any decent push RIGHT behind the boat! I’m riding a 5’ Doomswell Neo and we normally have about 500 lbs. of person weight beyond full or nearly full ballast. Is there just not enough displacement w/o me in the boat? I seem to do a bit better w/ speed above our typical 10.7 mph cruising speed (11.3). Would going faster help? Any other tips?

Ok, I will try to answer your questions, but I will do it with another "long winded" explanation. haha

Most people understand that by moving the plate down (higher #) that it will help "roll" the boat. However, what most people don't understand is that when you move the plate down you also create lift. And lift is basically the opposite of what displacement is trying to do.

So, what you really need to do is experiment with how much roll relative to how much lift you want to create when you use the plate. Here is what I recommend....

Start with your current best setup. In this case you are talking about having the port plate set at 80%. Let AutoWake do its thing and see how the wake looks and feels. Then go into manual mode and on the controls page slowly move the port plate all the way down to 100% by moving it 5% at a time. Then, move the plate all the way to 0%, again 5% at a time. As you do that you can physically watch the shape of the wave change. If you turn on AutoWake, you would also see both the roll AND pitch change as you did that (you can't adjust plates with AW on, so you would have to turn on each time). As you do that what you will find is there will be a range of where the wave looks best. It is likely the wave will be completely washed out from 0-35%. Then around 40% it will start to clean up and then about 85%, it will start to lose any lip to the wave. Now you will see based on your current ballast setup, what the range of plate you can be. Truth is you will get the most push on the low side of that range and the most length on the high side of that range.

As an fyi, your factory default should be 70% on port plate, NOT 80%. For your size and your desire for push, I would first recommend adding MORE displacement. Remember, NO replacement for Displacement. Then, I would recommend you move the plates as low as they can to give you max push. I have obviously not ridden your exact board, but I would think a larger board might also help if you want more push. I have ridden some Doomswell boards and they seem to have a lot of buoyancy, but without knowing your ability to pump the wave, I can't really say if that is the right board or not.

I have said this before, but I do NOT recommend you move your plates too much. We have found that 60% on stbd plate works MOST of the time for most people and 70% on the port plate works MOST of the time for most people. And as I said, moving the plates changes both roll and pitch. So, while you can fine tune with the plates, any movement of the plate will need to be taken into consideration with ballast locations and amounts. Less plate and you might need to put MORE weight on the surf side and less weight in the front. But the same is also true about displacement. As you add more displacement, then you can move that displacement and that does about the same thing as moving the plate. Do you see how this gets confusing??? Here is my general recommendation....first, ALWAYS add more weight. If you want to surf, then you really need to have at LEAST 70% of your full capacity in the boat. 80% or 90% capacity and the wave gets really nice. And truth is that applies to all boats and all brands. It is just basics of lift vs displacement. Second, if you just do NOT have displacement, then slowly raise the flow plates. This will allow you to get max displacement with less lift. If I only have a few people in my boat, then I might fine tune plates, but I typically also run enough ballast to never have to mess with that.

Ok, good luck. Hope that helps.