Great. Introducing the next generation wake boat. 8 foot waves.

Status
Not open for further replies.
OK its sunday and I'm bored so years ago (80s) we were young, naive, and had little sense. We trailered down from Co, a 14ft aluminum boat with a 9hp motor with the intention of towing it behind the houseboat we rented, to use to run up a couple smaller canyons. Brilliant, Right? In our minds.
Well we found said canyon and I was elected to go see if we could find a mooring spot and get the houseboat to it.
About 300 yards up the canyon it started getting narrower, not much wind, pretty scenic, then around the corner came one of them huge tour boats hauling ***, and within a seconds I had 3-4 ft waves bouncing off the canyon walls and coming from 3 or more directions. I dont think I have ever been more scared cause I couldn't point the boat any particular direction to ride the waves splashing into the boat. It was so violent I couldn't hang on to the motor throttle arm. I was literally being thrown almost out of the boat. Ya I had a life jacket, but. The point being Guys in puny 18-19ft boats with 8 ft waves would get the same treatment. Keep em out in the ocean, there is enough terror on Powell already, and stupidity.
 
dicksturn said:
OK its sunday and I'm bored so years ago (80s) we were young, naive, and had little sense. We trailered down from Co, a 14ft aluminum boat with a 9hp motor with the intention of towing it behind the houseboat we rented, to use to run up a couple smaller canyons. Brilliant, Right? In our minds.
Well we found said canyon and I was elected to go see if we could find a mooring spot and get the houseboat to it.
About 300 yards up the canyon it started getting narrower, not much wind, pretty scenic, then around the corner came one of them huge tour boats hauling ***, and within a seconds I had 3-4 ft waves bouncing off the canyon walls and coming from 3 or more directions. I dont think I have ever been more scared cause I couldn't point the boat any particular direction to ride the waves splashing into the boat. It was so violent I couldn't hang on to the motor throttle arm. I was literally being thrown almost out of the boat. Ya I had a life jacket, but. The point being Guys in puny 18-19ft boats with 8 ft waves would get the same treatment. Keep em out in the ocean, there is enough terror on Powell already, and stupidity.
Click to expand...
You make a good point... I hadn’t thought about all of those big house boats being tossed and turned by 8 foot waves... then there is the erosion and the silt, wouldn’t that impact the spawning and hatching of eggs?
 
210 FSH said:
You make a good point... I hadn’t thought about all of those big house boats being tossed and turned by 8 foot waves... then there is the erosion and the silt, wouldn’t that impact the spawning and hatching of eggs?
Click to expand...
Maybe, but the Colorado and Dirty Devil belch tons of silt every year. Might affect water quality even in big wide areas. The biggest threat is not enough water to cover the spawning grounds, whats left of them. I know a couple Boat captains in Alaska wouldn't go out in 8-10 foot waves in 32 ft boats. My post was really for humor for being such a dumba_ _
 
Who would buy them?
How many NEW 100' houseboats are on the lake right now?
When one HB manufacturer is sold out for production of Million $ HBs for the next 2 years?
The physics ain't there yet for this thing to happen BUT the politics are!
Charging? Just run a new line of poles from the dam to Antelope dedicated to recharging these monsters and use the untapped capacity of the dam for it. Short run, low cost to install. Someone will willingly pay for it. It just drains the lake a little bit.
Forget about up lake. They will never see one up there.

Back in the 70s I could park just about anywhere any weekend. Oh the good ol' days.
 
I predict these will never make it to market, let alone Powell, due to them not being very economical in electric form. The power requirements of these are ridiculous, especially when you factor in how remote Lake Powell is. A 1 Megawatt battery is HUGE. The amount of power draw required to charge one of them is way beyond what any houseboat or dock can handle at Powell. It would take 20+ hours to charge with 4x 240V 50 amp cords which is what is available at most slips. Then when you're on the lake it would take an additional 2 25 kw generators just to charge it, which might be fine for some of the larger houseboats, but when you factor in how much diesel that uses it really defeats the purpose.
 
Last edited:
Ryan said:
You guys realize it is not real, right?
Click to expand...
Matthew Blow(Founder/Designer) is pretty confident, but that doesn't ensure a working product. "With Gigawave expected to launch next year, Blew and his small team, including industrial designer Ryan Wetjen-Barry, are fine-tuning its “Wave Manipulation System” hull design. The next step will be scale models for tank-testing to ensure their theories work." As an Engineer and Project Manager myself, I see a few drawbacks to the design. The 30 tons, a 10'6" beam, and $600,000 price tag will keep it from being prevalent. From a design standpoint the power required to charge the batteries has to come from somewhere. It's too bad they closed down the powerplant in Page as you'd have to plug in directly to it.
 
Just a weird question, but the trains today are actually eletric motors run by diesel engines. What keeps them from doing that, especially when plowing a wake for lack of a better term? I believe that you get significantly more torque from electric motors.
 
Maybe 55,000 lbs of the 60,000 lbs is water ballast? I haven't read the link - does it talk about that?
 
Havalina said:
Just a weird question, but the trains today are actually eletric motors run by diesel engines. What keeps them from doing that, especially when plowing a wake for lack of a better term? I believe that you get significantly more torque from electric motors.
Click to expand...
Incorrect. They are very large diesel engines, 4400 horsepower actually. The electric part of the equation is the dynamic braking that we have. The generator field is what makes that possible. We carry over 5000 gallons of diesel per locomotive. Very much internal combustion engines.
 
So, it is the diesel engine that turns the wheels? Not trying to argue, but I always thought that the trains used the engine to power the eletric motors. I have been a jarhead or a cop for all of my career, the closest I have ever been to a locomotive engine is when I have caught paper for transient splatter. Thanks for the info because I really didn’t know.

How long does it take to fill five thousand gallons? If you were to take a train to catch fish at lake Powell, just to keep it on topic.
 
gznokes said:
Pretty cool! Thanks for posting. Have you ever looked at a Montara? Def a paradigm shift for me, but would probably be a blast.
Click to expand...
There was a rental on the water last year in Glendo. It didn’t appear to do anything well. For anyone interested in water sports, the wave looked terrible.
 
Ryan said:
There was a rental on the water last year in Glendo. It didn’t appear to do anything well. For anyone interested in water sports, the wave looked terrible.
Click to expand...
That's interesting, being an inboard, and a lot of weight, I thought it would do better than that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top