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Pure Vert Ballast


jetskipro550

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I have always thought that Calabria's Pure Vert ballast system was a really cool idea! Now more and more boat manufactures are making the switch to this type of system. Do you think that it will be the standard in a few years?

First Calabria, then Wakecraft, MB, and now Sanger. Here is a pic of the new Sanger v215 that is the latest boat to get the Pure Vert system. It's supposedly adds 2000lbs. in under a minute.

Do you think Malibu will ever go this route? All of their ballast is already under the floor so it seems like they could add this without too much problem? What are your thoughts, would you prefer Pure Vert vs. pumps?

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Very Innovative, but there's a few reason why I prefer the standard as is ballast system

1. You still have valves that divert water to the corresponding tanks. So fewer moving parts, but the valves can still fail just as a pump does.

2. You have to be at speed to drain/fill. Would wakesurfing speeds be enough to drain/fill? I doubt it. If I'm at the dock and forgot to drain the tanks, I have to either leave them, or go back out, cruize for 1 min and drain the tanks.

3. Bow ballast seems like quite a feat to get on plane, then have the water pressure fill the bow while it's significantly out of the water. Seems impracticle right now. Maybe he can design something that will work.

4. I like to see the Ballast filling/overflowing to show me how full the tank is and see that the tanks are empting and when they are empty.

5. Larger intake - higher chance of twigs, sand, crud sucked up the intake. Also more drag. The system needs a good push, so it must be parallel with the water, rather than perpendicular, like current setups.

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I'm not going to try & convince you this system is good or bad CT. But rest assured that it does not have the issues you mention in 1, 2, 4 or 5.

It was just things I thought of. That's all. Personal opinion. It may very well be better, but I'm not going to add it to our boat aftermarket. If it came stock, I wouldn't say no to it.

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Very Innovative, but there's a few reason why I prefer the standard as is ballast system

1. You still have valves that divert water to the corresponding tanks. So fewer moving parts, but the valves can still fail just as a pump does.

If the valves fail your tanks fill (or empty if they are full) nothing else would happen

2. You have to be at speed to drain/fill. Would wakesurfing speeds be enough to drain/fill? I doubt it. If I'm at the dock and forgot to drain the tanks, I have to either leave them, or go back out, cruize for 1 min and drain the tanks.

You only have to be at speed to drain the tanks. If you forget they are full, open the gates as you drive up the ramp and they will empty.

3. Bow ballast seems like quite a feat to get on plane, then have the water pressure fill the bow while it's significantly out of the water. Seems impracticle right now. Maybe he can design something that will work.

I believe they have already made it work for bow ballast....ICBW though

4. I like to see the Ballast filling/overflowing to show me how full the tank is and see that the tanks are empting and when they are empty.

They have gauges that tell you when it's full...that and your boat sits lower lol

5. Larger intake - higher chance of twigs, sand, crud sucked up the intake. Also more drag. The system needs a good push, so it must be parallel with the water, rather than perpendicular, like current setups.

The intakes are on the rear of the boat. You don't force the water through them, you just let gravity do the work. Very small chance of sucking twigs/debri when your not moving.

Edited by jetskipro550
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I'm not going to try & convince you this system is good or bad CT. But rest assured that it does not have the issues you mention in 1, 2, 4 or 5.

It was just things I thought of. That's all. Personal opinion. It may very well be better, but I'm not going to add it to our boat aftermarket. If it came stock, I wouldn't say no to it.

Yea, it's not going to be added to many boats. That would involve ripping out the floor, adding the tanks, re-adding the floor, filling the foam in the gaps around the tanks & the floor, etc..... like the video on the link posted above.

It would be a sweet setup to add to a rebuilt boat, like the old Supras or Nautiques that are popular among riders looking for inexpensive wake boats.

Couple of interesting details: the gates in the transom are off the shelf items used on RVs for the black & grey tanks. Their big enough I can almost get my arm inside one pretty easily.

In SoCal where water is hard to come by, Mike has made a habit of loading his boat on the trailer with the ballast loaded, bringing it home & using it to wash his driveway. Rockon.gif

Edited by Bill_AirJunky
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I'm not going to try & convince you this system is good or bad CT. But rest assured that it does not have the issues you mention in 1, 2, 4 or 5.

It was just things I thought of. That's all. Personal opinion. It may very well be better, but I'm not going to add it to our boat aftermarket. If it came stock, I wouldn't say no to it.

Yea, it's not going to be added to many boats. That would involve ripping out the floor, adding the tanks, re-adding the floor, filling the foam in the gaps around the tanks & the floor, etc..... like the video on the link posted above.

It would be a sweet setup to add to a rebuilt boat, like the old Supras or Nautiques that are popular among riders looking for inexpensive wake boats.

Couple of interesting details: the gates in the transom are off the shelf items used on RVs for the black & grey tanks. Their big enough I can almost get my arm inside one pretty easily.

In SoCal where water is hard to come by, Mike has made a habit of loading his boat on the trailer with the ballast loaded, bringing it home & using it to wash his driveway. Rockon.gif

There was a thread on some other forum where a guy took an older DD, removed the floor, added in tanks and a Pure Vert type system, then put the floor on top of it. It looked AWESOME, but also a ton of work!

We do that too! Often leave the sacks full and empty them into 5 gal buckets to water the yard. Our river is so full of poop and fertilizer it's great for the yard!

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I like the Pure Vert system, but I think a "hybrid" system is better.

I think if you can add xxxxlbs with the pure vert and then another 3-400 so you can even out the wake would be a better system. I am not a fan of the MB tank system either...the tanks leak after a couple of years.

