Finally! Surfgate on my Enzo SV230

[tuneman 6]

I know several of you, including myself, have been dying to see what a Surfgate will do on an Enzo. So, I finally got a test gate on tonight for regular footers. Testing tomorrow.

 

9.5" high, 20" long, 20 degrees. Held on with a tie down strap so I can take it off easily or adjust the angle. Sorry for the lousy phone pics. I used the plastic that hid the old port side tank for the gate.

 

 

 

[superdtf 68]

I'm so excited to see this in action. Nice work on the contour matching.

[DarksideR 1,679]

Yeah! Great job!

So how are you gonna weight the boat?

[PayCheck 20]

That looks so similar to an actual surf gate! If I remember correctly, I dont think your supposed to put any weight it. The boat should ride directly even. I imagine a little center ballast would put the boat a bit lower in the water though

[tuneman 6]

I have 1100lb bags in both rears, 650lb bag port side and stock 250lb? tank starboard side. My plan is to take video of:

 

- Port side bags full, no gate

- Port side bags full, with gate

- Port side bags full, starboard 250 full, with gate

- All ballast, with gate

 

Let me know if I should do any different configurations than these. I do have two 260lb bags in the bow that I could fill as well.

[PayCheck 20]

no ballast, just gate

[superdtf 68]

I say slam it. Slam it evenly if you want, but the more water your hull displaces, the greater the rebound, thus the larger the wake. And size matters.

[boardjnky4 8]

Weight it evenly! That's the whole point of the surfgate

[LakeSurfer 10]

That looks so similar to an actual surf gate! If I remember correctly, I dont think your supposed to put any weight it. The boat should ride directly even. I imagine a little center ballast would put the boat a bit lower in the water though

 

You need weight. The idea is to weigh it like you would your wakeboard wake (ie evenly on both sides). If you want a bigger wave, then add more weight, but evenly.

[tuneman 6]

Ok, I'll do no weight and completely slammed too.

[DrNate 426]

I can't wait to see the results of this one

[PayCheck 20]

that may be why the bu at a demo had such a bad wave, they were runnin no ballast. i was just under the impression there was no need for the weight

[RhuntIII 555]

I say slam it. Slam it evenly if you want, but the more water your hull displaces, the greater the rebound, thus the larger the wake. And size matters.

I'm with super on this one.

[DarksideR 1,679]

Yeah, from what I recall, it's supposed to have even weight like super and lake said. Weight it like you would to wakeboard... or heavier, just evenly. The whole point of it is to be able to switch sides quickly for different footed riders and not have the lag time of switching sides. I honestly don't think it will make the wave any better, just possibly need less weight to get you there. Which is great as well!

[volzalum 280]

My question is if you weight it evenly, all the wy to where the gate is just underwater at surf speed, what is the difference in wave when you sink in 12 inches or so underwater with really slammed weight. I.e., does sinking the gate deeper help or hurt the wake.

[DarksideR 1,679]

The gate just forces the boat to lean, or lean more!

Or at least that's my understanding.

[volzalum 280]

No, the gate does not cause any lean. It extends the hull on the opposite side of the surf side which moves the center of the wake and cleans up the surf side. That's why the gate used is on opposite of the boat. The boat using equal balance does not lean at all.

[tuneman 6]

Well, I can sum it up in a word....sick! The gate works, period. I have a bit of video, but not what I wanted (link below). I'll get more soon. My party bailed so I was stuck alone for a bit. I did get some friends so that I could surf it, but didn't get video of that yet.

 

In the video,it's just me in the boat. So the angle isn't very good, sorry. The first part is no ballast and the second is full ballast (1000lb each locker, 650 port side, 250 starboard side, 400lb in the bow, ~3300lbs total). Going 11mph (gps). There was significantly less wash at the top, similar to a wakeplate fin idea. The wash was just pushed further over to the dark side. The whole wave is more rampy and less steep, but much wider for lots of room to play. No loss in height, just rampier. The push felt the same but the pocket was increased to double. Yes, double. I could fall back on my skim as far as I used to go back on my surf. I could go back what seemed like about 20 feet on the surf and still get pushed. The only downside I noticed was the slight kink in the middle of the wave caused by the corner of the boat. I think some ballast tweaking could get rid of that. 10.5mph felt best to me.

 

It was crazy awesome to not have the boat lean so much.

 

Bottom line is that if you're serious about wakesurfing, you should put on surfgates. More to come...

 

[Shaka 146]

Dude......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DarksideR 1,679]

NICE! Love the length and the absence of wash, not so much love for mellowing out the wave though. Nice work.