Surf Plates NSS type Malibu project

[Malibuzer]

Nice little project! I love seeing guys having a go at this sort of stuff! It's so satisfying to see the results after all the hard work is done. I know I got that warm and fuzzy/new boat feeling after I did my NSS build, good work!

Where are the pictures of your build? We love pictures!

[trxvy]

I can't seem to upload pictures via tapatalk but I think some of you may have seen it already on here some where as some one put a link up to my wake world thread

[h2ojunkie]

Trxvy,,,post a link or something,,,I don't remember seeing yours. The 1/2" mounted doesn't flex at all and surprisingly the 3/8" barely does as ya have the slots for waterflow thru. So I looked at it close from swim platform and saw no issues. HDPE is very durable stuff and a little flex in this application may not be a bad thing cause if something does come down side of boat and hit it may not cause any damage.

Edited May 2, 2014 by h2ojunkie

[trxvy]

Got to my pc instead of tapatalk so here is the link to wakeworld thread

http://www.wakeworld.com/forum/showthread.php?t=800079

[h2ojunkie]

trxvy,,, man I saw that on Planet Nautique forums,,,your from down under right? That's the best one yet. Wish I had access to that kind of stuff but had to make due with what I had. You did a killer job. Congrats to you as well. Down the road I could see the possibility of doin something on the scale of yours but for now gonna run with what I got. For what I have in it $$$ the project was very economical to fab up and try it. I can use the same holes in transom for my AJC knock off model Again, kudos man,,nice work.

[Malibuzer]

That was me that linked your Wakeworld post. Awesome work. I just did not know it was the same person.

[jesutton3]

So the #14 x 3/4" screws are all that holds it to the transom? I'm assuming that is just a little over 1/4" into the glass after everything is counter sunk?

I'm also guessing those were sheet metal thread?

[h2ojunkie]

Once they are countersunk, bout 1/2" sticks out of plate. Found thickness of transom to run from 3/8"-1/2" thick. Don't want the screws to protrude thru to far as they will go thru carpet and could poke hole in ballast bag on top of rear tanks. Yes, sheet metal threads. Slow tap the glass and keep extra screws as heads on SS like to round out bad. I kept cup of ice water to cool screws as ya go in and out, many times to get them to thread into the glass tight and not strip out. Slow, in and out a lot, also make sure to use a little larger bit on the gel coat so it won't chip when taping screws into the holes.

[h2ojunkie]

Update, sorry, no pics. Having camera lock up issues on the phone. W only factory ballast tanks and 5 people in boat the wave shaping w the plates was great. For skim, was best w wedge all the way down and plate only out 1-1/12", for surf style board extend plate all the way out 3" and wave was long w a lot of push, much longer than before the plates so we are all stoked. My crew was amazed and everyone is stoked for the season now. Did list the boat ome but only dumped maybe 50% of the water from opposite rider side tank. (Private lake we went to has anti ballast rules so we could not fill our sacks, in fact the lake patrol guy came up to us twice saying folks were "complaining bout the size of our wake, when we were the only ones on the lake running and then when there were 4 boats running no one seemed to notice our "massive" wave as he put it).

So subjective on the wave issues, when many boats are running waves are big and all over the place,if someone can single you out someone gets their undies in a knot. Anyways, the wave shaping looks to be great and we are stoked. Someone else took some pics yesterday so hoping to get them sent to me so I can post.

[mrothwell]

I would love to see some more pix of this:

1. Could you hold a straight edge down the side of your boat and extend it past the plate, so I can see where it is mounted.

2. Same from the bottom of the hull.

3. how the plate looks from the corner of the hull. ( is there a gap because the hull rounds off? ).

Also, when you get your camera working again, would love more pix when you are ballasted out. and the placement of your ballast/crew.

Thanks for showing your work on this. I've been thinking of a DIY gate for my VTX, and I really dont want to drill into my hull, but I really like how clean yours is.

Oh, one more question: Is your VTX a wake hull or diamond hull?

Thanks.

Michael

[Sensation]

Impressive work. NSS looks like it extends below the hull as well. Did you consider this and decide against it? Just curious....

[h2ojunkie]

mrothwell,,,,Unfortunetly I cannot take pics from under the boat of transom cause it's on trailer and for the project I had jacked it up and had boards on bunks to give me clearance to work ect... my trailer bunks come out about 2" past my hull so can't extend slide plate when trailered.

As far as where it's mounted, I went to edge of platform mount for plate covered the entire corner of transom. The gap piece I used is there cause the hull does round off some to transom area. I used the filler piece to cut down on splash issues that some have had w this design.

