Building a Wakeboarding Lake
 

I Have currently started to build a wakeboarding lake in IL. the plans are the following 2,600' long 250' to 300' wide. Shooting for at least 12' deep.
I bought property that had an 8 acre lake on it . The plan is to be around 18 acres when finished.

I got a basic design and layout of the lake but it is based on information I collected for a ski lake. there is 3 or 4 ski lakes in the area but they are only 6' to 8' deep and they do not use them for a lot of wakeboarding.

We have drained the old lake and currently move about 10,000 yards of dirt (all silt out of previous lake). I am doing this myself with family and friends helping and it is going to take at least a year or two to build.

I was wondering if any has built or had anyone build them a wakeboard lake we also are trying to entertain the idea if wakesurfing on the lake also.

I am Looking to talk with people about bank designs and erosion control due to surf and wakeboard wakes.

Also water quality control due to the lake being surrounded by farm fields. There is a lot of field run off.

Try contacting www.bsrcablepark.com in Waco. They have turned their land into what you are pretty much trying to do.

I have always wanted to do this... No matter what day or time you want to ride its glass. If you do go thru with it post your progress, I think it would be interesting to see what the permitting process will be

boat lake or cable lake?

That place looks amazing.

Boat lake is what I am after. I am wanting to add a two tower cable on one of the coves later on if everything works out.

location, as we are in IL also..

I'm also in Illinois, where are you building?

You may want to consider digging it deeper cause if u are trying to surf with a heavily weighted boat then your going to lose a lot of push cause your wake bouncing off the bottom and the same with wakeboarding.

Make the ends wider for turns and put islands in to turn around to keep the lake calm. Also look at pics of radar lake

I feel like I might be dreaming.....where in IL? Please be the SW Suburbs of Chicago....Please....

Radarlake http://static1.squarespace.com/stati...dar_Lake_1.jpg

According to Google maps Radar is about 2050ft long, so yours should be very nice with the additional length.

Man, what a beautiful place

I am building it in Brighton, IL it is about 30 minutes out of downtown ST. Louis.

Radar is paradise for sure but much more ski than wakeboard. Bigger the better for a wakeboard lake for sure! Good luck!

That's awesome! Are you planning to sell lots for it? Or are you going to sell memberships? Or either lol.

I'm 3 hours north of the Lou, so def a bummer!

For right now I am trying to keep everything as private as I can. Once done I was thinking some type of membership once it is done mainly for friends.

Depending on the boat and how low you want to weight it you are going to want 12' as a minimum depth. Anything less than that and it could diminish the wake from the boat. (ask for the technical speak as to why that is, if you want).
250' should be plenty wide, unless you have Randall Harris out there you not going to have a rider with a rope length longer than 75' which is 150' maximum width leaving 50' of run off on either side which is good.
For the bank have it sloped coming into the water. If its too steep coming into the water the wake rollers will roll back off the shore and just bounce back around the lake. nice and mellow and the waves just roll up on shore and go away. But you'd want a decent drop off after that so you minimizes the areas where a riding and accidentally run ashore and hit something with the boat. Turn islands at each end would also help the turn around rollers too.
A dock would be good for getting on and off the boat as well as a place for a rider to start from.
I don't know what kind of wind coverage you have there (trees, hills...) but if you don't have much I'd recommend you look into where the wind usually comes from for certain times of the year, based on that you can plant some trees that'll give you good coverage from the wind. idk what your place is like but would hate for you to get it all done and have the wind ruining the water condition everyday. And planting sooner would mean that they'd be well grown by the time you finished.
I want my own boat lake, and cable lake, and boat...

Wolff did you complete this project? I am curious how it turned out.