I finally dialed it in after 1 and 1/2 seasons!!
After searching this forum over for the last 2 years I realized that there is a few threads on the 20V/Switch V but nothing detailed. It is for that reason that I'm making this tread. I have tried everything from a wake shaping wedge to listed and everything in between including what seemed like a million weight configurations. No matter what I did the wave, although beautiful, had zero push. The conclusion I came to is this hull prefers to be listed hard and weighted heavily. The wedge, no matter the weight configuration, only made the wave worse in all conditions. So below I'm going to attempt to lay out most of the setups I have tried and there results.
Boat specs for future reference:
2005 Tige Switch V
Marine Power 5.7 L 340 horsepower
Taps 2
1:1 ratio final drive
Acme 537 prop (13.5x16) 4 blade
Largest rider: 6'2" 260 lbs
Board: Hyperlite broadcast 5'6"
Now I had a few issues i had to work around. I did not mind having bags in the seats but i had to deal with a few other issues. We only surf the regular side. I usually have a crew of 5-9 people. That requires a rather large cooler. So we keep a Yeti 65 in the starboard locker at all times which I estimates weights around 150 lbs fully loaded. So therefore I was dealing with opposite side weight that I was not willing to relocate. I also have a 3 battery bank which consists of 3 31 series deep cycle batteries under the rear port bench seat equaling another 150 pounds. This kind of counter acted the cooler but put 300 pounds total of rear weight in the boat that made it naturally ride bow high. It also eliminated the possibility of an enzo style sac.
Now with all that said. My initial setup was based on what everybody says about weighting a boat. "Put as much weight in the rear corner as you can fit" This posed two problems for me. One being my boat only being 20 feet long all this weight in the corner made it ride bow high resulting in a very very short and step wake. Second, it buried my swim deck which in 2005 was huge. This caused what wake I had to be washed out unless I ran the taps all the way down past 1. The following is my set up and the result. It looked huge to me compared to no weight at all but it had zero push. (On a side note) I had read on this forum that most people only ran 400 lbs in the rear locker on the 20V. I did try this and although I don't have any pics I can tell you it made a good looking wave although small and no push for a rider my size. So we will move strait into the larger weight.
750 lbs in port locker
All passengers on the port bench seat with any extras in the bow
Boat listed about 6-7 degrees
Speed 9.8-10.2 mph
Taps at 1
IMG_0767.jpg
So then comes the wake shaping wedges to the market. I am not a rich man and could not afford one so I made my own. My initial test looked promising. I first tried the wedge with even weight as best I could. I only had the option at the time of 400 lbs in the port locker and place people on the starboard side to level the boat. This resulted in a better looking wave but had less push than my previous setup. Also the nature of the beast, it pushed my swimdeck into the water on the port side causing washout of the wave.
Taps at 1
Speed 9.8 mph
IMG_0773.jpg
When this setup failed I thought well I'll combine the two principles of weighting a boat and list it with the wedge. Had I not been so green to the sport I would have realized this would only combine my issues. As you can guess this did not work. With the wedge it only buried my platform deeper washing the wave out more. So I upped the anti by adding weight to the front. This is the result.
750 lbs port locker
400 lbs front port bow
All passengers on port bench or in the bow
Taps at 1 (Was my only option)
Speed 9.8 mph (Only speed that would work with this setup)
List 8-9 deg
IMG_0785.jpg
After all this the season was about to be over and I was FED UP!! I researched every thread I could find on Tigeowners and took the principles of everything I could find and came up with a plan. I was over the wake shaper idea. It was a pain in the butt and I was not going to waste anymore time on it. I knew from my previous testing the list of the boat was key along with overall weight. I also knew that the swim deck was an issue. And I also realized I had to make the pocket longer therefor I needed to add weight to the front, speed up, or do both. Since I was mad at the whole deal I decided to go all in.
