Planing Issue Wakeboarding Yamaha AR195

Hello, my father just bought a new Yamaha AR195, however we are having some issues with speed. The "optimal" speed to me, the rider seems to be hard to settle in on. When the boat is planing up, it is simply too slow, however when the boat is planing down the speed is just too fast. The optimal speed is in between and it seems hard to maintain a constant speed. Any help would be appreciated. Also, the wake on this AR195 seems to be a lot smaller than most boats I see on some wakeboarding videos. Any help would be appreciated!

Originally Posted by loganc123

Hello, my father just bought a new Yamaha AR195, however we are having some issues with speed. The "optimal" speed to me, the rider seems to be hard to settle in on. When the boat is planing up, it is simply too slow, however when the boat is planing down the speed is just too fast. The optimal speed is in between and it seems hard to maintain a constant speed. Any help would be appreciated. Also, the wake on this AR195 seems to be a lot smaller than most boats I see on some wakeboarding videos. Any help would be appreciated!

No disrespect but you have the wrong boat for wakeboarding. Your boat is a jet boat. You need an inboard. Not saying you can't get a decent wake out of it but it will never ever be what a true wakeboat is surfing or wakeboarding. If it were me I'd sell it and demo and find a true wakeboat that fits you and your families needs.

Out of the situation I have, what is our best bet as far as the planing / wake issue?

Look into this company. Www.perfectpass.com it's a speed control. That is your best bet.

Have you tried using the Cruise Assist that looks to be standard on your boat?

My dad has a Chaparral IO and it is very hard for the driver to maintain the speed manually when pulling a rider. Inboard boats will come with Perfect Pass which is a fancy cruise control that keeps the speed constant by adding/removing throttle as necessary. With perfect pass you program the speed you want and bury the throttle on the start and let go of the throttle until your rider falls then you pull it back.

Have your Dad get used to setting the Cruise Assist when you ride so he can focus on boat traffic and the rider instead of the watching the speedometer.

Here is a video of Scott Byerly riding behind a outboard boat with no ballast doing flips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DupkCGXnhQU. You should be able to have fun and progress with your current boat.

Have you tried changing your rope length? If you ride longer or shorter you may be able to tune the speed that you ride to the boat a bit.

As for wake size and shape you are restricted to your boat, you can get some fat sacs and slam it and it will help. I used to throw in 1000 lbs into my I/o plus have 6-8 people and I would get a decent wake for the boat.

Hull of a jet boat is meant to go fast, not build a wake. Going to be hard to get a good wake, but like any other boat, its water displacement.

Your rider might have to learn to ride faster. Hard to manipulate the speed that the hull wants to plane out. Some bow weight might get it settled down at a slower speed and even help the wave.

When driving an outboard or I/O without a perfect pass type cruise control you are going to always be slightly on and off the throttle at all times. You won't just get to hold the throttle in one place and go. Even my old direct drive I had to do that. Someone cutting out from the wake would slow the boat down so the driver (me) would have to get on the throttle a bit and left off a bit when the rider then when to cut back in. Otherwise trim all the way down to start and once up you can use the trim (up) to clean up the wake a bit. As others have said however, you'll always have harder time with that type of boat.

Start wakeskating as the wake is less important to this disclipine of riding.

try some bow weight, but you're always gonna be on the cusp of going to slow and wake crumbling. cruise assist may help. driver has gotta be on his toes with the throttle.

try riding at 22 or so

Another suggest that may or may not help is to watch your rpm. In my I/O there were only a few of us that could drive that boat bang on and it was all learning, listening, and watching. I watched my rpm closer than my speed know that at between x and x rpm the speed would be within 21 and 22.5 MPH. Learn to listen to the engine, even the slightest pitch change indicates that your rpm is moving. It's a tricky thing but it can be done.

Originally Posted by eternalshadow

Another suggest that may or may not help is to watch your rpm. In my I/O there were only a few of us that could drive that boat bang on and it was all learning, listening, and watching. I watched my rpm closer than my speed know that at between x and x rpm the speed would be within 21 and 22.5 MPH. Learn to listen to the engine, even the slightest pitch change indicates that your rpm is moving. It's a tricky thing but it can be done.

Great advice here. This is how we did it before there was perfect pass.

Originally Posted by jarrod

Great advice here. This is how we did it before there was perfect pass.

yup. best way to drive a boat with without a speed system. almost mentioned that in above post

I'd recommend checking out the jetboaters.net forum and ask the membership there. Like these folks have said, you're fighting a bit of an uphill battle in that your boat is just simply not designed to maintain a steady speed between 15 & 22 mph like an inboard wakeboat can do. Not dissing your boat at all - my last boat was a Yamaha SX210 and I had it for 4 years. The YJB is a great all around recreational boat and you can for sure wakeboard behind it, but you may need to make some mods (perfect pass and potentially some ballast) or spend some good quality time learning how to maintain a steady lowish speed, which will require a pretty active pilot.