What's your technique for crossing BIG wakes?

[belercous]

For 2' wakes I hit `em either straight on or at a 45 degree angle, full power. For 3' & up I cut power, trim down & hit them straight (we've got an AC unit & a shower tank up top) I don't want to get rolled.
My partner hit a couple of rolling 4' wakes this year at straight on, full power & we had a deck-washing. Came right on over the front rails. I saw it coming & stayed just inside the cabin door, I didn't get wet but the people up front got soaked. I gave them two seconds warning, then laughed.

[ChappyEight]

Thanks for this thread. We take delivery on our first ever boat, Premier Solaris-RF 240 in a month. Last summer I was driving my father's Premier, similar to the one I ordered and had 3' or so of chop. I won't lie, it freaked me out a bit because I didn't know if I should hit straight on, trim up, trim down, etc., etc. And I very much disliked the severity of rocking if they caught us on the side.

45° and gas 'er up from now on!

[walter]

Last year we got caught in a couple storms, every bit of 3' rollers one after another that where just about my boat length apart, my aproach was to "try" to stay on top of them. Holy sh!t, I've got to say it freaked me a bit, and with a wife and 3 kids aboard I was a bit nervous. The first one, we were pulling a 3 person tube that looks like a seadoo, we turned into the wind and that thing was flying like a freakin kite. I think I did the right thing heading into the waves best I could or at a slight angle and keeping my speed up, the bad part was almost no 2 were coming from the same direction. My best call after trying to attempt to cross the lake (Ky lake) and only going several hundred yards was to turn around and head for a cove. Once in there we waited it out in nearly perfectly calm waters as I got in the water to wash my shorts out.

THAT was an experience I can live without EVER experiencing again!

[bassn386]

Ron, when I was test driving a model similar to the one we finally purchased we were in a very busy part of LOTO. A big cruiser went by us creating about a 4-5' wake. I started to slow down and the sales guy said, "Don't slow down, keep up your speed and cross it at an angle". I took his advice and the toon (3 logs) sailed across the tops with no problems. I've done the same with our boat and have not had any issues. I try to cross at somewhere around 45 degrees. But, I've been in a couple of places where the traffic would not allow me to turn much and even with being hit broadside, this Benni seems to take it in stride. When pulling a tube I try to take the waves head-on to heighten the ride for the tubers and haven't had a porpoising event yet.
I remember an incident in our old Suncruiser (Jamaica 240). A fairly large runabout made a turn in front of us going low to medium speed but he was "dirty" and made a hell of a wake. I made the mistake of slowing down because we had several people on board including my then daughter-in-law with our 6 month old granddaughter. Just as I came off the throttle and the bow settled in, the first wave from the wake came up over the front and all the way back to the helm, drenching everyone sitting up front. It's a wonder Tarah didn't hate the water but I guess she was way too young to remember!

[playcat]

The trick is to avoid coming down the back of the first wave right into the face of the next one. Crossing at a 45 increases the distance between waves so the bow of your boat can start heading up as the crest approaches. Trrimming to raise the bow always helps.
The last time I stuffed the bow I was in the shallow water outside the marked channel as a ship passed by in the opposite direction. I was stuck between really shallow water to starboard and the ship close to port...situational awareness failed me that day! As soon as the wake from the ship came into the shallow flats, it raised up to a solid 3 feet, head on. A smaller toon would have sailed up one side and down the other, but my barge was just long enough to be still headed down the back of the first wave as the second crest arrived. I had a foot of water in my toon, but managed to rescue my daughter's Malibu Barbie before she floated under the gates! Otherwise, no harm done.

[spurhunter]

Same for me, always full throttle, and 45* angle. Anything else and your going to get rocked to death or wet.