Weighting a 196

[DanielC]

I would suggest with a 196, you do not add weight, if you want the ultimate slalom wake, you take weight out of the back of the boat. 1997, through 1999 Ski Nautiques you could easily remove the back seat, and run the gas tank down.
The propeller rotation counterbalances the driver, but you may need to fine tune from side to side. I would think that without an extra passenger, put unused gear on the port side of the motor box to help balance from side to side.

[DealsGapCobra]

What is the reason you want the steering wheel to pull and not trim it to neutral?

[DanielC]

Depending on what way you are turning, the steering cable is either pulling, or pushing on the rudder. Each time you change direction, the inner cable is pulled to the inside of each corner it goes around, or pushed to the outside of each corner. This creates a little slack, or freeplay and you cannot control the boat precisely. By adding some preload to the rudder, you are always pushing or pulling on the the steering cable in the ski course, and it is easier to hold the boat in a straight line.

[DealsGapCobra]

Thanks for the explaination...I didn't think about slop in the steering.

[east tx skier]

I would suggest with a 196, you do not add weight, if you want the ultimate slalom wake, you take weight out of the back of the boat. 1997, through 1999 Ski Nautiques you could easily remove the back seat, and run the gas tank down.
The propeller rotation counterbalances the driver, but you may need to fine tune from side to side. I would think that without an extra passenger, put unused gear on the port side of the motor box to help balance from side to side.

I just played with this for about six sets on my 98 SN. So here's my report. Just my opinion, but in short, I plan to remove the 50 lbs I shoved in the nose earlier. If the wake and tracking were any better as a result of the weight, they were only marginally so. On the other end, handling at idle was horrible. The boat noticeably plowed the water. If it made a huge difference on my tracking and wake, forget idle handling. But for any gains there may have been, the idle handling was noticeably bad. It was also a bit sluggish out of the hole, something that has never been an issue. It felt as if it were trying to plane like my old MC. In the past, it has always seemed to just rise up with nose low. I don't know what would cause that, but this was the only change since my last bit of time in the course. Two weeks ago, this same boat pulled two skiers into 38 off with rave reviews of its handling. I'm thinking I'm going to remove the weight, call it good, and perhaps, toy with filing the trim tab to get a little more lh pull to see how that feels. The guy I was skiing with said don't mess with the pull. He has called it great since my last adjustment to the tab several months ago.

YMMV.

[Hogdog]

Weighting a 196

Danielc - great explanation on pushing and pulling. I finally get why i need to 'load' the rudder. That solved the play in my steering wheel on the course.

[Talks]

Is there a reason as to why the boat needs to pull to the left instead of the right? I understand the need to load the rudder to remove slop and allow for more precise control running through the course. IMO I prefer the boat to pull to the right. It's more natural for me to hold pressure down with my left hand on the wheel than to be constantly pushing up on the wheel.

[DanielC]

Push or pull, it does not matter. It is your boat. Set it up how you want. If somebody else does not like it, they can go and buy their own boat.

[ClemsonDave]

The rotation of the prop on Nautiques lends it to pull to the left. It might take a ton of filing the rudder to get it to pull to the right, if it would work at all.

[east tx skier]

My previous owner filed my old rudder neutral. Having come from a MC, I kind of liked the idea of having the boat pull to the right. So I got to work filing the right trailing edge even further. Never could get it to pull right. Decided to pony up the dough for a new adjustable rudder rather than try to take it all the way back to a left hand pull. New rudder works great, although I'm considering widening the holes for a little more pull even though the nose weighting didn't work out too well for me.

[harddock]

the ski nautique was designed to have two passengers (timer and judge)portside and a driver when pulling through a slalom course, jump, or tricks. You should not need to bow weight the boat. Side weight should be added if only an observer or lighter port side than starbord side. The wake should be somewhat balanced left to right. If you come buy a yard sale with gym equipment you should be able to buy some vinyl coated weights from a gym machine. Or buy a small fatsack and add water. Ideally the weight should be under the passenger seat.

[east tx skier]

Also, make sure anyone in the observer seat stays out of the corner, a/k/a the most comfortable spot on the seat. Sitting too far to port can really do a number on the wake.

[NCH2oSki]

Eastie, what happened with the nose weight?

[east tx skier]

Check the bottom of page 2. In short, not much of a noticeable difference in wake or tracking. Handled like a pig at idle and out of the hole. Had 50 lbs in the nose. Pulled it out and will run stock from now on with possibly some further rudder tab adjustment.

[windsurfnut]

Resurrecting this topic! I bought a 2002 196 last year. Absolutely love the boat.
Most of the time we run with just a driver, or sometimes a couple kids in the observer seat. I've noticed that the port side wake is larger then the starboard side. We added a water sac under the observer seat, as much to port as would allow to help balance it out, but it always seems that the starboard side is sitting lower in the water, creating the larger port wake.

My question is, with the tuneable rudder, does loading one side of the steering versus the other affect the wake shape or side? Boat is in storage now, but I know my rudder is in the neutral position, but I can't recall how it loads the boat..to starboard I think.

So could I tune the rudder far enough the other way to load the port side and equal out the wake? Does that make sense? I'd like to balance out the boat better and flatten the wake side to side.

We haven't been too focused on removing weight in the boat. Back seat is still in, and generally there are a couple kids skis in the rear locker. Adult skis usually along the starboard side, but I can't imagine they make the offset all that much.