Photo: Drew Tinker Rider: Trevor Hansen
Another option for surf-boat buyers at an affordable price is the Moomba Flow Surf System, the first manual surf system on the market. We wanted to learn more so we contacted Moomba Product Manager Matt Brown who is responsible for leading the team that develops all the Moomba products. We were happy to find out that Matt has been wakesurfing for years; you can even see him in action in the movie "Scrubs of the South" riding an eight-foot foam surfboard back before most people had even heard of wakesurfing.
So Matt, why did Moomba create its surf system design?
Moomba created the Flow surf system because we saw a demand from the market for something that would allow us to quickly go from wakeboarding to wakesurfing, without filling and draining bags or adding a ton of extra weight to one side only. While we understand that some consumers in the market are “hardcore” surfers and they may want to add thousands of pounds to one side only to get a perfectly shaped wake, we felt the majority of our buyers like to do all wake sports and we wanted to make something that was quick and easy to use, had great performance, that was extremely reliable, yet still reasonably priced. We know it may not be the perfect system for every buyer, but we felt like we needed something that had broad appeal that wasn’t complicated to use or had to be perfectly positioned to work properly.
What exactly is the design and how does it differ from other designs on the market?
The design is fairly simple. We did a lot of testing and developed a rotating plate that deploys on the transom corners and allows the opposite side wake to shape according to the position of the plate. There are several differences in our design and the others. The first is our design is the first manual surf system. All the others are actuated with an electric or hydraulic ram. While there are several great systems out there, we didn’t want to add the cost of the electronics or actuators to control our system. Plus, without electronics, that makes the system more reliable and actually easier to use. Some companies controls are quite complicated, and if not used properly, can actually hurt the performance of the system. Another difference is our system is adjustable and can be adjusted according to how you want to weight your boat. If you want to just use factory ballast and a few people, then the first location is probably the best. However, if you want to slightly offset your weight or add more rear ballast, then you can shape the wake slightly different or lengthen the wake by using the second or third location. We feel like this gives us even more broad appeal because we know all of our consumers use their boats differently.
What is the engineering process behind the design?
As to the engineering process behind the design, I am not going to lie and say that we did a bunch of CAD development or flow analysis to come up with the perfect design. It, like I assume most other systems out there, was mainly a trial and error process. We have known for years that wakesurfing was going to change some of our designs. We actually have been working on Surf systems for several years, but getting the right “Moomba” solution took us a little longer, but we think it was worth the wait.
It looks like your surf system design in the first manual one on the market, so what is the benefit of having a manual surf design?
I would say there are 3 main benefits of having a manual surf design. One is lower cost. The second is reliability because you are not having to deal with electronics that can go bad with time. And third is ease of use. Since you manually have to move it, you know exactly what the system is doing and where it is. Some can say that electronic actuated systems are also easy to use, but if you are not familiar with the system or dash components, electronic systems can be complicated to know exactly what is deployed or working or what side is doing what. With our system, anyone can drive without having to fear that the driver might “screw up” the wake by the surf system controls.
How about the surf performance with the new design?
Honestly, everyone claims their surf performance is the best and obviously we are very excited about our performance. But what we recommend is to go check out a local dealer and demo it for yourself. We feel like with the Flow system, you can easily create a good clean surfable wake by just filling all factory ballast and deploying the opposite side plate to the second position. However, the system doesn’t stop there. If you spend a little time with it, you will find that you can tweak the wake to how you like it by adding weight, or slightly offsetting weight side to side or front to back, and by trying different plate positions. In our testing, we feel like we have one of the most flexible, easy to use systems out there that is not overly sensitive to fine tuning adjustments. And did I mention it is very reasonably priced?
To learn more or find a dealer near you visit: www.moomba.com