I started with the swim platform. I noticed that people would either move them up or trim them down. Raising mine too high was not an option. I did not want a later but wanted easy boarding from the water since some of my passengers do not have the strength to climb into the boat. So it had to stay close to the water line. After measuring I decided I could raise the platform 1 inch and cut it down all the way to the brackets. I looked at pics of the newer boats to guide my layout. I am not going to go into detail on the platform build but I will include pics. If you want to know the specs I will add them later on. It is fairly self explanatory though once you see the pics. Then I wanted to lean the boat as far as possible and add as much weight as I could since the platform would no longer cause me issues. I decided to give it a hail marry and work my way backwards if needed. So this is the final setup and end result.
750 lbs port locker
400 lbs port bench all the way back
400 lbs port bow seat
5 passengers on port side anywhere they would fit
Plus me in the driver seat
Taps between 4 and 5
Speed 12 mph
List around 12 deg
Notice the speed and taps changed.....The list, weight, and swim deck allowed me way more options on speed and taps to adjust the wave. Also notice in the end how the wave has cleaned up and has a more defined curl.
GPExportPhoto.jpg
IMG_2469.jpg
IMG_2561.jpg
IMG_2564.jpg
GPExportPhoto.jpg
Now if any of these pics will tell the whole story I don't know. What I do know is this final setup produced a wave that is effortless to surf on with enough push that you will run over the boat if your not careful. It also produced a pocket that is 5-6 feet long which I feel is respectable for a 20 foot boat. The only draw back to this setup is underway the rub rails is 2-3 inches under the water so I had to modify my fuel vent to keep water out. I is also a no go if the water is rough due to how deep the boat sits in the water.
Final notes:
I realize this is a long post and not useful to but a small percentage of Tige Owners. But I hope my struggles will help somebody skip all the leg work in the future.
Also since everyone always asks how much fuel is used wakesurfing I can tell you that with the final setup on this boat it has been averaging 5.5 GPH consistently.
And I am sure I missed something so if you have any questions please post them up and I will edit the post or add a thread to clear anything up.
After searching this forum over for the last 2 years I realized that there is a few threads on the 20V/Switch V but nothing detailed. It is for that reason that I'm making this tread. I have tried everything from a wake shaping wedge to listed and everything in between including what seemed like a million weight configurations. No matter what I did the wave, although beautiful, had zero push. The conclusion I came to is this hull prefers to be listed hard and weighted heavily. The wedge, no matter the weight configuration, only made the wave worse in all conditions. So below I'm going to attempt to lay out most of the setups I have tried and there results.
Boat specs for future reference:
2005 Tige Switch V
Marine Power 5.7 L 340 horsepower
Taps 2
1:1 ratio final drive
Acme 537 prop (13.5x16) 4 blade
Largest rider: 6'2" 260 lbs
Board: Hyperlite broadcast 5'6"
Now I had a few issues i had to work around. I did not mind having bags in the seats but i had to deal with a few other issues. We only surf the regular side. I usually have a crew of 5-9 people. That requires a rather large cooler. So we keep a Yeti 65 in the starboard locker at all times which I estimates weights around 150 lbs fully loaded. So therefore I was dealing with opposite side weight that I was not willing to relocate. I also have a 3 battery bank which consists of 3 31 series deep cycle batteries under the rear port bench seat equaling another 150 pounds. This kind of counter acted the cooler but put 300 pounds total of rear weight in the boat that made it naturally ride bow high. It also eliminated the possibility of an enzo style sac.
Now with all that said. My initial setup was based on what everybody says about weighting a boat. "Put as much weight in the rear corner as you can fit" This posed two problems for me. One being my boat only being 20 feet long all this weight in the corner made it ride bow high resulting in a very very short and step wake. Second, it buried my swim deck which in 2005 was huge. This caused what wake I had to be washed out unless I ran the taps all the way down past 1. The following is my set up and the result. It looked huge to me compared to no weight at all but it had zero push. (On a side note) I had read on this forum that most people only ran 400 lbs in the rear locker on the 20V. I did try this and although I don't have any pics I can tell you it made a good looking wave although small and no push for a rider my size. So we will move strait into the larger weight.
