Surf ballast setup for 2017 23 LSV?

[bm11]

Hello,

I just bought a new 2017 23 LSV, and am trying surfing for the first time. I have zero experience setting up a boat for surfing, and am a bit lost beyond going to the presets and choosing "surf left."

The boat is set up with 750's in the lockers and I just ordered a 1000 for the bow.

Any input beyond filling everything up and experimenting with speed?

Thanks,

Bob

[Fman]

For starters i would run all your hard tanks full and rear bags 50%.  You can drop the wedge and go 1-3 clicks to shape the wave at 10.8-11mph.  We run this recipe a lot with good results.  At least give this a try to see how it works for you.  We are finding a little less weight still produces a good surf wave with small gains going super heavy.  Crew size can also play a factor.

When you fill 1000 on bow bag I would fill up those 750s completely full.

Edit: The presets for surfing are kind of a joke.  They won't account for filling the bags.  You will have to manually fill rear bags once preset reaches 100% in rear tanks.  When gauge shows 100% only your rear tanks are full not the bags.

Edited August 31, 2017 by Fman

[bbattiste247]

I have tried a lot of weight in the rear and the bow and it works great, but uses a lot of gas and is hard on the engine. We have been filling the rear bags about half to 2/3 full with no extra bow weight and we get a very comparable wave to one with everything full and extra weight up front.  I usually surf at 10.8mph with wedge at three clicks from stow. My wave is big, but not real long. We are going to try rear bags at half with about 500lbs in the bow to see if we can get a longer wave.

[bm11]

3 minutes ago, Fman said:

Edit: The presets for surfing are kind of a joke.  They won't account for filling the bags.  You will have to manually fill rear bags once preset reaches 100% in rear tanks.  When gauge shows 100% only your rear tanks are full not the bags.

Yep, I did know that much at least! Haven't figured out the wedge operation though, but I'm sure I can look it up. What wedge setting does the stock surf setup use?

[malibuskier2003]

After getting the bags filled the way I want them (Wakemaker customs in the back 80% full & 650 triangle in the bow maxed out), we use the defaults for speed (10.6 mph) and wedge.  It works pretty well.  

 

Dave

 

[Fman]

11 hours ago, bm11 said:

Yep, I did know that much at least! Haven't figured out the wedge operation though, but I'm sure I can look it up. What wedge setting does the stock surf setup use?

Wedge setting I am referring to is 1 being least aggressive to 3 being more aggressive.  On your touch dash you will see a round display with different bars to bring the wedge up higher and higher which creates more drag on the transom.  Personally I find anything over 3 is very aggressive and puts a lot of strain on the engine.  We usually don't go past 3 (3rd bar).