Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave R
I don't really care about wakes, but I like math and boats and feel compelled to point out that if you take a 3 foot wake and halve it,, it's still a 1.5 foot wake, and easily 3 times the biggest wake you would get at headway speed in the vast majority of boats on the lake. As an experiment, go through the Weirs Channel making a 1.5 foot wake and see if anyone complains  |
I am a lot of things but an engineer in fluid dynamics is not one of them. Perhaps a more qualified person can elaborate on the details.
That said, I 100% agree that a 1.5 foot wave in the channel would not be ideal. Some of the details of the research I mentioned were not readily available, but I believe the variability in the estimated dissipation rates have to do with several factors. Namely, a WakeSurf wake has significantly more power than a Wakeboard or ski wake. Beyond the fact that the size of the wake is larger for a surf wake (3+ foot variety vs. the 2.5 foot variety for a wakeboarder) -- the power or displacement has to do with how the boat is traveling through the water. For example a wakesurf wake is formed by significantly weighting and/or deflecting water to one side of the boat. Moreover, the sport is performed at a transition speed (~11 mph) which causes significant bow rise and accompanying swell off the stern. This powerful wave dissipates at a slower rate than other waves. As Dan (ishoot308) observed, this causes the boat to behave in a similar fashion the the large displacement hull cabin cruisers.