Full size ballast bags in the back of your 210/SAN/SS's?

[Erik]

I am considering putting full size ballast bags on either side of the engine on my 2001 Super Sport turned Super Air Nautique.

Right now I have Fat Buddies in there, one on each side of the engine. But for the remainder of the summer, I really want to slam the boat, and see how far I want to go with the upcoming autoballast project. I know that a lot of people put large bags back there, but it dosen't seem like there is enough room to do so - and even they can be squeezed in,, the partitions that seperate the engine from the 2 side compartments don't seem strong enough to hold a full size ballast bag in place, and prevent the bags from pressing the partitions against the manifolds, and thus burning them. Not to mention that the battery would have to be moved as well. That seems easy though.

So - when people put full size bags in there, are they building ballast enclosues to hold the bags, or are the issues I am worried about, just not going to happen.

Thanks - very much,
Erik

[Flux]

I shared your concern about the bags and I too wanted to sink the swim step.

I pulled the tanks out and got some Pro-X fittings and 750 lb bags. The plumbed in there very easily and I used the stock aerator pumps on my 02. I had to flip all the tube ports so that we could fill er up without it spilling out. I also made some rear reinforcement brackets out of plywood and screwed them down so the bags would not rub against the bolts on the transom.

As for the engine dividers, i picked up some angled aluminum channel and match drilled them to the dividers. 1/8" thick stuff, nice and rigid. I made sure that the angles would contact the motor mount/pylon support behind the back seat and the vertical reinforcement below the engine hatch at the transom. A bit of cutting to get it all to fit right and I attached the channel to the bottom half of the divider using the existing bolts that hold the flanges for the top half. It's now very sturdy, no chance of it busting through. I had visions of a ballast bag rubbing up agains the exhaust riser, I am paranoid, but all is good with this setup.

As for the bags, they fit perfect really nicely for length and take up all the room. I estimate we can get 500 each side no sweat, maybe more, but that's all you really need in the rear. You will have to add whatever you put over the stock 500 to the bow to keep the boat from doing a wheelie down the lake. So we put another 500 to 500 in the bow. Adding to the bow mellows the wake. The stock ballast system was nicely balanced with 500 in the rear and 300 in the belly. Whatever you add to the rear needs to be balanced in the front by the same amount. We can now run close to 2000 lbs with no problems except you definately want to be in calm water and be careful driving. I have taken more than a few rollers over the bow, it happens. Just hit your bilge once in a while to make sure you are dry.

I just finished rewiring so we have seperate control for everything except the manual fill bow bags. Like the new boats, we can tweak our wake side to side and front to back on the fly. We can also empty a rear sack and get our surf on in short order.

Another great feature of ditching the rear hard tanks is you can actually put boards in there for trailering. Even with 500 lbs in there you have room for vests and such so you actually gain alot of ballast and storage at the same time. Do it, you will like it.