1997 Sport Nautique Auto-ballast questions

[leveraged]

Hey Guys,
This is my first post as I have just bought a 97 sport nautique from the states and waiting for it to land in Australia in the next month or so. The first thing I wanted to do to it was install a auto or semi auto ballast system to hide as much weight as possible. So the boats a 97 and doesnt have the rear ski locker so I cant hide anything there. Where else can I hide weight? I havent ever seen the boat in person so just going off the pictures. really dont want to be loading sacks through the boat all the time. Can someone point my in good direction please, ive searched but only came up with ones with rear lockers etc. Can I hide weight under the rear seat somehow? centre ski locker ? and under the bow seats at all? anywhere else i could make a custom tank perhaps under the floor? How much weight do you think I could hide and where abouts?

Thanks for your help in advance. I will try post some pics in next few days...maybe someone could just paintshop the outlines of where i can hide stuff?

[wakedude4]

RE: 1997 Sport Nautique Auto-ballast questions

if it were me i would put a fat sac inside the ski locker. Thats pretty much the only place you can hide a fat sac. If you want to put weight in the back of the boat your options would be to put lead weights underneath those back seats. the only bad thing about that the weights can be a pain to move around.

[xlair]

you can put a bag in the ski locker in the center equal to ~400 lbs. the '97 is a playpen bow so you could put a triangle bag under the seats but i would probably just stick a few lead bricks there as there isn't a whole lot of depth under the seats.

as far as the rear goes you don't have any good options really. the '97 has the removable rear seat w/no trunk so you could stick some lead under the seats and around the edges of the seat or take the seat out and replace with a fat seat. Other than that it would have to be a custom seat.

[WakeSlayer]

I would consider ballast puppies and stubbed hoses with quick connects under the gunnels. I have thought about doing this for my sac we use on the side for surf weight.