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Lead in bow


Stevo

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Question for someone much smarter than I.

Currently I have a sumo 650lb bow bag. For this argument we will say it hold exactly 650( even though the bag does hold more, I don't push itslimit.)

I believe I can get a couple hundred lbs of lead in the very front of the bow, in front or around the subfloor tank

Anyone know how to measure how much weight in lead positioned farther forward in the bow would equal the 650 bag?

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Stevo,

This is such a great question! I am sure others will chime in. I went through this calculation when I was wanting to add steel shot or lead to the bow of my 20 MXZ.

This is some of what I came up with:

1 gallon of water takes up 231 cubic inches of space and weighs 8.33 pounds. Picture a gallon milk jug filled with water.

Steel is 7.8 times more dense than water, so in the same space that one gallon of water takes up, you get 64.9 pounds of weight with steel.

Lead is 11.1 times more dense than water, so in the same space that one gallon of water takes up, you get 92.4 pounds of weight with lead.

If you have a 640 pound water bag it is holding about 76.8 gallons of water. Therefore, with steel you only need the "apparent volume" of 9.8 gallons of space to get to that weight. With lead you only need the "apparent volume" of 6.9 gallons of space to get to that weight.

But then you have to consider how the steel or lead is formed or packaged to see if you are actually getting the maximum density or not. And you also need to have a size and shape that you can tuck into places in the boat. But you can see that it takes MUCH less space to get the same amount of weight.

I went with 400 pounds of steel shot packaged in 10 bags, because the 40 pound bags are easier to move around and shove in small spaces in the bow of my boat. www.pop-products.com

Moving the weight forward to the front of the boat has some mechanical/leverage advantages depending on the center of gravity of the boat. It should bring the bow down with less total weight. But this is a harder thing to figure out with calculations.

Others will bring up the valid risk of this "non-bouyant" weight creating more risk for sinking a boat. Something to consider.

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Stevo,

This is such a great question! I am sure others will chime in. I went through this calculation when I was wanting to add steel shot or lead to the bow of my 20 MXZ.

This is some of what I came up with:

1 gallon of water takes up 231 cubic inches of space and weighs 8.33 pounds. Picture a gallon milk jug filled with water.

Steel is 7.8 times more dense than water, so in the same space that one gallon of water takes up, you get 64.9 pounds of weight with steel.

Lead is 11.1 times more dense than water, so in the same space that one gallon of water takes up, you get 92.4 pounds of weight with lead.

If you have a 640 pound water bag it is holding about 76.8 gallons of water. Therefore, with steel you only need the "apparent volume" of 9.8 gallons of space to get to that weight. With lead you only need the "apparent volume" of 6.9 gallons of space to get to that weight.

But then you have to consider how the steel or lead is formed or packaged to see if you are actually getting the maximum density or not. And you also need to have a size and shape that you can tuck into places in the boat. But you can see that it takes MUCH less space to get the same amount of weight.

I went with 400 pounds of steel shot packaged in 10 bags, because the 40 pound bags are easier to move around and shove in small spaces in the bow of my boat. www.pop-products.com

Moving the weight forward to the front of the boat has some mechanical/leverage advantages depending on the center of gravity of the boat. It should bring the bow down with less total weight. But this is a harder thing to figure out with calculations.

Others will bring up the valid risk of this "non-bouyant" weight creating more risk for sinking a boat. Something to consider.

I noticed the pop bags are significantly cheaper than lead wake bags , 400lbs for $375 delivered , vs $500 delivered

Anyone have experience with both? I don't see myself moving them around a bunch

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I like my POPS weight, glad I got it, but a couple of things to know about actually getting it.

One thing about the POPS website that is slightly misleading is the price "delivered". That DOES NOT mean to your door. The guy that owns POPS uses Old Dominion Freight for shipping. So the pallet of shot gets delivered to the freight company and you have to pick it up there at the loading dock. Old Dominion asks regular customers to come during certain times of the day, usually afternoon when they have completed getting all of their trucks out on the road (at least that was the case at my local dock). And you have to pick up your order in either 48 to 72 hours (can't remember exactly) otherwise they start charging you a dock fee for storing it.

Just so you know.

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We get old D delivered to our building,

Thanks for the heads up

Yes, I guess they will deliver the pallet to a commercial building. It seems like the they want to deliver this amount of weight to a place where they have the ability to help unload it to something like a loading dock. They would not deliver it to my house.

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Hopefully the center of mass of the boat is between the two trailer axles. If you have a single axle I'd start with the point 12" in front of the axle. I don't have my boat here or I'd measure my lsv myself as I'm thinking about putting some lead in the bow too.

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I noticed the pop bags are significantly cheaper than lead wake bags , 400lbs for $375 delivered , vs $500 delivered

Anyone have experience with both? I don't see myself moving them around a bunch

Pop is also steel shot in a bag not as well made. The Lead Wake bags cost more because you are getting a better product.
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Ratio of the centroid of the bag to the centroid of the lead. But realize that replacing 650 lbs of water ballast with a less amount of lead ballast further towards the bow wont make the same wave. The boat will have the same attitude but will ride higher in the water. The hull will displace its weight. More weight is still more.

