WakeWorld - ghetto gate

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- - ghetto gate (http://www.wakeworld.com/forum/showthread.php?t=802696)

Nice job Jack... Are you running even weight?.. Also can the gate be flipped over to the goofy side

No gate can't be flipped. I fill my 750 non surf side maybe a 1/3 way up. Then I fill my 1100 surf side which never gets full but prob close to 900? 500 center floor, 550 in the bow. Then 200-300 pounds on surf side seats depending on whos with me

looks pretty good. Is it fully deployed in the pics? doesn't look like it sticks out much

It really doesn't stick out much, just enough to delay the convergence of the wave. If I had to guess I would say it sticks out 20 degrees? Give or take a few, maybe 30 degrees? I eyeballed it. I discovered when I made my first gate almost anything back there will do it, really no special measuring involved.

Simple and works great!!!

Do you have anymore pictures of the unit itself? Where did you pick up the material at?

Also, would you mind sharing the dimensions of the flap?
I'd like to make one for each side of my boat this weekend, considering I'm the only one who rides goofy..go figure

Looks pretty good to me! Is that Cherry Creek that you are at?

Jack - how did you mount it. I see the connection at the rear eyelet but where else. Would like to try making one myself

J, I will take some more pics with better detail of how I made it, hopefully I will get to it today. I ordered some 3/4" HDPE off amazon, got (2) - 12"x24" sheets, I wish I would have gotten one more then I could have used a better idea that came to me. I was going to use some really cool smoked color Lexan glass till I realized how expensive that stuff is.

Timmy, that is Chatfield at 7am on July 4th, bout the only time the water is good out there.

Tom, I thought using the threaded turnbuckle would be enough but it is not. I connect the turnbuckle to the transom as shown & use the black strap connected to the center bar above the swim deck.

Cant wait to see the more detailed pics. I'm getting some material this week and going to build one next weekend. I'm assuming that the "sandwich" slides over the swimdeck and there is a HDPE stop to hold it into place.

Are the large holes just to relieve water pressure from as it travels between the layers?

Tom, yes I used left over HDPE blocks to make a stop. I positioned where I wanted the gate, put some blocks in then screwed them down when I got the angle I wanted. I figured the large holes would get rid of pressure, not sure if really needed or not but they don't seem to have an adverse affect on the wave so I will leave them. About the only thing different I would do if I built another is not taper off the gate from the bottom. I made mine 12" at the hull then tapers to 10" at rear. I would only taper the top an inch next time if I did it over & leave the bottom alone.

Gate is 18" long which was the length of every gate I measured on the 21' boats. The 24' MXZ was 22" long.

Jack - I ordered the HDPE. Very excited to get started. I will follow your suggestion on taper the top only. How did you figure out what angle or where to put the stop block? I won't have the opportunity to try mulitple locations unless I pre-drill another set of holes. Also, what length screws did you use?

Thanks.

In my proto1 wallygate-
I noticed angle is not much of a concern as noted by the OP.
Also, in my wooden proto1 wallygate, I noticed that a 2x4 was the perfect thickness for my swim deck.
I used a 2x4 piece as a brace against the gate itself, and to screw the top and bottom swim deck mounting boards.
I also went the same route with turnbuckle and ratchet strap.

Oh, and it worked like a charm! I am going to go to a proto2, and make it a hair taller/deeper (whichever term you prefer) as I could see when I was surfing it was only diverting about 3/4 of the wave, and was getting some spray onto the locker hatch.
But when weighted with a tad of the ballast filled on the side of the gate, it solved that problem sinking the gate a bit more.

But all and all, for a 30min project, proto1 was a great success!

J - looking at his pics and based on your comments, I should maybe come up to the tie down hook...perhaps another 1/2" in height. BTW - the ratchet strap to the "ski hook" behind the grab bar or to the tie down hook on the port side?

I would Tom. Mine came to just below the hook. On my proto2 I'll make it even, or just a hair above the top of the hook.
Ratchet to the other tie down hook.
Other than the height adjustment, I won't be making any other adjustments.
Maybe fiddle with a little less angle, maybe reduce the drag on the boat a bit.
Researching others with a v215 and a gate, they say that just straight even with the boat will do.
The trick to the angle is, the more it's angled, the more it diverts the wave, the longer the pocket.

Perfect, thats the exact problem is that the sweat spot is too close up. Thanks...will keep you posted

Nothing special to the angle, I just looked at a bunch of deployed surf gate pics and eyeballed it. My thought was far enough out to delay the way, not too far or will be hard to drive.