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Wow. The Pure Vert system is an excellent idea, elegant in its simplicity. I would think that many of the boat manufacturers would want to go this way especially given the cost reduction aspect that it could bring.

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Plus1.gif On the Pure Vert system or some sort of a hybrid system for Malibu. I like the versatility of the 4 tank system of the MLS for customizing the wake but it takes way too long to fill the tanks, I have to "burp" each tank several times to get them full and the ballast gauge seems very inaccurate. Can't they at least use bigger pumps and larger thru hulls to speed things up? And not having accurate gauges on a $70k boat is just plain unacceptable. The MLS was my biggest critique of my boat on my customer svc survey.
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  • 2 weeks later...

The hybrid system would be appealing to me, but as it is the PureVert is a complete pain to actually use. On paper is seems really nice, but the first time you realize you need to add water to one of the tanks after you've pulled the rider up you realize what a poor design it actually is.

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  • 1 year later...

I know this is an old thread, has anyone gotten a chance to play around with a boat equipped with this type of ballast lately? I just stumbled across it on the MB site and it looks super cool. I would think this would work slick with a back up set of drain pumps...

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I just spent the weekend riding behind a 2007 Calabria CalAir v-drive at Banks Lake. The beauty of the PureVert system is not that you can fill while riding, or empty while sitting still, but the lack of all the hardware systems like MLS have. No pumps or switches to fail, no hoses to leak, etc.

Just like Malibu Cruise, Perfect Pass & probably a dozen other things on the boat, you have to remember to get it dialed in before you put the hammer down. The CalAir has (I think) 900 lbs of ballast in it, not a ton compared to other boats, but the same as my own Vride. The wake is plenty big for most any rider other than the most advanced. And you still have plenty of room to add more ballast if needed.

And the MB implementation is like 2400 lbs. :crazy:

I gotta think their wakes are insane.

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I have the pure vert on my 2002 Calabria Cal Air Pro V, only 700lbs for that year though. They went to 900, now I think its at 1000lbs. The newer Calabria's have a switch for each side tank, my boat has one switch and fills both takes. If I only want one full, someone gets to jump in the water and hold their hand over the gate valve. I can't think of a more simple system, I think the newer boats have a gauge, on my boat I just wait until the whistling stops from the air vent and I know they are full. It's not enough weight to surf without adding more bags, but for wakeboarding it offers a good wake.

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I have the pure vert on my 2002 Calabria Cal Air Pro V, only 700lbs for that year though. They went to 900, now I think its at 1000lbs. The newer Calabria's have a switch for each side tank, my boat has one switch and fills both takes. If I only want one full, someone gets to jump in the water and hold their hand over the gate valve. I can't think of a more simple system, I think the newer boats have a gauge, on my boat I just wait until the whistling stops from the air vent and I know they are full. It's not enough weight to surf without adding more bags, but for wakeboarding it offers a good wake.

this is my experience with the system as well.

i think a pump in addition to this system would be awesome, so you could empty a tank with no effort to go from boarding to surfing.

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martinarcher

this is my experience with the system as well.

i think a pump in addition to this system would be awesome, so you could empty a tank with no effort to go from boarding to surfing.

Heck, forget the pump and just open one gate valve and get the boat on plane to empty one side.

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this is my experience with the system as well.

i think a pump in addition to this system would be awesome, so you could empty a tank with no effort to go from boarding to surfing.

You know it only takes like a minute to drain, right? So you can go boarding, stop. Change riders, fill up your surf sack, pick up your surfer & open the tank on the non-surf side.... a minute later it's drained. Your surfer has probably just got his shorts & hair arranged by then. :crazy:

If they did add a pump, I'd hope that it used better hoses than Malibu did on my boat. Chasing leaky hoses is a draaaag....

Edited by Bill_AirJunky
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Yeah, it takes no time at all to drain. My only complaint is that I don't have a switch for each tank, which is easily remedied if I want to. I'm sure 2002 was the first and last year for a single switch on the Calabria's.

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  • 8 years later...

Anyone else have issues with their ballast tank valves getting stuck open? The switches don’t seem to make a difference. They will not open or close the valves. We have a 2005 Calabria Cal Air with a pert very wake system. 

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17 minutes ago, Allison said:

Anyone else have issues with their ballast tank valves getting stuck open? The switches don’t seem to make a difference. They will not open or close the valves. We have a 2005 Calabria Cal Air with a pert very wake system. 

Wrong forum to have much knowledge about pure vert.  If you have drainmaster valves, they crap out periodically (usually mid summer right before a big trip).  If you go to the MB forums you'll see a lot of threads from a few years ago about converting from drainmaster to valterra valves (which are supposedly more robust).

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3 hours ago, Allison said:

Anyone else have issues with their ballast tank valves getting stuck open? The switches don’t seem to make a difference. They will not open or close the valves. We have a 2005 Calabria Cal Air with a pert very wake system. 

Malibu has never used this system.

98395A7C8BB444283303C95223BA2EE9B5E3607C

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/15/2020 at 10:21 AM, Allison said:

Anyone else have issues with their ballast tank valves getting stuck open? The switches don’t seem to make a difference. They will not open or close the valves. We have a 2005 Calabria Cal Air with a pert very wake system. 

I just bought a 2005 Calabria and had the same problem.  I opened the storage box and found the motor part Number - found the manufacturer - and just ordered a new motor.  I also bought new gates - whole thing cost less than. $100.   Hopefully that fixes my problem.Good luck.  https://www.barkermfg.com/auto-drains.html

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