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Gas Mileage While Surfing?


68Slalom

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Just wondering if anyone has an average of gas consumption while surfing, is it more than your typical 5-6 gallons per hour?

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I check all the numbers and it seems I go through gas faster surfing as opposed to wakeboarding. It would assume by the numbers as we are usually out for 3 hour bursts due to the child that it is about 20% more when surfing the whole time as opposed to wakeboarding. We hit the water, launch in a cove, fill up tanks and go. There is no sitting time in the 3 hours. At 4.01 per gallon I topped off 18 gallons this weekend surfing, the prior weekend was all boarding due to no wind and we filled up 14.8 gallons.

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I check all the numbers and it seems I go through gas faster surfing as opposed to wakeboarding. It would assume by the numbers as we are usually out for 3 hour bursts due to the child that it is about 20% more when surfing the whole time as opposed to wakeboarding. We hit the water, launch in a cove, fill up tanks and go. There is no sitting time in the 3 hours. At 4.01 per gallon I topped off 18 gallons this weekend surfing, the prior weekend was all boarding due to no wind and we filled up 14.8 gallons.

I was wondering just because I haven't really done any surfing yet but almost done setting our fat sacs up now, the last one will be in on the 30th of this month. Just seems from the little that we played around with the wake and moving people around that there is much more of a load on the motor and even only going 10-11 miles per hour the rpm's are up pretty high.

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My Monsoon pulls at 4K RPM's while wakeboarding. While surfing it only pulls at 3000-3500RPM. I find it hard to believe that surfing would pull from the gas tank more.

I have yet to find surfing costing me more in my own experience. It may, but if it does the amount is so inconsequential that I don't notice it.

I also pull at the 4K level while pulling toobers.

I think surfing wins. :)

We got EVERY newbie up on a surfboard this last week. Even the 10 year old got up. It was awesome. 750Lb in the locker, full mid, bow and wedge down + 6 adults. Never seen the wake so big. It was curling and awesome!

Edited by chathamsolutions
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My Monsoon pulls at 4K RPM's while wakeboarding. While surfing it only pulls at 3000-3500RPM. I find it hard to believe that surfing would pull from the gas tank more.

I have yet to find surfing costing me more in my own experience. It may, but if it does the amount is so inconsequential that I don't notice it.

I also pull at the 4K level while pulling toobers.

I think surfing wins. :)

We got EVERY newbie up on a surfboard this last week. Even the 10 year old got up. It was awesome. 750Lb in the locker, full mid, bow and wedge down + 6 adults. Never seen the wake so big. It was curling and awesome!

It's not the rpm's that makes it use more gas it's the resistance! For example if your running at say 3K cruising without resistance and you run at 2.5K but with a load I guarantee you that you'll use more gas at the 2.5k rpm. Same concept as pulling your boat with your truck up a steep hill, you may be at 3K but only going 45 mph versus 3K and going 65 mph.

Edit: It's the load or torque required to pull the load.

Edited by 68Slalom
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I guess something else I should point out is that we do not always use the wedge while wakeboarding, and it is always in use during surfing.

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My Monsoon pulls at 4K RPM's while wakeboarding. While surfing it only pulls at 3000-3500RPM. I find it hard to believe that surfing would pull from the gas tank more.

I have yet to find surfing costing me more in my own experience. It may, but if it does the amount is so inconsequential that I don't notice it.

I also pull at the 4K level while pulling toobers.

I think surfing wins. :)

We got EVERY newbie up on a surfboard this last week. Even the 10 year old got up. It was awesome. 750Lb in the locker, full mid, bow and wedge down + 6 adults. Never seen the wake so big. It was curling and awesome!

I guess it would also have to do with the different props each person may be running also.

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Not totally sure, but seems to me to burn through gas faster when wakeboarding or tubing....
Same with me. One 50min. session and one 20min. session for total 70 mins used 7 gallons Ballast 2000lbs running at around 3200 rpm's.
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My Monsoon pulls at 4K RPM's while wakeboarding. While surfing it only pulls at 3000-3500RPM. I find it hard to believe that surfing would pull from the gas tank more.

I have yet to find surfing costing me more in my own experience. It may, but if it does the amount is so inconsequential that I don't notice it.

I also pull at the 4K level while pulling toobers.

I think surfing wins. :)

We got EVERY newbie up on a surfboard this last week. Even the 10 year old got up. It was awesome. 750Lb in the locker, full mid, bow and wedge down + 6 adults. Never seen the wake so big. It was curling and awesome!

It's not the rpm's that makes it use more gas it's the resistance! For example if your running at say 3K cruising without resistance and you run at 2.5K but with a load I guarantee you that you'll use more gas at the 2.5k rpm. Same concept as pulling your boat with your truck up a steep hill, you may be at 3K but only going 45 mph versus 3K and going 65 mph.

