R8 Surf 1st Captain's Report
Posted: Mon May 16, 2022 10:15 am
This was our first full weekend working our new ride with a full load and doing watersports. I will give some of my impressions of my 2022 R8S. I previously had a 2018 R7S for 4 seasons prior to ordering the R8S. We purchased the R8S to use and work hard every weekend with skiing, surfing, tubing, wakeboarding, and a lot of time spent swimming and getting in and out of the boat. We didn’t pick out this boat to cruise back and forth from yacht club’s to eat and socialize although occasionally we will cruise long distance across the lake to meet friends and eat. I say this as I believe it is important to purchase a boat based on the way you intend to utilize it.
The helm is a major upgrade and having the 2 large Garmins is a huge plus. Having the surf, media, and lighting controls integrated is also a plus. The 2 down sides of the helm for me were the platinum head unit and not having any type of indicator lights for the trim tabs. I took care of the head unit issue by upgrading it to a Fusion RA770 with 4 zones vs. the 3 zone RA670 that came with the boat. This allowed me to control the Rev 10’s that I added on their own zone and still utilize the integrated controls in the Garmin. I have not found a work a round for the trim tabs and this is disappointing as I can’t think of a boat that I have been in with trim tabs that didn’t let you know somehow the position of the tabs.
I ordered the boat with the Marine Mat vs. the Sea Grass in my prior boat. I think the sea grass is visually more pleasing but for the way we use our boat the marine mat is more practical and I think it was a good move for us. No more having to unsnap the sea grass and pull it out to dry every weekend which I enjoy. We went with the fresco chill interior and after one weekend I love it. Easy to clean, soft, comfortable, and it looks really good. Overall, the interior is very similar but there were some subtle changes such as relocating the Sub’s, a lift pull strap for the forward port seat with hinges, cup holders designed for large Yeti’s, power rear dropdown swim step, power captains chair, a slightly better trash can on the rear starboard, larger rear lounger, upgraded hydraulic arms on the engine hatch, zippered pouches in the canvas top for storage, and lights in the storage compartments.
I know this is subjective but I feel like the boat feels more solid than my R7S. It’s hard to explain but it just feels tighter than my R7S. It could be the additional weight or the trim tabs but it rides nice and smooth. I will say that I think the ballast and the engine noise is a little louder in the R8S vs. the R7S.
The exterior of the R8S looks nice but IMO but the lines are not as clean as my R7S. The new extended (side to side) swim platform is nice. The exterior of the R8S will be more difficult to clean as it has more nooks and crannies due to the swim platform and chrome graphic pieces to clean in and around.
Most of the above is positive but I do have some cons associated with the boat as well. The tower is taller which is nice in the boat but also makes it more difficult to get a rope on top as well as loading and locking surfboards up top. Cruising along at 30mph we lost one of the fancy chrome pieces on the port side near the rear. Looks like it was held on with just a little bit of some type of black putty.
The surf wake on this boat is insane compared to the R7S. It is longer and taller with a lot more push from the back to the front. Something I have to be careful with is shutting the boat down when a surfer falls as the wave will wash all the way into the boat soaking anything on the floor if you are not careful. I never had this problem with my R7 and I think is a combination of the additional weight and larger wave.
My biggest concern that I am hoping someone else here may have some feedback on is the ability to plane when loaded. My R7S, with the 380, fully loaded ballasts, 12 people, heavy ice chests, completely loaded down would plane almost immediately. I ordered this one with the 430 primarily due to the added weight of the boat I thought it would help and yes I had read that the plane time with the 430 was slightly longer than with the 380. We had no issues surfing. However, with 8 people, fully loaded ballasts, a couple of ice chests, full tank of gas, speed control set to 21mph, and a 200 pound wake boarder I could not get the boat to fully plane and get to full speed. It had no problem pulling him up but just sat around 13mpg struggling to try to plane and get to speed. I had to empty the ballasts to get him up to speed. Similarly, when just loaded with the above and even put into performance mode it might take 30-45 seconds just to get on plane. Again, if you empty the ballasts it wasn’t much of an issue. This is very concerning to me as I know we will have many weekends with another 1200+ pounds in the boat. Surfing isn’t the issue as I can adjust ballast fill for this. My big concern is the ability to fly from surfing to wakeboarding to tubing to just being able to get up and go from one place to another without having to empty ballasts. I am curious to see if it is just my boat or if anyone else has experienced this with the R8S.