750 lbs in port locker
All passengers on the port bench seat with any extras in the bow
Boat listed about 6-7 degrees
Speed 9.8-10.2 mph
Taps at 1
IMG_0767.jpg
So then comes the wake shaping wedges to the market. I am not a rich man and could not afford one so I made my own. My initial test looked promising. I first tried the wedge with even weight as best I could. I only had the option at the time of 400 lbs in the port locker and place people on the starboard side to level the boat. This resulted in a better looking wave but had less push than my previous setup. Also the nature of the beast, it pushed my swimdeck into the water on the port side causing washout of the wave.
Taps at 1
Speed 9.8 mph
IMG_0773.jpg
When this setup failed I thought well I'll combine the two principles of weighting a boat and list it with the wedge. Had I not been so green to the sport I would have realized this would only combine my issues. As you can guess this did not work. With the wedge it only buried my platform deeper washing the wave out more. So I upped the anti by adding weight to the front. This is the result.
750 lbs port locker
400 lbs front port bow
All passengers on port bench or in the bow
Taps at 1 (Was my only option)
Speed 9.8 mph (Only speed that would work with this setup)
List 8-9 deg
IMG_0785.jpg
After all this the season was about to be over and I was FED UP!! I researched every thread I could find on Tigeowners and took the principles of everything I could find and came up with a plan. I was over the wake shaper idea. It was a pain in the butt and I was not going to waste anymore time on it. I knew from my previous testing the list of the boat was key along with overall weight. I also knew that the swim deck was an issue. And I also realized I had to make the pocket longer therefor I needed to add weight to the front, speed up, or do both. Since I was mad at the whole deal I decided to go all in.
I started with the swim platform. I noticed that people would either move them up or trim them down. Raising mine too high was not an option. I did not want a later but wanted easy boarding from the water since some of my passengers do not have the strength to climb into the boat. So it had to stay close to the water line. After measuring I decided I could raise the platform 1 inch and cut it down all the way to the brackets. I looked at pics of the newer boats to guide my layout. I am not going to go into detail on the platform build but I will include pics. If you want to know the specs I will add them later on. It is fairly self explanatory though once you see the pics. Then I wanted to lean the boat as far as possible and add as much weight as I could since the platform would no longer cause me issues. I decided to give it a hail marry and work my way backwards if needed. So this is the final setup and end result.
750 lbs port locker
400 lbs port bench all the way back
400 lbs port bow seat
5 passengers on port side anywhere they would fit
Plus me in the driver seat
Taps between 4 and 5
Speed 12 mph
List around 12 deg
Notice the speed and taps changed.....The list, weight, and swim deck allowed me way more options on speed and taps to adjust the wave. Also notice in the end how the wave has cleaned up and has a more defined curl.
GPExportPhoto.jpg
IMG_2469.jpg
IMG_2561.jpg
IMG_2564.jpg
GPExportPhoto.jpg
Now if any of these pics will tell the whole story I don't know. What I do know is this final setup produced a wave that is effortless to surf on with enough push that you will run over the boat if your not careful. It also produced a pocket that is 5-6 feet long which I feel is respectable for a 20 foot boat. The only draw back to this setup is underway the rub rails is 2-3 inches under the water so I had to modify my fuel vent to keep water out. I is also a no go if the water is rough due to how deep the boat sits in the water.
Final notes:
I realize this is a long post and not useful to but a small percentage of Tige Owners. But I hope my struggles will help somebody skip all the leg work in the future.
Also since everyone always asks how much fuel is used wakesurfing I can tell you that with the final setup on this boat it has been averaging 5.5 GPH consistently.
And I am sure I missed something so if you have any questions please post them up and I will edit the post or add a thread to clear anything up.
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