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Ratio of the centroid of the bag to the centroid of the lead. But realize that replacing 650 lbs of water ballast with a less amount of lead ballast further towards the bow wont make the same wave. The boat will have the same attitude but will ride higher in the water. The hull will displace its weight. More weight is still more.

So, in round numbers, if sac is 12' from the cg of the boat, and if the cg of the lead is 2' further, the equivalent weight in lead need to bring the bow down is: 650 * (12/14) = 557 lbs.

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Ratio of the centroid of the bag to the centroid of the lead. But realize that replacing 650 lbs of water ballast with a less amount of lead ballast further towards the bow wont make the same wave. The boat will have the same attitude but will ride higher in the water. The hull will displace its weight. More weight is still more.

The weight in the bow is more about bow rise and I don't think it has a huge impact on the overall wave as it relates to size. I can add more rear ballast but speed and plane of the boat come into play .

So, in round numbers, if sac is 12' from the cg of the boat, and if the cg of the lead is 2' further, the equivalent weight in lead need to bring the bow down is: 650 * (12/14) = 557 lbs.

Bummer I was hopeing for a better ratio,

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Hope it's ok to chime in with a related question....I'm looking to add ~400lbs of lead to my port side bow...do you guys have any trouble loading/unloading on the trailer with that much extra weight in the bow?

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Hope it's ok to chime in with a related question....I'm looking to add ~400lbs of lead to my port side bow...do you guys have any trouble loading/unloading on the trailer with that much extra weight in the bow?

I had 8 pop bags in the nose, out of 26 total bags in my '08 VLX. You could tell a difference, the nose pointed slightly down, but not an issue loading our unloading.

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hey stevo this is mildly off topic, but when you get around to doing this can you please post a DIY pictorial of how to get to that front back bow cushion's mounting bolts? I looked at it for a while and couldn't figure out how to do it without taking the whole bow apart or getting arms that were 10" longer and have a second elbow. I mean I'm sure there IS a way... I just wasn't smart enough to figure it out. Right now my 150 in lead is tucked under the false floor in the front, around the sides of the tank.

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Does the LSV have the same size bow tank as the VLX? There isn't room to add bags to the VLX without moving the tank some.

post-27473-0-37915100-1455583666_thumb.j

I decided to test before I went through the effort of moving the tank around. Put 400#s in the nose. All hard tanks full. WM 820's full and wedge two clicks from lift. I was not very impressed. I had a lot of bow rise. Had to sit on one knee to see. Sent my 185# friend to the bow and it was much better. I could see sitting on the booster. I didn't get any pics of the wave or bow rise but here is how I had the lead.

post-27473-0-51564000-1455584099_thumb.j

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hey stevo this is mildly off topic, but when you get around to doing this can you please post a DIY pictorial of how to get to that front back bow cushion's mounting bolts? I looked at it for a while and couldn't figure out how to do it without taking the whole bow apart or getting arms that were 10" longer and have a second elbow. I mean I'm sure there IS a way... I just wasn't smart enough to figure it out. Right now my 150 in lead is tucked under the false floor in the front, around the sides of the tank.

I don't believe I did this... I think I may have alluded to tucking lead up by the eye hook , but I haven't even bought lead yet.

I've just taken apart the false front and carpeted flooring to route wires for the stereo.

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Does the LSV have the same size bow tank as the VLX? There isn't room to add bags to the VLX without moving the tank some.

attachicon.gifimage.jpeg

I want to say it's a little bigger but not by much.

I decided to test before I went through the effort of moving the tank around. Put 400#s in the nose. All hard tanks full. WM 820's full and wedge two clicks from lift. I was not very impressed. I had a lot of bow rise. Had to sit on one knee to see. Sent my 185# friend to the bow and it was much better. I could see sitting on the booster. I didn't get any pics of the wave or bow rise but here is how I had the lead.

attachicon.gifimage.jpeg

The bow bag used at the demo was a ronix 600, so with the lead and friend in the bow it would have been similar. There is definite bow rise and even with my 650 bow bag there was enough for me to justify the seat riser. The more I am kicking this around makes me feel like the plumbed PNP bow bag is the best set up. $500 in lead puts me pretty much at the cost of a reversible dedicated PNP set up

I want to be able to hide away all the lead if I went that way, but if 400 tucked in the bow isn't enough to get the job done I doubt I could hide much more than that and I would always have all that extra weight always in the bow.

Edited by Stevo
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Lead/steel has another benefit. Leverage! There is a difference between standing in your bow and on the tip of your bow. The lead/steel gives you the ability to get at least some of it all the way forward inside gunnel. This is one of the huge advantage to the pickle forks bows. Those cavities are perfect place to stuff extra weight.

I keep 250 on each side. Seams to work very similar to the 800 bow bag I used to use. The bow bag had to be at the back of the bow. So actually close to a walkway bag.

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