Got my new boat wet for the first time today. Awesomesauce!

[sunvalleylaw]

 

My daughter approves, and learned to 180 on her board today. I had a fun ski too. Actually 3, and made some progress on improving my stack which was nice. New wake and solid, consistent pull helps.

 

Boat worked great. Probably will get a new prop eventually, but no emergency. Just to replace the old SS, with a new CNC bronze, and take down the pitch a tiny bit for altitude. But the boat felt great and it was so much fun to get my daughter up early and head down for a couple quick sets before a late morning showing at work.

[Butte-Ski]

What a beautiful way to start your day.

A day on the lake with family priceless! Enjoy.

[gregy]

Congrats! enjoy

[fox197]

There is another thread on here about growing the sport and this sums it up to a tee. I don't care what anyone says but being out on your boat with family and friends is the only way this sport will ever grow. Have fun mate. Congrats

[Cent]

Enjoy. Boats can do wonderful things for a family in my experience.

[MISkier]

Congratulations. That lake looks awesome, too. Lots of glass.

 

Don't forget about balancing the boat. Looking at the wake in one of your pictures, the boat is weighted to one side. Leveling that out will increase your enjoyment of the slalom wake. If you will just have a driver and no observer, get some lead shot bags or sand bags of a weight equal to the driver and set them on the observer side. If you have different weight boat crew members, use the bags to equal them out. We tend to have 25 pound and 50 pound bags and slide them around to one side or toward the center as needed.

[Chef23]

Congratulations.

 

Definitely replace the prop and don't wait too long. A friend had the SS prop on an 01 Malibu have a blade shear off without hitting anything from fatigue and it did a fair amount of damage to the boat.

[sunvalleylaw]

Thanks folks! That is at Magic Res., which is about 25 min. from the house to the boat launch. Has water this year, whereas some years it does not. Still enough at this time of year to launch. It is good for a morning run if you get up early. Can get breezy later on, except on special days. Good place to get some quickys in before a late morning work entrance.

@MISkier , yes, will do. I was noticing that about the balance, and I will get some weights or bags of some kind too. If you guys saw that, what side would you put weight on? This was at approximately 15 MPH, as my daughter was learning to 180 and we wanted to slow it down. 17 seems like a good spot for her to wakeboard right now. But anyway, seeing that, which side to weight? We had two in the boat and one behind.

 

@Chef23 , also will do. This is at about 5800 feet elevation, and boat performance was fine. I hope to ski the boat at Redfish this weekend, elevation 6500, and see how it is. Then I will decide between an Acme 515 13x12 or 525 13x11.5. Thinking the 515 will be a decent compromise.

[Chef23]

I am not at altitude but think I have the 515 on my boat and it is great. We have a short setup at one end and it has no problem getting up to speed even with my 230 lbs in the water.

[sunvalleylaw]

@Chef23 , the local Malibu dealer (Idaho Watersports in Burley and also in Nampa over by the Nationals site) say that either one would work for me, and it will be preference based on what I like. They felt that if I was up at the higher lake only that maybe the 525 but since I will also be at Magic and other lower spots once in a while the 515 would be a good compromise. They service a lot of boats that run up at both those lakes, and do "house calls" for service up at Redfish so were of great help with information for me. So, will just check it out. I am short a couple hundred RPM's at WOT with the current prop so want to see about that too.

 

PS. this lower lake has a course, which as long as the lake has water, will be my best bet for course training, so I want the prop to do well there. it is in a cove, with plenty of room on one side, and short on the other side.

[MISkier]

@sunvalleylaw, you want to weight the side that is higher to bring it down and level. When you are driving, you should be able to notice if the bow is slanted/tilted one way or the other. Add weight to the side that is the higher side to bring it down.

[sunvalleylaw]

@MISkier , ok, well that makes sense. I was focused on looking out at what was happening in the back with the wake. To me, it looks like maybe a little weight was needed in that pic on the driver's side, but kinda hard to tell looking at the stern.

[Teddy]

To balance the wake when we don't have an observer we use a small ballast sack. Straightline makes a 150 lb bag. When you don't need it, it doesn't take up any room.

 

[Fam-man]

That's awesome, especially that you got out with your daughter for a morning run!

Had a great ski with my crew this morning, one of the best ways to start a day.

[sunvalleylaw]

Yeah, it was pretty great getting her out there in the AM. She is used to getting up for morning swim team work outs so that helps. Season is over now, but she is ok with getting up and getting moving. The lake was warm, but I want to get her and my wife a women's medium wetsuit to share to make water entry easier. Especially when we are at the higher lake that is colder than this reservoir. My 16 year old son has started to slalom ski this year, and though he could not make this trip due to work lifeguarding at a pool, I hope to make trips like this happen pretty regularly. Will train them both as good drivers, maybe my wife will even start coming out. Will consider an AWSA course, and since we take trips every year to WA state, will consider WA's licensing course.

 

This reservoir is nice and close for a morning mission, as long as it has water. It has been dropping in July/early august, but I am hoping the rate of discharge will slow as it has been cooling, and that enough water can stay in to cover the ramp that is quick to access, and not 10 miles down a dirt road as the other ramps are.

[escmanaze]

@sunvalleylaw put the weight where you see the bubbles. In this case, you can see that it is the passenger side that is washed over and that wake has all the bubbles on the wake while you can see that the drivers side wake is smooth without any kind of peak to it at all. This indicates that the passenger side needs some weight. As you put weight there, you will notice that the passenger side will get less washed out and just come to a nice peak like a wakeboarder would want, and the same thing will happen to the driver side, it will go from a smooth, round hump, to becoming a nice rampy wake with a little peak at the top.

 

As you start to then go faster than 15 or 17, you will notice that with an evenly weighted boat, both sides will start to lose their peak and become more rounded as you get up to 20, 22 mph. When this happens, if you want your peak back (because you're wakeboarding, not slaloming) then put some weight evenly distributed left to right, but in the back of the boat. More weight in the back will get your wake more slope, lift, peak, rampiness, whatever you want to call it as you get up to the higher speeds above 20 where a slalom boat like yours would otherwise want to plane off and make the wake a shallow round soft hump, like what you see here on the drivers side.

[sunvalleylaw]

Thanks @escmanaze . That helps a lot. I was passenger in that shot, as a more experienced tourney boat driver was showing me the ropes, and I know I weigh less than he. But the curl/peak thing was throwing me. I appreciate the explanation.

[Chef23]

@sunvalleylaw buy your ladies their own wetsuits. Putting on a wet wetsuit sucks.

[sunvalleylaw]

@Chef23 yes, upon reflection, that is very good advice.

[chrisroddy]

Congratulations! Awesome looking boat! Hope you and all the family enjoy lots of time on it.

[sunvalleylaw]

BTW, here is the current prop that I plan to replace soon. I think it is the original CVP 13x13.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/BoatBoating/F93DF9AA-A157-4497-80A2-E67847522E41_zpswrvhqeol.jpg~original

 

 

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w92/sunvalleylaw/BoatBoating/2CCD09B3-17AE-44B0-8FB3-96DADF438AA1_zpsi2fccbow.jpg~original

 

[paco]

@sunvalleylaw buy a 13x10.5 or 13x11. Ski partners Malibu has a 10.5 , and I have an 11. Both boats right at 3500rpm at 34.2. great holeshot and top end too! I'm at sea level btw, no way I'd put on a 13x12 at elevation. You'll be lowering your rpms...

 

Great thing is, you can always try as many as you like from acme and oj. Both companies will send you two or three if you like and you just have to return the ones you don't want!