I didn't read the whole thread but it looks just like what I saw on Facebook yesterday, wickedwakesurf.com

Wickedsurfwake just took the same ghetto gate ideas & are trying to apply them to every hull. They charge $225-$250 per side while mine cost $70 and an hour of my time. They have it down for Axis boats & are guessing on others, that's not to say they get it wrong but without having different hulls, swim platforms, etc they are shooting in the dark.

Tom, I believe I just used #8 or #10 1-1/2" or 2" (I don't remember) stainless. Home Depot has them

Great - material arrived today. WIll build it this weekend.

They quoted me $700 for both sides on an F21.

I'm almost done - pics coming later this week. So far material costs $110 for the HDPE through Amazon. $30.00 in parts from hardware store. My son and I will probably have 3 hours into it for build time.

The point of the surfgate is to improve handling and reduce the list of the boat. If it doesn't retract as slow speeds, it seems like it would handle very poorly while navigating your own rollers and getting back to the rider.

Quote:

Originally Posted by skiboarder (Post 1886583)

The manual systems such as those that have been retrofitted do not affect handling negatively at anything up to surf speed. You definitely want to put them back in before heading up to cruising speed, but there is no ill effects present when going to pick back up a rider.
Being evenly weighted is a greater advantage in handling than having a gate out by far.

Also if you are a good surf driver you know that you use your rollers in your favor to help you flip around and never have to deal with your own because they have already passed you by the time you have made a 180 and start heading back. There is little to no "navigating" of rollers, as you ease off throttle, start your turn to the opposite side you're surfing as you get to zero throttle the first wave in the set pushes you the rest of the way around. You wait for a few of them to dissipate before throttling back to the rider, most of the time you can start immediately, but you may have to wait a few seconds.
When driving I have gone from having my rider fall to having them back up surfing again in less than 30 seconds using this method, with and without surf system.

How much of a risk is there to the platform?

To find out the answer your question, have someone drive the boat at 9 or 10 and see how much resistance there is with you hand over the side of the boat in the water...there is more pressure the more surface area that is in the water. If you secure to the platform and the platform is secure, then the risk is "slim to none". If your platform is ready to fall off then the risk is much higher. Is all how you do it.

Here is one that I made for my 2007 Supreme V208. I will test it this weekend to see how it does. If i like the results I will make one out of HDPE. Total cost so far about $10 plus 1hr of time (had a 1/2 sheet of birch leftover from my sub box.

Quote:

Originally Posted by robertsjut (Post 1886871)

Excellent. Only recommendation I would offer is to make the gate 18" long, seems to be the most average length on every malibu & Axis at the dealer I measured except the 24' MXZ was 22" & taper the top two inches from the hull as it extends to the back. Yes, they did ask me why I was walking around measuring all the boats but the sales guy was really cool about it & let me carry on

Ghetto Gate 805 style

Okay - took about 4 hours for my son and I to build. Cost about $140.00. Hardest part was lining up the holes on the vertical flap with the horizontal pieces. Everything else, as Jack suggested, was eyeballed for "yeah that looks good". I kept with the 18" long per Jack.

Going to Lake Mohave this weekend to give it a test run.

And yes I need to put the damn oil on the step again....I swear it drinks it.

Looks great! My deck sucks up the oil too. Damn near impossible to keep it looking fresh. Play with your weight, mine seems to like non surf side sac about half full, so 300-400 pounds, surf side 900 pounds, wedge down (I know you don't have one), 500 in the bow & 200-300 on surf side seats. However other times it likes more or less, finicky hull I have I think

This I Brilliant! I just ordered everything to whip one up!

Hey Tom, any updates on the how the gate worked out?

Yeah Tom, how did your test go, I'm looking to do this to our V210 this year

^^^^ best "non-ghetto" example I've seen to date.

Looks nice!!! How do you weight the boat?

Both 900s full in lockers, center 1180 full, 400 in the bow, 540 on top of the playpen bag. No bags on lounge area seats or floor. People wherever they want to be. 400 in solid ballast listing to surf side a bit. Good wave.

Then added 900 to the floor to see what it would do and the wave was really nice, clean and long.

Best at 11mph.

I'll bump this thread with my version.

I ordered up two large HDPE 1/2" thick cutting boards in blue to match my hull. Also got a box of stainless screws and a couple of eye bolts.

I started up by cutting one of the cutting board pieces in half lengthwise. then I messed around a little bit and found that a pair of 1/2" HDPE scraps would work best to space the two pieces apart for my swim platform thickness (it's 3/4" plus the thickness of the hydroturf).

