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Big wave on front deck.

ErinnDan

ErinnDan

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Sarartoga Lake, Saratoga Springs, NY.
Anyone ever catch a wave on their front deck? I got my deck soaked the other day in some choppy water. We were traveling slow with a bit of weight in the front. Has this ever happened to anyone else?
 
It only happened once when I slowed down for a large wave and I have 3 tubes. It has never happened again. I fly over the waves now and always keep the bow up even if I have to ask people to move. I am the captain. B)
 
Yes, with my 2 tube boats it happened occasionally, soaking the whole boat front to back! If possible, I try not to load the front when underway, and when I see wakes I give it little power to bring the front up. This is common to most 2 tube boats with normal size logs, but now that we have the ESP it's never an issue.
 
Oh yea!!! It happened to me with my first boat which had the twin elliptical tubes. Just leaving a cove and had a pretty good load up front when I hit a big wave. Fortunately I was only moving about 5 mph.
 
Erinn, timeing the throttle to get the bow up can help sometimes. With a load up front, it's hard to do without a big motor. Vigilance is the best fix. Steve
 
Not on my Benni, but got my dad pretty good with Gillgetter. He was sitting on bow seat and got a face full !!!
 
Happened to me as well with my first boat, you learn quick when water is rolling past you at the helm!! haha
 
Happened while I was on a toon, we had ~10 people on and we were night cruising. The owner of the boat was letting someone else "steer". Needless to say the driver was unaware of the " speed up (bow up) across the wake" rule. The owner, a 350lb division one lineman, takes off running from the bow to the stern yelling "EVERYONE TO THE BACK OF THE BOAT, EVERYONE TO THE BACK OF THE BOAT!!!!! A few made it, the ladies that did not had that, "you're dead" look in their eyes. I was already in the back and we took on about 6" of water. At my feet when it was all over, were sweaters, shoes, shorts, and contents of purses (yes, those contents)...

Needless to say I was laughing hysterically!
 
We took our first one over Memorial Day week-end. I was running over some pretty good size wakes and having no issues. I stopped at the end of the river that heads out to the Gulf. I was slowly turning around when someone in a Hurricane was digging a deep trough trying to get on plane. I was moving very slowly and took it straight on right over the bow. Luckily we all had our swim suits on. I had asked in another thread about how big is too big to take a wake under speed. How much can a 20 foot 2 25inch log pontoon handle. What's the largest wake you have handled without backing off?
 
Never had that issue with my Bennington and honestly cannot imaginng that ever happening.
 
I've had numerous waves come over just floating. My lake is 7.5 x 2.5 miles, I'm OK with just choppy water but when there are numerous boats on the water and everybody is creating a wake, I've had some big rollers come over the side,bow and stern in the past. That was with my two 25" tubes, I have a third tube (ESP) now so I'm hoping that it's much better than in the past. I can tell it already rides much higher.
 
Yup, been there, done that and don't want to do it again. I had a couple people up front when we took a wake at the same time I let off the throttle. It took days to get the water out from under the seats, the raised helm, the center toon storage and the carpets dried out.
 
Then again I would "submarine" my jet boat with wife on bow ... full speed forward, nail reverse then forward again...... big wave over bow !! :lol:

She loved it when I soaked her !!! :blink:
 
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I was out on the boat this week and experienced extremely large rollers and I am happy to report that the third tube really works well. No water on board. I'm curious if anyone knows the height difference between have standard 25" tubes versus a third tube. I feel like I'm sitting a foot higher than before.
 
ErinnDan said:
Anyone ever catch a wave on their front deck? I got my deck soaked the other day in some choppy water. We were traveling slow with a bit of weight in the front. Has this ever happened to anyone else?
Click to expand...
I have basically the same set-up. Last week a storm blew up on Lake George in Fl. It was just my wife and I so we were in the back with the bow

trimmed up. We spent over an hour at 3knots being pounded with 3 & 4 footers.(ankle deep water on the deck at times) Water, small fish, mud.

It was one of the few times we actually wore our ski vests underway!

I checked for damage after and everything looked fine. tough little boat :)
 
Yep. Other weekend headed out the jetties (Calcasieu River SW Louisiana) crossed a big sucker bottom dredge he was rolling in and it was at almost end of jetties should slowed down because I wasn't going to to fast and wave got us soaked on person who was sitting on ice chest even with console we had front gate open because we been fishing and moving around a lot. I was dry and other person was dry but man oh man was he wet, it was really funny but i slowed down waves were about five foot in gulf on back side of jetties. Of course following weekend I couldn't get a wave to splash us again like that because he fell asleep on front seat. (AND I TRIED TO GET HIM WET HARD)
 
I seem to recall this being discussed before and others have reported dented fences because of waves over the bows. I don't think anyone on this thread mentioned it, so thought I'd mention that.  Trimming up and throttling up to get the bow up to prevent it is a good idea.
 
Where this will often happen is when you have a following sea and you're going faster than the waves. You'lll come over a swell and go nose-first into the next wave. You'll take water over the bow - and the first time you do it you'll poop your pants in fear - but then the water will simply run off and you'll pop back up like a cork.

It's nothing to take lightly though because your fence can get damaged, and more seriously, depending on where people are standing or sitting in the boat you could end up in a Man Overboard situation.

A following sea can be a tricky thing in a pontoon boat due to the low freeboard.
 
Same here. first week with new boat, pulled up on a wave and had it crash over. I was actually surprised more by the response on the throttle of a 115 Merc than the water crashing LOL
 
Happened to us a couple of weeks ago.Coming from manatee river towards sunshine skyway bridge when a huge sea ray cruiser come around the channel marker full speed and created such a wave I thought we were going to flip.The wave washed over the fencing and lounges and washed the whole deck with at least a foot of water.The deck was pretty clean after that but everyone had wet sneakers.I was pretty shure we had dented fencing but to my good fortune not a ripple on the fencing maybe the 2014 have heavier gauge metal.
 
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