Edit: It's the load or torque required to pull the load.

RPM is a measurement of how hard your engine is working, load or no load. The higher the RPM the greater the engine is working.

To pull my boat at 10 MPH with no ballast it will probably only run at 2500RPM

To pull my boat at 10 MPH with full ballast is will probably run at 3500RPM = more load

To pull my boat at 21MPH with semi full ballast it will probably run at 4000RPM = greatest load

Am I off here?

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My Monsoon pulls at 4K RPM's while wakeboarding. While surfing it only pulls at 3000-3500RPM. I find it hard to believe that surfing would pull from the gas tank more.

I have yet to find surfing costing me more in my own experience. It may, but if it does the amount is so inconsequential that I don't notice it.

I also pull at the 4K level while pulling toobers.

I think surfing wins. :)

We got EVERY newbie up on a surfboard this last week. Even the 10 year old got up. It was awesome. 750Lb in the locker, full mid, bow and wedge down + 6 adults. Never seen the wake so big. It was curling and awesome!

It's not the rpm's that makes it use more gas it's the resistance! For example if your running at say 3K cruising without resistance and you run at 2.5K but with a load I guarantee you that you'll use more gas at the 2.5k rpm. Same concept as pulling your boat with your truck up a steep hill, you may be at 3K but only going 45 mph versus 3K and going 65 mph.

Edit: It's the load or torque required to pull the load.

RPM is a measurement of how hard your engine is working, load or no load. The higher the RPM the greater the engine is working.

To pull my boat at 10 MPH with no ballast it will probably only run at 2500RPM

To pull my boat at 10 MPH with full ballast is will probably run at 3500RPM = more load

To pull my boat at 21MPH with semi full ballast it will probably run at 4000RPM = greatest load

Am I off here?

OK so here is your formula, can you explain it any different if you disagree:

@ 10mph no ballast your at 250 rpm per mile

@ 10mph with ballast at 3500rpm your at 350 rpm per mile

@ 21mph 4000rpm your at 190 rpm per mile

you are at the greatest rpm @ 350rpm per mile, so it would seem to me that you would use more gas at 3500rpm at 10 mph.

second would be 10mph at 250rpm per mile

third 21mph at 190rpm per mile

If you want to bring total mph and rpm's into the equation:

Now take into account that there is a linear ratio after so many miles per hour and rpm that you use more fuel and I won't try to get into that here because it would take to long to write it out to explain. I have done lots of dyno runs and studies of load cycles, another example is when does a electric motor require the most amps per load. It's right when a motor is first started, depending on the load on the motor you will never use more amps than when the motor is first starting up to it's full speed, unless there is a load on the motor which will require more amps. So the real answer that may never be known all the way is that we would have to know the hp and torque required under all the scenarios just mentioned to really be able to calculate real numbers.

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Tony has a point about the load required to maintain the 3k rpm... think of how much gas your car is burning if your climbing a small hill, vs flat ground, yet same RPM.

With that said - pulling a boarder requires some full throttle bursts to get the boat on a plane (which surfing doesn't) and when using ballast, the boat has a lot of resistance at boarding speeds too (not the most efficient setup w/ ballast & wedge.. hence the big wake)

So I don't think surfing burns more gas than boarding. Maybe a wash when you figure that you'll surf longer, than you'd board - so maybe more gas in a day surfing than a day boarding

Who cares - still ~5gph

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Tony has a point about the load required to maintain the 3k rpm... think of how much gas your car is burning if your climbing a small hill, vs flat ground, yet same RPM.

With that said - pulling a boarder requires some full throttle bursts to get the boat on a plane (which surfing doesn't) and when using ballast, the boat has a lot of resistance at boarding speeds too (not the most efficient setup w/ ballast & wedge.. hence the big wake)

So I don't think surfing burns more gas than boarding. Maybe a wash when you figure that you'll surf longer, than you'd board - so maybe more gas in a day surfing than a day boarding

Who cares - still ~5gph

Spent 8 hours out last weekend with a minimum of 5 adults and 2 kids in the boat, 60% surfing (2000#+wedge), 20% wakeboarding (500# center ballast), 20% combo skiing (500# center ballast), and 10% tubing (500# center ballast). We were spending alot of time on starts teaching people to surf and ski, but we were at around 3gph.

Wakeboarding 19-22mph = 2200 rpm, I haven't paid attention to surfing or tubing. Tubing seems to go thru the most gas though. Will be on vacation with the boat for 5 days next week and will track it closer.

Not sure if is because of the 8.1L engine and or propping, but I guess I should be happy with the 3gph. We run the Acme 381 13.5x17.5 .105 cup, which is a greater pitch than most people run on a monsoon and it still has a ton of low end power.

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