Navigating through boat wake

[willy]

Brielly I too have had to maneuver around and thru big boat wakes many times in Raritan bay and the ocean, very busy here with large vessels and tankers fast ferry's etc.
How you take the wake is dependent on the angle it is moving to the hull, though the wake can rock your V pretty violently it should be no where close to swamping your boat. Even if you did nothing, just stood still and let it run by you it wont swamp the boat. Sometimes when going in the same direction as the large boat and wanting to get around it I will simply move to the side under power keeping a generally forward angle and just ride over, sometimes it rocks pretty good but not bad enough to be a problem. If it is a big wake and I am moving I just turn the bow to take the wake pretty close to straight on and ride over it like any wave. The more of an angle off straight on you take it the more of a pivot your hull will do on two different axis, another words you will rock up and down bow to stern and side to side also. the straighter you take it on the less you will shift side to side.
I will recommend something to you that made a huge difference for me many years ago on handling the feel of your boat thru these things, go surfing.
Yes go surfing with your boat, here where I fish we have what is called the Sandy Hook Rips. it is where the ocean meets the bay on the tip of the hook, goes from forty feet or more to six to 20 feet depending on tide and when the tide is against the wind it has standing 3-6 foot waves and swells stacked up one after another for a couple of hundred yards.
It is one of the best places on the east coast for big bass and doormat fluke but a lot of guys dont like fishing it as it is dangerous.
I would go there with my V and play, you will learn how to surf on top of a swell or wave for a long distance staying dry as a bone or learn how to ride out the drop in between them, when to power up when to turn into and when not to turn into a wave. How to ride them at an angle etc.
You see the only way you are going to swamp a V20 is if you get caught in a huge wave, on the bottom of the trough between them and it comes over your gunnels and fills your cockpit.
Once I got caught about ten miles out in violent wind/storm and I was riding it in at the speed that kept me just running up and down the waves, but had that rogue wave come and catch me where I stuffed the bow of the boat and took a lot of water over the bow, stopped my forward movement and set me sideways for the next wave and if I had not kept my wits about me the next one would have really hit me like happend to MJ.
All I did was power her up hard and climbed out of the trough and I literally surfed most of the way back in using the waves to carry me high and powering up when needed to catch the next one.
Go surfing, find someplace where you have some waves to play in under controlled situation and gain some confidence in your V. These boats are some of the most sea worthy there are and will not get swamped without something extrordianry happening way beyond a large boat wake.

[Monkey Butler]

I've had the same thing happen too. It is scary but most of the times if is lack of experience more than a fault of the boat.

That said, here is a movie clip that I saved from a couple of years ago, mostly as a lesson to myself. We were out in Buzzards Bay and coming out of a no wake zone I started to pass another boat as I have done many times before. You can just see the wake ahead of me in some parts of the movie. It wan't an exceptionally large wake but at around 6 seconds I cross the first wake no problem (despite the Admiral saying "Oh-oh"), at around 25 seconds I cross a second wave no problem but you can hear the RPM's come up as I start running down the back side, and at 35 seconds I cross a third wave and you can hear a slap as we land. Then on the last wave at 40 seconds the prop catches a little air and breaks free a bit and the RPM's go up noticably, I chicken out and cut the throttle which causes the baot to roll in the trough and scare the crew. If I had kept the power on the boat would have punched through okay. Lack of skill and confidence on my part. Here is the clip (10megs):

Chicken Out

Like Willy said test and practice under controlled conditions to become familiar with how your boat behaves and learn its capabilities and limitations. Crossing wakes is very much like running in a following see so if you learn how to handle wakes well you will be learning a valuable skill that may come in handy under more severe conditions. Later that day we practiced in some standing waves at the entrance to the Cape Cod canal.

[Hammerhead]

Ditto on the surfin' the '20. It's a blast and will teach ya quick how the boat reacts. Far as passing big boats creating huge wake?,..I sometimes take my V airborne over the wave and plop on clean water and go my merry way. The hull can take it easily.

Passengers might scream a little tho'.