Ballast Upgrade Options for Sport 200V

[boatlife]

I will be upgrading the ballast in my Sport 200V, but cannot decide on which route I should choose. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Option 1 is to add bags on top of existing tanks: My boat has the Linc screen so I can monitor ballast levels and use Presets which I love. Also, I really like having the storage available in the rear lockers when the tanks are full. We put our wet jackets in plastic tubs to keep the storage lockers dry, so having a stable hard floor is helpful for that. The plan would be to add bags on top of existing tanks and use a distribution valve (https://www.wakemakers.com/fly-high-...-manifold.html) to control the flow between the tank and bags using the existing pump. The advantage of this setup is that I would not lose my Preset functionality and Ballast level indicators, and I would have the flexibility to use the bags or not depending on whether I needed the storage.

Option 2 is to remove the hard tanks and replace with larger bags: The plan here would be to fully remove the hard tanks and use the existing plumbing and pumps to hook up to larger bags (likely 750lb bags). The advantage would be a simpler setup and more storage space when the bags are empty, whereas I would lose Linc screen functionality and Presets. I would also have a more difficult time storing gear if I only partially filled the bags. As a side note, I plan to add engine divider braces in both Option 1 and 2.

Given my preferences, what do you guys recommend? Any personal experiences?

[bakerdr27]

I had a 2014 team 200v. I did the piggyback system with 400 lb bags on top of the hard tanks. I bought the Ronix 8.3 wake shaper. I would fill both hard tanks and fill the 400lb on just the side we were surfing. At 10.6 to 10.8 it provided an awesome wave! Much, much better than stock.


Sent from my iPhone using PLT Nautique

[SXRNathan]

So what did you end up doing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NautiqueJeff]

This guy made one post on this site three and a half years ago.

I doubt you'll hear from him.

[bturner]

Wow your timing couldn't better. Someone pulled the plug on our lake last week and let all the water out, well not exactly, but the lake is too low to use for where we're at on the lake so I pulled it for the season last Monday and have started to prep it for either sale or storage. Not sure which yet but I can run through what I did with some pictures. Don't know if I can finish this post now as I'm getting ready to head out for a surf session but I'll get started and finish later if needed.

I started looking into adding a piggyback system mid winter. The goal was to make something economical that would work well but not make the storage unusable. I knew I would have to engineer this myself as Wake Makers didn't have a kit for my boat and to be truthful adding a system is not rocket science. Since I wanted something that wasn't going to break the bank I started early looking for and planing out components. And so the search began.

To achieve the upgrade I wanted I knew there would be some trade offs and in the end I'm glad I didn't go "full tard" with some kind of 1200 lb bags that people tend to do thinking that bigger is always better. As it turned out karma made the choice for me as about a week after starting my search a pair of (I think) 300 lb used Fly High bags showed up on the MasterCraft TT site. I paid $100 for the two bags, a Tsunami pump and all the plugs including the quick connect fitting and an air valve shipped to my house. This completed the first step in the parts process.

Next I focused on the hoses and connectors I would need. I went with the premium spiral hose from from Wake Makers as I didn't want to deal with kinks and wanted the installation to be as bullet proof as possible. I also did the quick connect fitting so I could remove the bags to clean and dry out the storage area if needed. In stead of looping the line on the fill/drain circuit I decided to use 3 - 90s and a 90 quick connect to keep the stress off the fitting. The vent side proved bit challenging as my fit attempt was with a much shorter hose than shown but this ended up being an issue with the operation of the system. On my first time out I had an issue with the water siphoning out of the bag in the right side of the boat. After doing some reading I decided I'd use a longer line to create a loop in the system to break the siphon action which in my case worked like a charm.

Operation on they system has pretty much been flawless with one exception and a couple items to note. One thing you have to watch for on any "plug and play system" is "oil canning" the system. This happens when the bags develops too much vacuum when draining the tank which can in turn crack your hard tank. Wake Makers makes an anti vacuum fitting (which I bought) but I'm still real careful about draining the tanks which I can talk about more if you're interested. The other is that the port side won't drain completely without resetting the drain cycle once. It's not a big deal as all you have to do is switch the circuit off then back on again. I also think that the impeller on that pump may be about done as I haven't changed any of them and notice that side takes longer to fill as well.

So all in I have $100 in bags and probably $100 in fittings/hoses. I also have a spare Tsunami pump that I'd like to sell since I'm not using it if anyone is interested in one.

Here's couple pictures of my installation.....

[SXRNathan]

I plumbed in my bags last weekend and works great. Here is what I got for parts.
4 x W746, 90 degree 1-1/8” quick connects
4 x W743, 1” npt quick connect with anti syphon fittings
2 x 1” vented loops. Found these on Amazon for $13 bucks!
25 feet of 1” hose from local hose shop.
flyhigh 400 lbs bags.
I still want to by 2 x Fly High 1-1/8" Flow Rite Double Quick Release Connect W743-Double. To connect the ends together to winterize.

Fill/Drain circuit
I have my lower fill/empty port facing the front of the boat. With the tanks sloped down to the front, my thought was that it would get a more complete drain.
from the tank outlet, I ran a hose up to the front of the storage area and used a 90 QC to the bag. This hose ran along the side of the hull. I would like to replace the straight barb fitting on the take to a 90 just to make a cleaner install.

Overflow/Vent circuit
i placed the anti syphon loop on fresh air vents at the back of the storage compartment. I ran the hose from the through hull fitting back to the loop. For the hose from the bag to the loop I decided to run this beside the engine wall. I left this long to make sure it did not pull on the loop when filled.

On the battery side the fill/drain port is on top of the battery. What I would like to do is lengthen hose so in can come behind the battery and up the engine side of the battery. I want to replace the 90 with a straight fitting to connect the bag. I think this will allow the bag and fitting to sit better. this also makes me wonder why Nautique did not turn the battery 90 form the current position.

Would be nice too if the bag connection ports were closer to the end of the bag. Just make for a cleaner install and not have the hoses in the way.

Forgot to take pictures of my install. When I am back at the lake I will snap a few picks and add them to the post.

[bturner]

I like the idea of filling and draining from the front of the bag and will be looking into doing this as well as like you say the angle does end up leaving about a gallon of water in the bag. The battery location is really a problem and I wish they would have moved the battery as far forward as possible, turned it 90 degrees to shorten it's effect length and just cut a U into the tank. That would have effectively moved the battery far enough forward and out of the way to free up much more room. But it is what it is.

To get around or at least make the battery intrusion into the storage area better I went with a Optima battery which is about 2" shorter than the standard lead/acid stock battery. I then cut down the battery box bottom and cut the top to fit the battery. I took off about 3" in height out by doing this. My battery is now very near level at the rear and about 2.5" above the tank at the front which while it may not sound like much does make a considerable difference as my bag stops just over the battery on the port side.

You can see in the attached pictures how much I was able to cut down and where the original depth of the cover used to be. I think I still have another 1/2" that I can pull out of the box before I start touching the terminals. That's something I can look at more during that long winter that's facing us.

I typically tell people it takes 3 seasons to really square out a boat and understand how to best operate it. I have a one very short and one full season on this boat. During this time I've done small things like figuring out rope storage, storage for cleaning supplies and relocating the fire extinguisher to maximize space. Larger projects have included the ballast system, converting over to GPS for the speed as well as a rather time consuming wet blocking / polishing / waxing.

From an operational perspective the bag installation, Mission Delta shaper and that GPS speed conversion have really made a difference in the on water experience with the boat. We now have a very surfable wake with rock solid speed control. The GPS really seems to have made a difference with slalom as well.