My VTX is a wake hull. Plates, gates, ect...should help with wave shaping on any hull tho. Feel free to PM me and we can talk about your project if ya want.

Hope to be able to max out ballast this weekend as river has cleared up some and weather looks good for riding some over the weekend so hope to post some pics ect....as the private lake as I mentioned above is really getting up tight about ballast issues and rules against wake surfing will probably be coming soon from what I hear from lakes committee.

sensation, thanks, I do not deserve all credit, had help as mentioned before, I just refined mine some for my design and needs. Yes, my slide plate does extend off bottom by 1/2-3/4" via measurements I took of NSS system at boat show and a friend at Nautique dealer via specs he gave me on various models. Up to one inch off bottom extension was the max and that was on the bigger 23' boats so 1/2-1" for various boat models should be fine. That is why the slots on the slide plate will vary accordingly for boat hull and desired extension for each persons desires as I view it.

Provides some lift to the extended side of boat.

[h2ojunkie]

Testing of the plates has been great. All we could have expected w wake shaping. Extend plate 1-2" for skim boards and full out 3-3 1/2" for surf style boards. Hope these pics do it some justice. A lot of pics taken yesterday were blurry for some reason. Hope to get some better ones soon but we are thrilled w results. Went with only about 25-35% of factory tank full on non surf side to get best wave w wedge all the way down seemed best overall. Surf side, tanks full w bags in rear locker. Push has been great as we have been surprised that we have had to slow down some. Best we can figure was current was swift on the river but upstream def made for better wave push and length was acquired by how far out we extended the plate. Wife and I both ride goofy and all agreed, best wave we ever had, Pics are my wife and friends wife on the skim board. (none of me, sorry to disappoint :-) , but ladies pics are better)

Edited May 28, 2014 by h2ojunkie

[mrothwell]

That looks really good. Thanks for the pix and update.

So, you are still "somewhat" listed to surfside, by having the ballast full plus bag, and only some ballast in off-side. What is the rest of your ballast and VAB location set up?? How much weight in the front? What speed did you end up finding worked best?

Sorry for all the questions, but this project is intriguing to me because I also have a VTX and want to improve my surf wave.

Thanks.

[h2ojunkie]

Yes, listed to surf side, I'd say we are at 70/30,65/35 ratio. Bow weight is factory tank full and misc plus 40lbs misc weight we move to surf side. At times we have folks in bow if wave needs length but so far so good w the plates. My buddy is 230lb guy, reg side was so stoked after his first run as he had push but a lot more wave length to play with.

Down current 9.6-10, up current 9.8 avg. for skim, added little speed both ways for surf style board (IS Swallow) still waiting on my Soulcraft FT board to get here.

Current, # of folks in boat will all be factors anytime w surfing. Each time we adjust something but still have the basic layout but we are keeping a 3"x5" notebook in box to write some stuff down for comparisons. Hope to have some better pics next time.

[malibuparadise]

More pics of plates.

Super way to add-on and deploy!

[mrothwell]

Thanks for the info H2oJunkie. Sorry I couldn't get back to you yesterday, kinda busy.

using the 70/30 weight placement. It's nice that I could leave the off-side tank with piggyback bag about half full, and move about 2/3's of my VAB to surf side. This would make things so much nicer when swapping from from goofy to normal and back. Right now, I have to drain one side, fill the other, move all the people, and in a VTX, it gets a little cramped on the surf-side.

Sooooo, going off your design, I spent last night in the garage making a prototype with plywood that I'm attaching to the platform brackets. If it works, and I like the results, I'll then consider drilling into my hull and mounting it like you have done using Starboard or like material. I really have a hard time drilling into my boat for any reason.

Edited May 29, 2014 by mrothwell

[trayson]

Your implementation of this is SPOT ON with what I'd been envisioning.

Here is a crude sketch I made a few months ago.

As you can see, I don't have quite the surface area that you have to work with since my platform brackets are so far to the outside of the hull. However, the good news is that I would be able to access the inside of the hull to thru-bolt the baseplate to the hull if I wanted. I would just need to remove my gas tank (which I did a couple months ago to replace my rudder packing). I have a DD, so finding a way to make a better surf wave would be HUGE for me as I don't have huge rear lockers like you V-drive guys do...

I had also been debating about building a surf gate. I have a template that I found for a gate that was patterned off a 2014 Axis that I'd be able to use. I was thinking that it would be easy enough to mount a 4" hinge onto my transom and make a pair of gates. Then use a brace between the surf gate and the swim platform bracket to extend the surf gate. it wouldn't be power for the first iteration, but it'd be pretty easy to make surf gate braces out of bimini hardware with some pins for quick release. I was pretty set on going the gate route until I saw your excecution of my previous NSS vision.

