Adding additional ballast to 14 g21?

[mlsurfco]

Are people adding additional ballast to the g21? Does the surf wave get that much better? I am not sure I want to lose that storage space....... Thoughts?

[wakerider107]

I prefer stock ballast + 400lbs in lead for surfing. I've added extra and tried to fine tune the wave but was never really happy. I transfer a lot and the more weight you add the harder it is to transfer plus with the 409 your RPMs jump from 3100 to 4000 (1,500lbs extra). If anything, a bag in the bow walkthru adds some more length without sacrificing much height.

[Bdillonwake]

I'd be curious to know if anyone is adding weight to the G21 for wakeboarding!


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[wakerider107]

I'd be curious to know if anyone is adding weight to the G21 for wakeboarding!


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1,500 of extra ballast made the wake really steep and it lost some transition even with the NCRS plate at 3. It's a fun wake no doubt but I ride stock most of the time.

[Bdillonwake]

1,500 of extra ballast made the wake really steep and it lost some transition even with the NCRS plate at 3. It's a fun wake no doubt but I ride stock most of the time.

That's what I figured the wake is already steep, so I assumed extra weight would be worse. I ride stock on my G21 as well I was just curious if anyone was throwing more at it!


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[NV236]

I have played with the G21 a lot. I tried many different configurations. It is a difficult boat to dial in perfectly and still have lots of room and it not taking up all your seating and storage. The 2 best options are a #1 750lb bag Right in the middle of the boat. i flip the middle seat back and put the bag right up against it running towards the bow. The only drag is stepping over it when i get in and out of the drivers seat. #2 There is also the large flat square bag that sits on the floor and you walk over it. the thing i didn't like about that is you couldn't flip the seat back and you always walk on it like a water bed. We often have 6 or 7 people on the boat so seats are important when watching the riders. What i found trying to put extra bags in the locker was you had to match the weight up front. Bottom line you need to get the boat to sit deeper in the water evenly. additional weight just in the back did nothing to help the wake. I also have added 200 lbs on the port side to help with the prop twist. i then added another 150 lbs on each side of lead again in the middle right behind the drivers seat and matched it on the other side. I know i could add more in the front and add at least the same in the back but honestly the wake is huge with just the 750 in the middle and 6 people.

[mlsurfco]

Thanks for the details NV. I am thinking maybe 400-500 lbs of lead to move around. I don't really want bags on the floor/seats. Will need to get the boat first to start playing with it.

What do you guys think of the wave pure stock?

[josemolino]

I have a 2014 g21 and we have never need to go over stock ballast. I have just left a 200lb on the port side to compensate the prop.
The wake is big enough. We come from a 220 and it took us a season to get used to full ballast. G21 at 1/4 is equivalent to 220 full.
It also took us a while to get used to the peak. It throws you up up up. In fact some of my friends still ask to reduce it with the ncrs to 3 .
So as someone mentioned before, by loading too much you take the risk of eliminating the transition

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[scott-lake-james-in]

I added a 750lb bag in both rear lockers of my 2015 G21. I agree that this is too much weight in the rear and the wave wasn't what I wanted. I then dumped a quarter of the rear hard tanks and tried again setting NCRS at 5 and NSS at 5. The wave was crazy huge, like nothing I have been on before. Bumped the speed up to 11.7mph to try to further lengthen it. The top portion of the wave was very vertical so riding up to the lip felt like a skate park ramp. 2 friends of mine and I used the smallest board we had, a Phase 5 Hammerhead. It was a blast! Later, I had my daughter ride it like that and it was way to big for her. It kept sending her towards the boat and she would bury the nose of the 53" Doum she was riding. In the end, I emptied the bags and have them waiting in a dock box for the next set off riders that want to experiment with me.

Side note: I read that a lot of riders are using NSS = 2 or 3. Some even zero. I have not had good luck with low settings and like to use an NSS setting of 4 or 5 on both port or starboard. Not sure what is different for me. I am only 20 hours into this boat and am used to wakesetters so my perspective might be skewed.

Question: Are the lead weights that people are using sealed? I get nervous about accidentally dropping lead into the lakes we ride. Lead is a neurotoxin of course. (I don't have any experience with lead weight, btw. I also know that people are capablbe of being careful)

[bandit628]

Accidentally dropping lead? ....fisherman lose lead weights all the time. Not 50 lbs at a time but still.

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[scott-lake-james-in]

Yeah, I have heard lead shot is bad too. Flint MI is an hour north of where I live but I am no expert. I do love surfing and wakeboarding though.

[Sailfun]

The problem with lead is that you have to tow it in the boat. You may well end up over the trailer rating and most people towing the boats are already over their vehicles tow capacity. You also if it matters reduce your legal load on the water.

[mjp2222]

Yeah, I have heard lead shot is bad too. Flint MI is an hour north of where I live but I am no expert. I do love surfing and wakeboarding though.

The bags that are made here are not really lead. Everyone calls them lead but they're actually just steel shot in a canvas bag with a handle sewn on. Check out wakeballast bags. There is also a company called lead wake. I have a few of each of their bags but from what I understand they aren't lead - it's just the branding.

[wakemaker]

https://www.leadwake.com/ i got 1200 for my 2017 230 400 in the backs and 400 in front no bags now i have a place to put stuff

[scott-lake-james-in]

So it was eclipse day yesterday in NW Indiana and we started early. Barefooting on the boom with a 5' line on my 86 Supra TS6m at 7am then we switched to the G21 for wakeboarding. I pushed to a new personal level with the stock ballast half full and a 65' line. I have never been so high in the air going wake to wake. At some point, I felt like I was going to hurt myself and that is almost always my indication to stop and go surfing. My buddy, coming from a 2013 21' Malibu VLX wanted to surf stock again and it was great, of course. Then we started to experiment. He brought 2 x 1,100lb bags and I had his old 750s in the rear lockers. So, we filled an 1,100 bag in the bow and with stock ballast in the back and belly and it was a lot of fun. The wave lengthened out using NCRS at 3 and NSS at 5.

Eventually, we filled the 750s in the back and the 1,100 in the center in front of the rear facing bench. The bow 1,100 was still full. At this point the platform was very sunk. NSS was overwhelmed so we drained some of the hard ballast on each side depending on which side we wanted to surf. By my calculations, after pumping out some hard ballast to list the boat, we were pushing just over 11,000lbs. The G21 and its 409 with the 17" prop handled it without a problem. RPMs were ~3,450 at 12mph. Definitely louder in the boat than stock surfing, however! The surf wave was intense, again like a skateboard quarter-pipe but bigger than I had ever experienced before. Falls were not quite as pleasant as with the stock ballast only and at this point my other buddy arrived to start immediately on the massive wave. At this point it was about 3:30 pm and the eclipse had passed. I spent the rest of the day undoing all the fun. : ) I believe we used 60% of a tank of gas. Thinking about it today, I wish I would have got up behind the boat and dropped in off of the lip with all that weight. Next time!!