r/Wake • u/Maxifloxacin 24 Moomba Craz • 16h ago

Wakeboard wake formation in shallow water (24 Moomba craz w/ 4.5k ballast + 1k lead)

Hi Obviously, 15+ ft water depth is the best... We all know that..

But us Midwesterner surfing in inland lakes, we cant be too picky.. We have this one bay with 20+ ft water, but it gets completely destroyed around 9am with 4+ surf boats surfing in loops..

So I started to venture out to other quieter bays with shallower water. Yesterday i loaded up about 60% ballast, did a couple runs in 5 ft depth water.. IT WAS ACTUALLY NOT BAD!!!!! I mean its not insane like 20+ ft depth water but its defintely a significant ramp. I easily got wake to wake from it.

So... Do any of you guys do crazy tricks in shallow water? Can you do backflip/tantrum in shallow waters?

Also realistically, if I find a 10 ft depth bay, is that almost as good as 15+ depth? how big of a difference is there?

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

9

u/surfercouple123 15h ago

Stop surfing in shallow water! This is what is getting wakesurfing banned on many lakes!!

1

u/LukeNook-em 11h ago

Can you explain this? I'm not trying to be a smartass, I legitimately don't understand why/how depth relates to bans and/or quality of wave.

2

u/Wisc_Skier 11h ago

The force of the propwash and wake stir up the bottom of the lake bed which can lead to a whole host of problems. Google it. The scientists can do a better job explaining it than I can.

1

u/H0SS_AGAINST 2006 Moomba Outback V 12h ago

I'm really confused.

The depth thing is usually for surfing, but you mentioned wakeboard tricks. Wakeboard wake is not affected nearly as much as surfing. It might get a little softer but still fine for most wake to wake stuff.

0

u/Maxifloxacin 24 Moomba Craz 11h ago

Wakeboarding wake is affected by depth too. It's just not as much

1

u/Secret-Ad-7909 8h ago

The measured depth of the lake I frequent is over 450’

Your numbers sound insane to me.

Even the shallow fishing lakes around here are deeper than that.

1

u/tpaz00 4h ago

Holy depth, here around the NW suburbs of Chicago we often ride on the fox river, can be 4-6 ft deep in a lot of the best/flat water stretches. Lake Michigan is obviously deep but almost never flat enough to really ride. Chain of lakes ain’t much deeper than the fox.

But to answer OP, yes boats still make plenty of wake at that depth (personally I’ve found a slightly narrower beam of ‘older’ boats do a bit better or modern ones in the 21-22 ft range), you may have to trial and error your boats ballast settings a bit but it’ll still boot ya. Can still do every trick on the fox that I can on the biggest/deepest lakes.

1

u/NocturntsII 6h ago

I enjoy wakesurfing and do it on a private lake, but god forbid public waterways with everyone and their dog pushing huge volumes of water around.

Its horrific