I keep flip flopping between gates and plates!!! You do have the upper hand in that you have adjustability for surf vs. skim. I'm just wondering if I will be able to get enough excursion out from my hull given the smaller surface area I have to work with that's between my swim bracket and the edge of my hull. At least I have a pretty squared hull so that I don't have to mess with the spray relief pockets like you are.

I'd love any insight/feedback you have on gates vs. plates. and on how you think the NSS style plate design would work on my boat given my size limitations...

I guess it's also worth noting that I could certainly make a NSS style plate a lot taller than my drawing since all I'd have to do is make my baseplate be two pieces. one would be a spacer to cover the white portion of my hull (red drawing in the picture) and then I'd just have a 2nd baseplate that would cover both the black portion of my hull as well as the red baseplate spacer...

Edited June 2, 2014 by trayson

[wakebrdr94]

Looks great Brian!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[h2ojunkie]

Trayson, looks like your on your way. Like I said previously, plates, gates,,,,it's all delayed convergence of the wake to point where it forms better for surfing and gives ya more push with any system you implement. If you can make a simple plates system to try and think it will slide out enough to make it work with the area ya have go for it. We have found we only need bout 1-1 1/2" out for skim. 2-3" for surf style boards so it doesn't take much to delay the wake. PM me if ya ever want to talk. Oh, taller may not be better tho,,,u may run into spray issues. You can always make it taller and just cut it down a little at a time until spray is tolerable.

We rode Saturday and Sunday and had a blast. We can ride a lot further back in wake now. Can't wait for the new Soulcraft to show up any day now. Here's a few more still shot pics. Had a short vid of my wife but can't get it to load up here. Oh well, still shots it is. It's kinda funny that everyone is a little intimidated by how far back we can get now and ya pump some and zoom right in cause of the increase in push. Makes for funny faces and happy times.

Edited June 3, 2014 by h2ojunkie

[trayson]

Okay, so I took out some cardboard and got to work making a template for my boat. Let me know what you think. Like I said, I don't have the width you have to work with since my platform brackets are so wide. So, this is the best I could get...

Now, I could make it taller, so that even if I sink the stern of the boat deeper into the water that for sure the blades will extend up to the surface of the water... Thoughts on that?

I will call mine the "Supra Surf System", or SSS.

This is it retracted:

And with the blade extended:

Back side extended:

Mockup on the boat retracted.

Mockup on boat extended fully to 3"

Extended blade from front:

Retracted from front. it looks like it sticks out, but it's really flush with the side of the boat and the boat's rounded corner makes it look like it's protruding. I would ensure this wasn't a problem on the production one.

Edited June 7, 2014 by trayson

[Tao of Wake]

For the NSS type system, the gate doesn't need to extend to above the water line, so yours looks fine. I noticed that it doesn't seem to extend below the bottom of the hull, though. I find that this is also important as it slightly lists the boat toward the surf side. You can just change the angle of the cutouts to make it extend downward some. Like h2ojunkie said, it just needs to extend about 3/4" to 1" below the hull.

[trayson]

For the NSS type system, the gate doesn't need to extend to above the water line, so yours looks fine. I noticed that it doesn't seem to extend below the bottom of the hull, though. I find that this is also important as it slightly lists the boat toward the surf side. You can just change the angle of the cutouts to make it extend downward some. Like h2ojunkie said, it just needs to extend about 3/4" to 1" below the hull.

Actually, I followed his advice and went with a 3/4" measurement for the downward part of the angle.

But because of the width of what I have to work with, there just isn't all that much width on the bottom of the blade. You can see the downward extension in this pic:

[trayson]

Went to TAP Plastics last night after work. Bought 6 pieces of HDPE that were 11x17 or so. I needed six because I'm gonna have to double stack two of them for the baseplate because of the 1/2" step down on the hull. Luckily I measured and simply having a 2nd 1/2" piece will make it fit on the hull's contour perfect.

Obviously, the lowest baseplate won't be as tall as the one on top of it, but for simplicity I just got materials that were all the same size and I'll cut some off the top of the bottom baseplate.

Cost me $78 in materials for the HDPE. I also got some 3m marine sealant and a pair of handles similar to H2O's but I got mine in white plastic so it'd blend a little more. Today on my lunch hour I'm going to get my Stainless Steel Hardware.

Last night I didn't have a lot of time, but I traced out an idea of what my baseplate/blade will look like:

[FastFreddy]

Trayson, looks good. I'd suggest making the edges smoother just to make it look a little cleaner.