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Malibu echelon.


Devin7

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Can anyone tell me the best way to get the best wave for surfing behind my 97 echelon lx open bow.  Should I get a wedge? I usually have a boat full of people say 5-6 and drive about 10 but still can quite catch the wave. I have no ballast either. Any help would be appreciate. Thanks

Edited by Devin7
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Love my Echelon Lx.

A. You definitely need ballast.  A few hundred pounds in the back, and in the ski locker.  You know you have enough weight in the back when the swim platform is under water.  Add weight to the front as necessary to lengthen the wave.  But be careful - you can submerge that bow into a wave very easily.

B. Check into the "suck-gate" threads, I haven't got mine done yet but it should make surfing a ton easier.  If you do not use a wake enhancing device like that then you need to list the boat pretty heavily to one side.  If listing, platform should be an inch under water on the surf side and out of the water on the non-surf side.

C. I say yes on the wedge, I use mine for surfing and boarding

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We've only had our Echelon on the water for a month now, but here is our current set up:

400 lb fat sac in the bow, two 400 lb fat sacs on the side we surf on, wedge down.  If you don't have a wedge, you might want another 600+ pounds in place of the rear seat.

Not the hugest wave, but easily surf-able.  We are considering more weight, but with a ski boat you have to balance surf wave size vs the front riding low and piercing through rollers

 

I've got suck-gate parts arriving today, so I'll report back on that

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

It worked pretty darn good on the Echelon.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of the wave, but here's the suck gate in action

FzTky7G.jpg

Prior to using it, we were surfing rope less with 1200 lbs ballast + wedge and 3 people.  The boat was heavily listed, and we drove in circles to keep the wake clean.

 

With the suck gate, the wave is clean when going straight, however it definitely requires more ballast to create the same size wave as before.  We upped the ballast to 1900 lbs total plus wedge, and are pretty happy with the set up overall, especially the fact that we don't need to list the boat anymore

Edited by iwam
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  • 10 months later...

Where did you have the suck gate located?  Is it just above the "step?" I'm thinking of getting a Nauticurl, but I'm worried that it wont be able to sit far enough in the water...

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