I apologize to anyone that has made it this far as I know it was a long read. We had a great weekend and the boat was everything I hoped for with the exception of plane time. I just wanted to give my first impressions after a great weekend on the boat. If anyone has any question’s I will do my best to answer them.
The helm is a major upgrade and having the 2 large Garmins is a huge plus. Having the surf, media, and lighting controls integrated is also a plus. The 2 down sides of the helm for me were the platinum head unit and not having any type of indicator lights for the trim tabs. I took care of the head unit issue by upgrading it to a Fusion RA770 with 4 zones vs. the 3 zone RA670 that came with the boat. This allowed me to control the Rev 10’s that I added on their own zone and still utilize the integrated controls in the Garmin. I have not found a work a round for the trim tabs and this is disappointing as I can’t think of a boat that I have been in with trim tabs that didn’t let you know somehow the position of the tabs.
I ordered the boat with the Marine Mat vs. the Sea Grass in my prior boat. I think the sea grass is visually more pleasing but for the way we use our boat the marine mat is more practical and I think it was a good move for us. No more having to unsnap the sea grass and pull it out to dry every weekend which I enjoy. We went with the fresco chill interior and after one weekend I love it. Easy to clean, soft, comfortable, and it looks really good. Overall, the interior is very similar but there were some subtle changes such as relocating the Sub’s, a lift pull strap for the forward port seat with hinges, cup holders designed for large Yeti’s, power rear dropdown swim step, power captains chair, a slightly better trash can on the rear starboard, larger rear lounger, upgraded hydraulic arms on the engine hatch, zippered pouches in the canvas top for storage, and lights in the storage compartments.
I know this is subjective but I feel like the boat feels more solid than my R7S. It’s hard to explain but it just feels tighter than my R7S. It could be the additional weight or the trim tabs but it rides nice and smooth. I will say that I think the ballast and the engine noise is a little louder in the R8S vs. the R7S.
The exterior of the R8S looks nice but IMO but the lines are not as clean as my R7S. The new extended (side to side) swim platform is nice. The exterior of the R8S will be more difficult to clean as it has more nooks and crannies due to the swim platform and chrome graphic pieces to clean in and around.
Most of the above is positive but I do have some cons associated with the boat as well. The tower is taller which is nice in the boat but also makes it more difficult to get a rope on top as well as loading and locking surfboards up top. Cruising along at 30mph we lost one of the fancy chrome pieces on the port side near the rear. Looks like it was held on with just a little bit of some type of black putty.
The surf wake on this boat is insane compared to the R7S. It is longer and taller with a lot more push from the back to the front. Something I have to be careful with is shutting the boat down when a surfer falls as the wave will wash all the way into the boat soaking anything on the floor if you are not careful. I never had this problem with my R7 and I think is a combination of the additional weight and larger wave.
My biggest concern that I am hoping someone else here may have some feedback on is the ability to plane when loaded. My R7S, with the 380, fully loaded ballasts, 12 people, heavy ice chests, completely loaded down would plane almost immediately. I ordered this one with the 430 primarily due to the added weight of the boat I thought it would help and yes I had read that the plane time with the 430 was slightly longer than with the 380. We had no issues surfing. However, with 8 people, fully loaded ballasts, a couple of ice chests, full tank of gas, speed control set to 21mph, and a 200 pound wake boarder I could not get the boat to fully plane and get to full speed. It had no problem pulling him up but just sat around 13mpg struggling to try to plane and get to speed. I had to empty the ballasts to get him up to speed. Similarly, when just loaded with the above and even put into performance mode it might take 30-45 seconds just to get on plane. Again, if you empty the ballasts it wasn’t much of an issue. This is very concerning to me as I know we will have many weekends with another 1200+ pounds in the boat. Surfing isn’t the issue as I can adjust ballast fill for this. My big concern is the ability to fly from surfing to wakeboarding to tubing to just being able to get up and go from one place to another without having to empty ballasts. I am curious to see if it is just my boat or if anyone else has experienced this with the R8S.
I apologize to anyone that has made it this far as I know it was a long read. We had a great weekend and the boat was everything I hoped for with the exception of plane time. I just wanted to give my first impressions after a great weekend on the boat. If anyone has any question’s I will do my best to answer them.