[Speedwake]

I have to tell this story.

Yesterday Karen and I took some friends out on the boat. We like these folks because they're cool and they're not wimps.

The guys name is T (it's really Tom but every calls him T). He's cool and his fiance Lois is an old friend of Karen's. She;s very cool too.

I've given up trying to cruise over the huge wakes made by some of the Yachts that barrel up and down the Chesapeake bay, so nowadays I just jump their wakes. I'm getting pretty good at timing, speed and picking the sweet spots.

We were on our way down the bay yesterday afternoon to a town called Rock Hall to our favorite place for steamed crabs.

I see this big yacht (60 feet or so) hammering towards us. T's sitting to my right and Karen and Lois are on the back seat. I give'em lots of warning and tell'em they're going to have to hang on in about 30 seconds.

I swing left then right and gun the throttle and head for the wake behind this yacht. By the time I see that the wake is about 5 feet high; it's too late to back off the throttle and we zoom up the wave and WHOA! ---- into the air!!!!

About this time I look all I can see is the bow of the boat up at least 45 degrees and maybe more. All I can think at this point is 'GOD I hope nobody is below me on the other side because we're coming down and we're gonna kill'em if we land on'em".

As soon as the boat leaves the water, I roll off the throttle so not to overrev the engine and we land as smooth as your can imagine. The boat sets down with a really nice "whoosh" and I get back on the throttles like I do this sort of thing every day (NOT!).

In all honesty the boat must have been at least 15 feet in the air and scared the crap out of me for fear that I was going to injure the passengers when we landed.

It was incredible......

Another powerboat trailing the Yacht by about 1/2 mile all give me a big thumbs up as we cruised by them...

It was hang time and BIG AIR to remember...

 

[obnoxus]

Heck,,,, Cmon down to Chicago,,, thats a normal day around here !!!! Thats why I can't knock Baja,,,, 520 hours on her and still solid !!! Boatnut has a video of me and the Mrs. launching off a huge cruiser wake,,, look at the video you would swear we were at 90 degrees !!!!! Like you said though came down as smooth as you could ask for.

Hey Jeff,,, we should start our own version of the mile high club !!!

 

[OldMagicfloat]

Jeff,great story.I kinda treat my boat as if it were a 27 foot jet ski. Not that I abuse it,but I do love gettin air. The problem is alot of the passengers don't.

I took my wifes sister and husband out about 2 years ago. Same like you ,I give them plenty of advance warning,and tell them to hang loose. Well my sister in law hangs real loose. So loose that as I swerved into this huge wake from a cruiser,I threw her to the floor,and her bringing everyone else with her. Damn were they pissed. Needless to say,they have only been out 1 other time in the last 2 years
Hey,couldn't have been all bad,at least they came back:laugher:
But now I try not to get to much air with passengers

Oh,almost forgot,my sister in law ripped the oh-chit handle right off the back of my seat.

 

[ducHunter]

Last summer the wife and I were out one evening and the wind came up, the bay started to get these nice little 2 footers and we were flying along just fine until a 2 footer became a 4 footer and really launched our 21 ft boat for some nice hang time, landing was smooth but wife did not like the facted we were out of the water that long. Any way things will be good when we get a bigger boat in a few years. Now my wife is becoming quite a good weather person.
ducHunter

 

[greeneyedbeacher]

It was definitely HUGE AIR...

I remember standing behind Jeff holding on to the bar, looking at the monstrous wake behind the yacht. As we got closer I saw that it was more than a wake - this thing had a curl that would make any surfer drool! I knew that Jeff was gonna go for it when he didn't slow down or veer-off, and I remember thinking he was COMPLETELY INSANE when he pointed the nose of the boat directly at the wave's highest point! Just then the most amazing sweet-spot appeared in the wave, perfectly in line with our boat and 2 seconds later we were air-born. All I could see was the back of Jeff's head and the nose of the boat rising above me. I held my breath for what seemed like forever and prepared to experience the hardest landing imaginable. I'm telling you that landing was one of the smoothest we've ever had! I think we got so much air that we actually hit the equally huge curl on the other side of the wake and just rode it down! It was AWESOME; something I'm sure we'll never be able to duplicate... Jeff better never try to, anyway!