Air

Nothing rides like a 30/31 Sutphen in the size range......You have to run one to understand

Storm had it right. I didn't mean to mis lead anyone. There was an area with what definately looked like 6-8 foot waves (not swells) The sea was semi ruff to begin with with confused water. You would be running along and run accross drop offs and rogue type swells. As the tide was rolling in the south inlet to the island had monster waves in the beginning of the channel. Regardless of wave size and any other issue We were flying off the top of them at 40+ mph and were seeing major air we counted to 3 plus seconds of air time. Our stomachs would flip flop.

I just thought I would add to this thread buy telling you the the Pantera flew straight landed soft and really blew my mind in its ability to handle what was asked of it.

I believe that you love your boat and you were getting some good air but I boat in Grand Haven, MI and I know for a fact that in a 28 boat you will die going straight into a 6 to 8 ft wave not a swell. Your boat is not long enough and you would get swallowed by every wave.

the Ettore boat looks like 10-15' of air. what do you guys think?

That's what I was thinking - at the transom.

This is a fun thread to read cause everyone boats in different waves. 8 foot waves are different in the pacific, atlantic and lake michigan. an eight foot wave on lake michigan will break on the deck of a 28 before you could even get out the channel. The swell distance between waves is really the factor that decides wether or not you could even get out to run. A wave this size is big anywhere but very tough to boat on the great lakes. They have cancelled offshore races in Grand Haven several times over the years and they were not anywhere near 8 feet.
Donz, have you ever ridden in a 28 saber, apache 28. or a 28 Cig? To declare pantera the best without riding in the others also doesn't seem like a fair comparison. I have yet to hear from anyone on the board who has ridden in any of the four in rough water say they ride bad. They all have great reputations. It would be cool to have all four side by side with twin 500's and find different waves and turn them loose. Ny suspicion is that it would come down to driver skill and ball size. NK

If that's correct then I'm wrong. We were thinking the prop was 5-7 feet out.

No need to debate over how big the water is here or there. There were several other boats in that run, I was not the only boat to say it was rough. My point was, no 28' boat will be fun in 6-8's. I was told that was 4-5's and you can see how much air we got.(we are flying very level so I doubt we trimmed it up to get air for the pic) Like I said in my first post, all three boats are sweet and there is no way we would know which one is better in the rough unless your name is Nunez/Saccenti etc....

Waves are different in different areas.
The LI sound the waves have a short wavelenth, there are no swells.
This seems similar to the Great Lakes.
The western LI sound where I boat the waves are wind driven.
In the Atlantic, there is a ground swell, which can be 2-4ft easy, with the water like glass... no wind, no waves on top.

In these pictures you can clearly see waves.