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Wedge Effects


Faith7

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I have owned and driven nautiques all my life and they are great boats. However, I am now looking at a 90's VLX with a wedge. My question is how do these boats drive with the wedge down? I am sure it is fine most of the time,but what about when a skier falls and you have to get back in a hurry to protect a down skier from boats that are to close for comfort.

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I have owned and driven nautiques all my life and they are great boats. However, I am now looking at a 90's VLX with a wedge. My question is how do these boats drive with the wedge down? I am sure it is fine most of the time,but what about when a skier falls and you have to get back in a hurry to protect a down skier from boats that are to close for comfort.

no problem. malibu thought of that when they designed the boat and power wedge.

watch those high speed power turns

proper procedure when a rider falls is to slowly retard the throttle to idle then stop, allow your wake to pass you, slowly turn around at idle speed and at idle speed retrieve your rider. this prevents the boat driver from approaching the rider with to much speed. you will also find this method is actually faster than doing the ever dreaded power turn.

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no problem. malibu thought of that when they designed the boat and power wedge.

watch those high speed power turns

proper procedure when a rider falls is to slowly retard the throttle to idle then stop, allow your wake to pass you, slowly turn around at idle speed and at idle speed retrieve your rider. this prevents the boat driver from approaching the rider with to much speed. you will also find this method is actually faster than doing the ever dreaded power turn.

This is exactly how I return for a number of reasons,skiers resting time, and just safer in general. But there will be times when someone comes up to fast and we have to get back in a hurry, this is my concern.

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You’ll be surprised just how fast you can turn around when the “need” is there. My owner’s manual says never to drive the boat faster than 30mph with the wedge down. But if you need to goose it to get back to a skier you not going to hit 30mph anyway.

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martinarcher

This is exactly how I return for a number of reasons,skiers resting time, and just safer in general. But there will be times when someone comes up to fast and we have to get back in a hurry, this is my concern.

If that's how you pick up a rider - you're alright in my book. Thumbup.gif

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we have to floating wedge on my vtx, once you get up onto plane you dont really notice it too much, still very light to steer.

and turning is no problem, just turn as you normally would towing a boarder and you wont even notice it

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I'm gonna be in the minority on this..... but I don't like how the boat drives with the Wedge down. Turns are sluggish, it's slow out of the hole, and the prop wash is less than ideal for a foil rider. It's like riding a bicycle in deep gravel, washes out, unpredictable, etc. due to how much air is in it, and how much wider it is. Plus I ride about 26 or 27 mph & the boat has a tendency to porpoise with the Wedge down at those speeds.

For these reasons I don't use the Wedge at all. In fact, it's sitting in the garage, waiting for the day I sell the boat.

All that said, we do like a good sized, well defined wake. And get that with the factory 900 lbs of ballast. I'm in the process of making some pop bags for the bow too, probably around 300 lbs.

Edited by Bill_AirJunky
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Emergency "wally" moves will not be impaired with the wedge deployed. You'll know in a corner if it's deployed or not but just something you learn to drive w/, not that it's very difficult. IMHO a VLX w/ the wedge deployed is easier to turn than an X-15...

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a quick turn back for those occasional emergency turns are not a problem when the wedge is down.

just make sure to have enough power on to keep the bow above that big roller you will be looking at.

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This is exactly how I return for a number of reasons,skiers resting time, and just safer in general. But there will be times when someone comes up to fast and we have to get back in a hurry, this is my concern.

you will have no problem with the wedge down. in fact i think the max speed for the wedge is somewhere between 28-32MPH

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