Driving the S4 in rough water in a big boat’s wake (movie)

We wanted to show the Wavewalk S4 going in rough water, but since we couldn’t find water that was choppy enough in Key Largo, we made our own chop ๐Ÿ˜€
Larry drove his commercial fishing boat, the Line Dancer, Orit sat at the stern and shot video with our new Nikon camera equipped with a X83 optical zoom lens (great camera), and I drove an S4 in the boat’s wake.

The Line Dancer’s wake was V shaped, with pronounced “ridges” of waves and turbulence on both sides, and a quieter area in between.
When we went in open areas where the tidal current and wind created natural chop, adding the boat’s wake on top generated pretty hectic conditions that were a bit challenging to drive through, mainly because the motor on my S4 was a little 3.5 HP that didn’t allow for much planing and playing. This application calls for a more powerful motor, and a 6 HP outboard would have probably yielded more spectacular action shots. But at least we were able to demonstrate the principle…
When we drove in quieter zones, I just surfed the Line Dancer’s wake, and that was easy and fun.

 

 

What’s the real-world advantage of the S4’s ability to go through fast currents and chop?
“Real World” usually means you have to go from point A to point B, and you’re not just looking for some driving action fun. This can happen when you use the S4 as a tender for a bigger boat, or yacht, or when you drive in fast rivers that are swollen by water from melting snow in spring, or by tidal currents in coastal areas.
Jon boats and skiffs don’t excel in such conditions, to say the least, and inflatable dinghies are neither the most comfortable nor the most reliable choice. But the S4 shines in the chop, not just due to its natural, physical, “catamaran” stability, but also because it offers the driver to ride a saddle seat similar to the seat that other high performance vehicles feature, such as personal watercraft (PWC a.k.a. “jet ski”), all-terrain vehicles (ATV), snowmobiles, and dirt bikes.

 

 

6 thoughts on “Driving the S4 in rough water in a big boat’s wake (movie)”

  1. Awesome video. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Yep, 5hp or 6hp would help in those heavy chops, but that 3.5hp did just fine.

    Great still shot of the splash as you were going thru the chop.

    Can’t wait to see more adventures in the S4.

    Tight Lines and MoPaddle Safe All.
    Rox

  2. Thanks Rox,

    Glad you like it!

    Here is what I learned on this trip: If you wear a white shirt and you drive in the chop, the shirt becomes transparent ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

    ๐Ÿ˜€

    Yoav

  3. Yoav,

    If you only just learned this about wet tee shirts, you have lived a most sheltered life.

    Larry J.

  4. Really impressive, Yoav. It’s a shame this info can’t get out to a broader audience.

  5. Thanks Gary,

    The info can be distributed through advertising, and we try different things, from time to time, and analyze the results with professional tools. Our experience with it has been that it’s not very effective cost-benefit wise, namely the bottom line.
    The advertising market these days is extremely fragmented due to the increasing proliferation of websites, blogs, Facebook pages, etc., and typically, these places are not worth a second look from an advertiser’s standpoint.
    You can increase sales, and it’s not that hard if you spend a lot of money on advertising and promotion, but increasing the net profit is what matters, eventually, and that’s a different story.

    Yoav

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