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Insta-Fill Ballast


Big Jay D

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I know this has been brought up in the past but I though it would be cool to hear some more thoughts about it since the Surfgate's been out for a bit.

Imagine having a 23+ foot boat with your standard Indmar Chevy 350. The stock 537 prop. Now load it down with 2000+ pounds of ballast and 8 or so people. Sluggish.

But put this into thought. With this new Insta-Fill system you can have the gates open and the boat's platform will be in the water. Not 2 or 3 inches above it. Great for swimmers and kids. Oh and deck starts! The boat starts to move forward and within the 5 seconds or so (depending on how big the gates are) the ballast tanks are empty. Less fuel and less power to get the boat moving. At 7 mph the scupper is deployed, the tanks fill and the Surfgate is deployed. Perfect Pass is locked in. No need for a huge engine. No need for the wedge (which would make room for a much needed trim tab IMO). All done through preset user settings.

Wouldn't it be nice NOT to need bags in your boat? No moving gear. No pumps, no leaks. No wasted time. No worrying about winterizing your bags and lines. Wouldn't it be nice to have room in the rear lockers for the stuff that's supposed to be in the rear lockers? Moving the batteries to the rear so you have more dry room up front where the easy access is.

Think about it and really consider what this ballast system could do for the Wake community. It might be a couple years out because making something like this work will take a lot of internal hull changes. But it will be released and when it is I hope Malibu gets on board. With the Surfgate, Insta-Fill and a Trim plate you can dial in a wake for ANY sport discipline!

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Well it will be curious to see the innovations that surface over the next 5 years on how best to achieve the largest wake/ wave behind the boat. I have not seen any mentions to Centurion chasing the wave with the SWITHCHBLADE that is what I consider a derivative of the power wedge with a different shape water wing but is adjustable.

I wonder if I modify a wedge with twice the amount of surface area and radius wings, would it provide a larger wave regardless of ballast.

One thing is for sure- 2 camps are searching for the right answer,

  1. the fill the boat with water camp
  2. and the camp of hang something off the boat

reference

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Switchblade went the way of the dinosaur a few years ago. You can't get a Centurion with it any longer. I was told that they had so many problems with it that it was no longer feasible to warranty them.

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Wouldn't it be nice NOT to need bags in your boat? No moving gear. No pumps, no leaks. No wasted time. No worrying about winterizing your bags and lines. Wouldn't it be nice to have room in the rear lockers for the stuff that's supposed to be in the rear lockers? Moving the batteries to the rear so you have more dry room up front where the easy access is.

You can already have that...buy a MB Sports boat. Up to 2400lbs of gravity filled ballast; fills and drains in 60 seconds. Epic boats also has a gravity filled system (their boats are inovative but a bit odd). It isn't this "insta-fill" technology, but does exactly what you are wanting. I wish Malibu did a gravity-fed system, but that's not likely to happen (none of the big 3 offer it). Sadly, none of these gravity filled boats are national brands...east cost is left out from these brands. I've never seen an Epic locally, and one one MB - a mid 2000's with the ugly flame-job gel scheme they all got. But since you are a west coatster, they are worth a look.

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I can only imagine the stress on the hull and mechanism dragging an anchor like that. Looked like a good wake though, the thing must pivot to drag down one side of the boat, or was that ballast?

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My buddy has a brand new mb and also has impellar pumps for fine tunning. It's very nice and makes it nice seeing as his wife rides goofy. When it's her time all we do is sit on the opposite side of the boat and by the time it's plained out the ballast has changed.

I don't see the insta fill putting any more pressure on the hull then a wedge does.

Also with the insta fill it looks like you could easily tap into the hard tanks and the water pressure would fill your bags just as fast.

I would love to see a accesory mounted pump with a electric clutch for fill's and big 1 1/2" - 2" gravity drains on bags.

Lower maintenance with using one rather large pump, then just diverter valves to whatever bag.

I know my raw water pump has some serious output so just imagine if you had one that large or larger for your fill and low maint electric gate valves for your drains.

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My buddy has a brand new mb and also has impellar pumps for fine tunning.

And this is how it should be, whether gravity or "insta-fill." Use the large integrated tanks to get the boat weighted, with impeller pumps for locker bags and a front tank to get the boat exactly where you want it. You get the best of both worlds at that point.

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I think the point here is to fill instantly AFTER your on a plane and rider is up. that way your not pushing an extra 2-4000 out of the hole. Slowdown = drain. speed up = fill. I can see a computer controlled system that could be dialled for different riders.

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I can only imagine the stress on the hull and mechanism dragging an anchor like that. Looked like a good wake though, the thing must pivot to drag down one side of the boat, or was that ballast?

That is the pot calling the kettle black for sure. The stress from the wedge is equally strong, I am sure.

I would buy a boat with this system in it. I cannot wait until something like this makes it to market...then I get to wait for it to depreciate to my price point.

I know it comes up over and over, but using the pumps to compensate for people not sitting evenly just does not jive with me. Then someone jumps up to grab a drink, decides the view is better on the other side of the boat and then you have another 3 minutes of pumping to fix what a 200 pound man just did in 2 seconds.

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You can already have that...buy a MB Sports boat. Up to 2400lbs of gravity filled ballast; fills and drains in 60 seconds. Epic boats also has a gravity filled system (their boats are inovative but a bit odd). It isn't this "insta-fill" technology, but does exactly what you are wanting. I wish Malibu did a gravity-fed system, but that's not likely to happen (none of the big 3 offer it). Sadly, none of these gravity filled boats are national brands...east cost is left out from these brands. I've never seen an Epic locally, and one one MB - a mid 2000's with the ugly flame-job gel scheme they all got. But since you are a west coatster, they are worth a look.

I think the point here is to fill instantly AFTER your on a plane and rider is up. that way your not pushing an extra 2-4000 out of the hole. Slowdown = drain. speed up = fill. I can see a computer controlled system that could be dialled for different riders.

exactly. The MB system requires you to be sitting in the water to fill, and once on plane you cannot fill more, you can only empty. It is fine, but requires you to get up on plane with all the ballast you want to ride with. With malibu's new bigger hose and pumps, you can drain when retrieving rider, and once on plane, refill.... this helps planing time and fuel consumption. This plate system is really great cuz you can plane and get up to speed completely empty, then fill full ballast in a few seconds. This system will allow you to have bow ballast as well. I saw this video awhile ago and if I remember correctly, not only can you fill when up on plane, but you can dump as well.

I imagine this system on a 3 tank ballast (front, rear left and right) at around 3000 lbs would be rad.

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Also did you see the amount of water being pushed into the overflow out of the hull?

Just think if you could put a valve and tap into those tanks and let it fill and drain your extra bags in the same manner.

I can imagine having some enzo sacks with 4 or 5 1" lines and they fill almost as fast as the hard tank.

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