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Ballast Proposal for Wakeboarding


eubanks

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So I have a Fly High 750 lb. sac on the way to add to my collection of v-drive sacs. I'm wanting to use more water weight and probably pull up the wedge.

So I'm thinking stock (includes bow tank...so 1,250 pounds), plus 750 in the nose, plus v-drive sacs in the trunks. Any idea on how the wake would be? I've only tried a similar set-up once but with a smaller sac in the bow. It rode really back heavy and that was with only a couple of people in the boat sitting more towards the rear. I'm thinking the extra nose weight will help a lot.

Thoughts? Go big or go home!

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Curious - why don't you like the wedge? I sold my 05 VLX to a guy from Dallas, and he and those he rides with have something against the wedge too - is it a Texas thing?

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That 750 will it be in the walkway or in the bow. On an 05 vlx with a 700 total pounds in the bow, tank and additional 350, it sits very low in the water. I think 1100 total in the nose may be too much. If I misunderstood disregard this whole thing.

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Curious - why don't you like the wedge? I sold my 05 VLX to a guy from Dallas, and he and those he rides with have something against the wedge too - is it a Texas thing?

I don't have anything against the wedge really. It works great and adds a little lip to the wake when you're just using stock ballast. When you start adding a lot of water weight on top of the stock ballast then the wedge doesn't really do as much except make your boat more sluggish and help you burn more gas. I usually ride with the wedge but I don't think I will if I put all this weight in the boat.

That 750 will it be in the walkway or in the bow. On an 05 vlx with a 700 total pounds in the bow, tank and additional 350, it sits very low in the water. I think 1100 total in the nose may be too much. If I misunderstood disregard this whole thing.

I was talking about the 750 in the bow. I took a set behind a guy's boat (05 VLX) here locally a couple of weeks ago and he swears they had the wake dialed...and it was really nice indeed IMO! They had a 750 on the floor in the rear and then a 750 in the bow. They were not using the wedge and I believe did not have the bow tank but were using the rest of the stock ballast (mid and back tanks). So my thinking was that having the v-drive sacs in the trunks (extreme rear of the boat) would offset the additional weight in the bow from the 750 sac and the bow tank. It does sound like a lot to have in the front, but when I've filled the v-drive sacs before in the back compartments and only had 4-500 in the bow...we rode too heavy in the back. The nose was really high and the rider would roll us back and forth causing the wakes to wash. Part of that was riding at 21.5-22mph so maybe we would just need to force people to ride faster.

I know people give the 60-40 general rule and this setup would have 1,100 in the front and 1600 in the rear. I will say the locker tank seems to be more in the front though than in the middle of the boat.

It's just so tough to get something that works for all levels of people. You want a huge wake for yourself but don't want a beginner to have to ride at 23+mph. Thanks for the feedback.

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I have found that the VLX can hold a lot more bow weight than the 23lsv. My 05 VLX with the bow ballast really liked additional weight up front, and could handle it. My 23 with bow ballast and the same amount of additional weight chili dips like a mother.

Does the 23 have more downward slope in the bow or is there more weight forward of center because the console area is further forward?

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It's funny because I just had a 300 pound sac or so in the bow the other night and we would pretty much nose dive just when I came off the throttle. This was with no other additional weight...only the wedge and stock ballast and one person in the boat. Compare this to before when we had 500 extra pounds in the front and didn't dip at all...that was when we had the v-drive sacs in the back lockers though. I guess having that rear weight really makes a huge difference in keep the nose up. I did find this rather confusing.

I am going to experiement more at the Texas WOW and see what happens.

Experiment will be:

Stock Ballast and no wedge (1,250)

V-Drive sacs in the lockers (800)

Fat Sac in the bow (750)

So almost 3K in ballast...sounds juicy! If we're too heavy in the front then I'll just drain the bow tank.

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Anything outside the stock ballast cuts in to load capacity right? So, if you get too much ballast you have to limit the amount of people in the boat to make weight limit? How does the additional ballast impact warranty and or insurance? Just curious? Since premium gasoline may have a gravity of 54, or 6.350 pounds per gallon then keeping your fuel tank full is adding approx. 240 lbs of acceptable ballast. KC

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It's funny because I just had a 300 pound sac or so in the bow the other night and we would pretty much nose dive just when I came off the throttle. This was with no other additional weight...only the wedge and stock ballast and one person in the boat. Compare this to before when we had 500 extra pounds in the front and didn't dip at all...that was when we had the v-drive sacs in the back lockers though. I guess having that rear weight really makes a huge difference in keep the nose up. I did find this rather confusing.

I am going to experiement more at the Texas WOW and see what happens.

Experiment will be:

Stock Ballast and no wedge (1,250)

V-Drive sacs in the lockers (800)

Fat Sac in the bow (750)

So almost 3K in ballast...sounds juicy! If we're too heavy in the front then I'll just drain the bow tank.

If you are at the Texas WOW try putting TGAUGH in the boat...should give you plenty of weight ROFL.gif

He's the one with the pink boat Surprised.gif

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<offtopic>Yeah - get on me about the boat while KC is out and about sporting Boy George this morning.

Tease2.gif

PS: Larry's pink too

</offtopic>

Throw the 750 in the bow, it'll rock.

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<offtopic>Yeah - get on me about the boat while KC is out and about sporting Boy George this morning.

Okay, I fixed it for ya! KC

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I have found that just a little weight in the rear makes an unreal wake (better than anything I have ridden and I come from a X2 with 1800 additional). I have two pro X 750 bags (1 in each locker) for surfing and I just fill them maybe 1/3 plus everything else full plus wedge all the way down and I cannot believe how big and firm it is. I rode an 06 X star on Friday with an extra 1200 and it wasn't even close to the 23LSV in size

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The stock VLX wake is perfect. Stock ballast and wedge it can't be beat. Better than the 247, Vride or a 23, and it was Gerry Nunn's 23 that I rode behind. The VLX has the perfect hieght, transition, pretty much the whole the thing I guess. Just my opinion.

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Update

I tried out my new weighting scheme at the Texas WOW with AMAZING results! I was very pleased with how the boat drove with the standard prop (537) and the gas consumption didn't seem any worse (possibly better but I didn't take accurate calculations) than running stock ballast with the wedge.

So weighting was as follows:

Stock Ballast with no wedge (1250)

400 v-drive sacs in the back trunks (800)

750 sac in the bow (750)

So 2,800 with 3 people and the wake was awesome. Nice, big, and firm. I was riding at 23mph but it would stay clean down to 21. I was pleasantly surprised that the boat wasn't very sluggish with the stock prop and Monsoon engine with this much weight. It definitely took a little more time to get on plane but not much more than with stock ballast and the wedge. I think we found the ticket! Yahoo.gif

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