How to Give Your Boat A Bigger Wake

Having a boat that spits out a big wake is super helpful to wakeboarders who are trying to maximize their trick potential. Some people are blessed with big beautiful wakeboard boats that are designed to put out a huge wave which will give the boarders a lot of height and pop on their jumps. Many of us, however, are working with a normal ski boat, or maybe even a borderline fishing boat. These kinds of boats put out a much flatter wake than a wakeboarding boat. This makes it harder to get good air and land those impressive stunts. Here are 5 ways we can improve the wake without having to go out and spend $150,000 on a new boat:

Fill the gas tank

This is a small one, but everything helps. Boat engines are typically in the back, or transom, of the boat. Likewise, that is where the gas is stored. More weight in the back of the boat will directly correlate to a bigger wake. One gallon of gas weighs about 6 pounds and boat tanks can sometimes take up to 50 gallons of gas. This is 300 pounds that you can take advantage of right there without really any extra work. So make sure you fill’er up before every trip!

Play with your trim settings

Take a cruise through the lake without anybody riding, but go at the speed you would normally go when pulling a wakeboarder (~20mph). Adjust the trim of your engine and try to find that sweet spot that produces that big desirable wave. I have found that for outboard engines, you will want to trim more downwards, and inboard engines will usually be better trimmed up. Every boat is different though, so do some experimenting of your own out on the water.

inboard vs. outboard. how to give your boat a bigger wake. — Outboard vs. inboard boat engine

Adjust your boat’s speed

Alright, if you found a good trim for your engine while keeping the speed constant, you can now try adjusting the speed of your boat to see what affect it has on the size of your wake. This may be easier because we already know the approximate speed needed for wakeboarding. For example if you see your boat has a big, voluptuous wake at 12mph, it doesn’t matter. You can’t wakeboard while going that slow. Try different speeds in the range of 16-24mph and stick with the one that you feel optimizes your wake size.

Bring more people

We already talked about adding more weight with gasoline, how about humans? If you populate your boat with more people, you are naturally adding more weight to the boat. Try to position them in a way where the weight is evenly distributed on the left and right of the boat, and make sure the seats in the rear are filled before the seats in the bow. You’re gonna get a better bang for your buck with rear-weight than bow-weight.

Ballasts (FatSacs!!)

If you tried all of the above suggestions, and still aren’t satisfied with your wake size, then it is time to bring out the big guns. Ballasts are huge bags that you place in your boat and then pump lake water into. These bad boys can add thousands of pounds to your boat and really jack up that wake. If you have a couple hundred bucks and really want to take your wake to the next level, I’d consider investing in one or two of these things. I’ll link a couple good options below. Here is what your wake can look like with a couple of these in your boat: