pulling a wakeboard

[davey25]

Question...i have a pontoon boat that does approx 20 mph, will it be easier to pull a waterskier or wakeboarder, dont have to do any crazy tricks just looking to get my wife up she likes to slalom. What about the rope. does a stretchless rope pull a person easier out of the water?...what it all comes down to is my limited capabilities of my boat...

 

[rallyart]

Re: pulling a wakeboard

It's easier pulling a wakeboarder. You can still carve and do surface tricks without any wake. You can watch the good boarders to rolls on the flat with no wake at all.
A zero stretch rope makes a little difference starting up but it makes a big difference when you do any kind of trick. If, for example, you want to bunny hop or do an Ollie the zero stretch line will load the energy of the boat into the board and you pop up. Push down your rear foot and the board is now on a water ramp going up. With no stretch you immediately climb the ramp and are airborne. If the rope stretches you slowly climb out of the hole and don't see much air. Try to dribble a basketball with low pressure. There is no energy stored to spring the ball back up.
You can have lots of fun carving a board at 13-15 MPH and do surface 360's or slides. At that speed the falls don't hurt.

 

[rallyart]

Re: pulling a wakeboard

You've posted the same thing on two boards. It's better to not duplicate the posts so you can get a more complete conversation.
Oh, and welcome to iboats. You'll find lots of helpful info on this site.

 

[tpenfield]

Re: pulling a wakeboard

My comment would be how quickly can you go 0-15 mph, as that is what you will need to do in order to pull a boarder up? If your top speed is 20 mph, the acceleration to 15 may not be quick enough.

 

[TheHunter990]

Re: pulling a wakeboard

I would think most people are up on a wake board at speeds as little as 6-7 mph. Wake boards will pop up out of the water much easier than skies. Sometimes when we are teaching new wake boarders, we on purpose use 1/4 throttle to let them get the feel of whats going on. You don't need a boat with 400 HP to wake board.