Boat Wake When Passing

[Urbanhick]

Whats the best way to hit the diagonal wake when passing a boat? This one makes me nervous when on plane.

[terry5357]

As perpendicular as possible and definitely trim down a tad

[Squire]

what a question. In my experience and it involves the Potomac River where you get huge tourist boats like the Spirit of Washington, the James River where you have narrow areas with commercial barges to large lakes with Wake Boats where kids are surfing 6 feet from the stern without a rope, the answer is, it depends :)

The bigger they are, the slower I want to go in general while importantly maintaining plane. Ideally, I like to parallel the wake and sideslip it like what the Spirit of Washington puts out. It almost killed me and 2 wounded soldiers I was taking out one year as we were waving at the tourists as we were going by in the opposite direction and then I saw the wake...OMG moment and one that lead me to always have a hotfoot in the boat so you don't accidentally slap the throttle lever down.

I can tell you that going airborne is very hard on your LU (I have the old check for a new one to prove it), and your back, so I have decided the best solution is to take off as much speed as I can without giving up control. smaller wakes can be taken ideally at 90 degree angles, traffic permitting. Every situation demands in some senses its own solution as you balance wake, tidal/wind influenced waves, speed of boat you are overtaking, other traffic, etc....takes years to perfect.

[12many]

I dunno if this is common But I do trim down a touch and saw the wheel to bring bow down after hitting the wake. So usually two abrubt wheel turns that pulls bow down to slice wave rather than pounding over . I use this when overtaking boats ..So passing on right i chop wheel to right twice and boat sort of rolls up wake and wheel turn brings it down.

[Bass AHolic]

whut you don't like mimicking the Dukes of Hazzard Jumps??

[Urbanhick]

This video brought the question up. It looks like he hit the diagonal wake and hooked the bow flipping them out of the boat. Don't need this happening to me.

[Urbanhick]

whut you don't like mimicking the Dukes of Hazzard Jumps??

Spine doesn't like lol

[Bass AHolic]

lolo urbn, I did about a 3' mid air in v-6 inboard ski boat few yrs ago.. if was in the bass boat I'd of been swimming.. WOT and had a character cut across in front . and it was a hard jar drop

[12many]

Original Article stated steering let go.. Wasn't driver error, mechanical failure

In response to video

[magnumb]

My 1st or 2nd time out driving high performance bass boat I came up directly behind a 40-50ft cruiser that was pushing a 4-5 foot wake and punched it and turned hard right...I started to get pulled back into the cruiser by their wake and took me several minutes to catch my breath.

[OldTimer57]

I think the original article was wrong. MANY have looked at that video carefully and in slow-mo. They simply didn't know how to drive that fast and handle the wake. When you go up and over bow-high, the water changes your direction, and then the bow comes down, you get a bow-hook instantly. Not sure why we have high school kids driving those kinds of boats at those speeds. I think many set a 60mph limit but jumping a wake that is still way too fast.

[NWStratos]

Don't do this

[Jb357]

I think the original article was wrong. MANY have looked at that video carefully and in slow-mo. They simply didn't know how to drive that fast and handle the wake. When you go up and over bow-high, the water changes your direction, and then the bow comes down, you get a bow-hook instantly. Not sure why we have high school kids driving those kinds of boats at those speeds. I think many set a 60mph limit but jumping a wake that is still way too fast.

If you know anything about driving a boat it's very obvious it was boater error in that video. The steering was probably broken as a result and the guy driving the boat probably blamed it on that other than admitting he can't drive

[DennisJensen]

Can someone tell me what they did wrong in the video? And explain what proper technique for passing a boat like they were.

[TomM]

Perpendicular for small wakes. For larger ones, like Squire mentioned above, I'll come down off of plane and parallel the wake. Once on the Potomac, I was paralleling a large wake while on plane and didn't see another large wake coming at us perpendicular until I hit it. That was the first time I ever had my boat airborne. It was pretty scary seeing my partner in the air about 3 feet above his seat...

Tom

[LittlePech]

Can someone tell me what they did wrong in the video? And explain what proper technique for passing a boat like they were.

1) Don't be doing top speed.
2) Come close to perpendicular.
3) Don't be turning when your cutting across.

I have a deep-v so its a little different but if I'm doing something like that it looks like an S-curve.
Where the centre of the S is straight across the wake.

[PhoenixDrew]

I have a simple and relatively painless approach to passing. If I am coming up to a boat, and I know I am going to be passing because of my speed relative to there's I move left or right as soon as possible. This way I am in the calmest part of the wake. The calmer the water the less you need to be 90 degrees.

[Florida Jig Co.]

Trim down
slow down before you hit the wake
Hit the wake perpendicular
and keep straight when you hit the wake.....Dont turn until after you are over the wake.

[Bass newb]

I can't see what they did wrong in that video. It's not a good perspective.

[OldTimer57]

Too many things to list.

1. Why pass on such a narrow channel where you are REAL close to the boat you are passing.

2. Don't pass over a wake close to the boat making it at such a shallow angle

3. TRIM DOWN

4. You can NOT turn the wheel while hitting the wakes. The bow will be out of the water as you peak over one of the waves, which lets it swing out much quicker than you expect. When it comes back down, the boat is going the way the keel is pointing. YOU are going to go the way you were moving thanks to inertia.

It was simply dangerous driving from the beginning. These things require attention, judgement, attention, caution, attention and ... did I mention attention? They were probably trying to show everyone how fast their boat was. They ended up showing everyone what carelessness can do. Fortunately they were just banged up, and not killed.