New to surfing - What to work on to go ropeless?

[Fish209]

Thanks shawndoggy! We're a few days in so hopefully we start to get it soon (I have seen steady progression so far).

 

I went out with a different crew today and we slowed the boat down a bit. We went with 9.6 mph and it seemed to help. One of the guys was able to go ropeless, but he had previous experience and had gone ropeless a couple times last summer. I actually got in for the second time ever and was able to ride with slack a good portion of the time.

The big adjustment we made today was to slow the boat from 10.6 down to 9.6 and I personally moved my back foot up several inches from the back of the surf board. This helped get my weight more on my front foot to get me closer to the boat.

 

Thanks for all the help guys! Hopefully we'll get there soon as it seems so much more fun being pushed by the wave vs pulled by the rope.

[Hemmy]

11 hours ago, Fish209 said:

Thanks shawndoggy! We're a few days in so hopefully we start to get it soon (I have seen steady progression so far).

 

I went out with a different crew today and we slowed the boat down a bit. We went with 9.6 mph and it seemed to help. One of the guys was able to go ropeless, but he had previous experience and had gone ropeless a couple times last summer. I actually got in for the second time ever and was able to ride with slack a good portion of the time.

The big adjustment we made today was to slow the boat from 10.6 down to 9.6 and I personally moved my back foot up several inches from the back of the surf board. This helped get my weight more on my front foot to get me closer to the boat.

 

Thanks for all the help guys! Hopefully we'll get there soon as it seems so much more fun being pushed by the wave vs pulled by the rope.

Just be careful so you don’t slow the boat too much.  The slower you go the shorter your wake will get.  If it’s too short you won’t have any room to maneuver and not enough room to recover once you fall back into the wake.  This will also shorten the pocket.  You want to have some room to be able to move back and forth in the wake without losing push.  You can notice the difference of the wake in small increments like .2 - .4 mph changes.  Try posting some more videos.  The Crew on here are good at diagnosing and giving suggestions based on what they see.  Keep up the effort.  Every time you go out it gets easier.

[Fish209]

2 hours ago, Hemmy said:

Just be careful so you don’t slow the boat too much.  The slower you go the shorter your wake will get.  If it’s too short you won’t have any room to maneuver and not enough room to recover once you fall back into the wake.  This will also shorten the pocket.  You want to have some room to be able to move back and forth in the wake without losing push.  You can notice the difference of the wake in small increments like .2 - .4 mph changes.  Try posting some more videos.  The Crew on here are good at diagnosing and giving suggestions based on what they see.  Keep up the effort.  Every time you go out it gets easier.

Thanks! That makes total sense as we were able to find the "push" a little easier at that speed, but couldn't do much with the wave and ultimately feel out the back if we fell slightly out of the sweet spot. I will post a video of the wave when we were going 9.6 and see what you guys think.

 

[Fish209]

Here's the only video I have of yesterdays session. Not a good video to show the wave, but it did seem a little easier to find the sweet spot at 9.6 mph.

We'll kep messing around with the ballast, wedge, wake shaper, and boat speed. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!