Since my swim platform has grab handles on the side, I made the stopper/spacer piece custom to accommodate the angle.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U...323_183758.jpg

originally I had planned to put the blue foam piece you see pictured above as a spacer to pad where the HDPE would meet my hull. But I didn't have to have foam there (more on that later).

As far as the surfgate itself, there is an inverse relationship between the length of the gate and the angle that it extends out from the hull. For the NSS, it's at a 90 degree angle to the hull and therefore has to only extend 3". Boonejeepin made a ghetto gate that is parallel with the hull and accordingly his gate needs to be quite long. I made my gate extend at an angle of 22.5 degrees. From what I remember Malibu uses 22 degrees on their surfgate and my chopsaw had a nice lock at 22.5 degrees, so that's what I used.

I cut a scrap piece at 22.5 degrees and used that as my "angle finder" and mocked up my other big piece of HDPE and drew a line at the spot where it seemed like the gate would be meeting up pretty nicely with the lower corner of my transom.

After hacking off the ends of my horizontal gate support, I realized that the pieces I just cut off would make a perfect spacer for the far end of the two horizontal supports that attach the gate to the platform. I would get 2" of mounting surface for the vertical gate to mate up with the horizontal supports.

You will also notice a black piece of HDPE that forms a gusset on the bottom of the gate. I just happened to have a scrap piece of 3/4" HDPE that was already cut as a right triangle and just happened to be the same length as the distance from the horizontal gate support to the bottom of the blade. so I figured why not and threw it on there. It was pointed out to me that my gusseting would have been stronger with the long end horizontal, but oh well--some gusset is better than no gusset.

Here is how it stands so far:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z...324_141322.jpg

I was able to secure the eye bolts through both horizontal pieces AND through the spacers, so they're bolted through a solid 2" of material with SS washers and a lock washer.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f...324_141337.jpg

Even with both ratchet straps, I didn't like how the gate didn't feel all that secure and how the rear inner corner (against the hull on the inside of the platform) wanted to pull away from the hull. That's when I came up with the idea of adding a pin. I grabbed a spare 5/8" hitch pin and drilled a hole through both horizontal supports and through the HDPE swim platform. After popping in the hitch pin and cinching up with ratchet straps, the gate is SOLID and doesn't need a pad between the horizontal supports and the hull as it'll never touch.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-G...324_141412.jpg

As far as the foam that goes between the gate and the hull, for the time being I'm using a blue dollar store pool noodle! LOL! We'll see if I come up with something better. But that edge is cut pretty well to mirror the crazy hull contour (I mocked it up with cardboard and then used my jigsaw to cut out the design on the HDPE).

Here is a close up of the attachment to the hull. Ultimately I wanted something quick and easy to install and remove from the platform when we're out on the water. Lots of people have used turnbuckle screw thingies for the attachement of the near eye to the rear tiedown eye on the hull. I didn't like additional hardware I'd have to "screw" around with (and pay for) so I opted for two ratchet straps and I think it'll work fine.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V...324_141345.jpg

Now the blade looks ginormous and it most certainly IS. I don't know how much I'll ultimately cut it down. But as you all know, it's easier to cut it than to add material!

I had found a 1:1 scale template of the actual surfgate blade from a 2014 Axis A22. I printed it out and you can see how it might overlay with my blade that I made. If you look closely, you can see the shadow of my material behind the paper to give you a perspective of how the blades compare.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-e...324_141913.jpg

Again, I figure I should at least water test it once before I start hacking off material.

Added another gusset to the gate:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W...324_191819.jpg

So any advice from those of you that have done this on how much I should cut down the gate?

Rode in my buddys 2013 MB Tomcat, which is equipped with a ghetto gate. It is actually the best build I have seen, it runs on Lenco actuators and has gauges at the helm to show position. Looks as professional as the BU surf gates, and preformed great. I took pics and hopefully will be able to post pics of the gate and the wake when I get home today

heres the pics of the MB ghetto gate

That's not ghetto - your buddy did a nice job on that system. Nice and clean!

I will try to post pics of the wake tonight, stupid phone has trouble with this site

Ya, Brian I would have thought it was a option on that boat, doesn't look to ghetto to me either...He actually didn't build it, the previous owner did.

That's a really nice job on that one! I guess it must have made that big of a difference to go through with adding the Lenco actuators and such. Nice work!

That mb gate looks great. Wow.

MB gate looks clean!