Can the awesome huge stern wave overwhelm the cockpit?

baz

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Jun 19, 2009
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Fluid Motion Model
C-24 C
Subject: Can the awesome huge stern wave overwhelm the cockpit?

I have a 2019 R29 CB.

Last Saturday I was out with family aboard, and I happened to be traveling at WOT for several minutes, and had to slow down fairly quickly (not back to neutral throttle though). I know after traveling at speed and then slowing down, the stern wave starts to approach the stern at an alarming rate and appears large enough to completely overwhelm the transom, and could I suppose flood into the cockpit.

When I had to do this last Saturday, my daughter-in-law was sitting on the flip over transom seat, and when I looked rearwards I saw this huge stern wave approaching the stern and yelled out to daughter-in-law to get up and move forward, least she gets an unwelcome swimming lesson.

I assume this is made far worse if going from WOT to neutral in short order, so wonder if what I said above could be a reality.

I'm not about to try this to find out, but wonder if anyone else has experienced this with water flooding into the cockpit?
 
Yes this has happened to me before and the stern wave hit the transom and dissipated. This was during my first month of having my boat. This was one of many "duh" moments as a new boat owner. Didn't help that I had a following sea and I came hard off of WOT to Neutral.

If this was an emergency maneuver you should have turned the helm hard to port or hard to starboard so the wave does not hit the back of your boat - assuming you have room.
 
Turning to port or starboard is a good suggestion.... thanks. 😀

So no water got into the cockpit ?
 
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