Weighting Under Jump Seats of Open Bow I/O

I am looking for some suggestions on what to use for fat sacs under the jump seats of my open bow I/O. The compartments are very odd shaped and I want to get the most weight I can in there. All of the sacs i have been looking at don't seem as thought they would fit right. Any info about weighting I/O's would be great.

I put a custom ski locker sac (650 lbs perhaps even 750 lbs) in. Been very happy, still get to use lockers under bow seat for PFD etc.

Under my front seats I use 3 gallon plastic bottles filled with sand, water and a little tire lead, they weigh 60 pounds each & I can get two per side. That space is too small to get any meaningful water weight in there.

lead

sandbags, and a sac in the bow, we step all over ours, 2 years, its held up fine

Heavy duty trash sacks filled with water. They form to the space, they are very puncture resistant. They are practically free. If they ever leak, use them for trash.

I use 2 in my ski locker and 1 under each of my front seats.

Works great for me. My floor space is open.

Are you guys weighting the back of the boat as well in your I/O's? I have a 300lb sac on each side of the engine and plan to put close to 500lbs total in the bow. Any one have experiance weighting an I/O this way.

Are you guys weighting the back of the boat as well in your I/O's? I have a 300lb sac on each side of the engine and plan to put close to 500lbs total in the bow. Any one have experiance weighting an I/O this way.

I do not weight the back. If fact, I tried once and had a noticable affect on planing. Center and front weight worked better for my I/O. The engine is weight enough.

Potter-What kind of boat do you have and do you know how much weight you have in the bow? What is the wake like? (Large, rampy ect..)

See my profile, it is a 19' runabout I/O. I put a trash sack with water, appx 110 lbs each, under each of the 2 front seats. I fill the ski locker with 2 sacks about 200lbs each. That is a total of 600+ lbs. That sits the boat down pretty good and almost doubles my wake. It is as good as I can get for my boat. It is plenty for the level of boarding my kids and I can do. Even inverts. It is not a tidal wave but it its all I have. You describe my wake.
See my wake. See me jump.


(Message edited by arlanj on April 30, 2003)

Looks pretty good. What Lenght rope are your riding at?

We put 500# in the back, and 300-400 in the bow, trimmed a little less than 3/4 up, this requires some throttle work, but it is worth it.

We keep moving out. We tried a 55 from the tower, worked for a while at 60, but now we generally use 65 from the tower. I will start my beginners at the shorter distances.

As Thomas said, we also hit the trim a very small amount after we get on plane, to firm and clean up the wake. You also have to watch the peoples' seating in the boat. Balance the weight. If you are off balance, the wake will not be the same on both sides.

Hey Thomas,

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

The chicken wing!!! This came first, then an adequate means of replication came in the form of the chicken-egg system!!

May the force be with you, young Skywalker.

Potter, that is a pretty nice wake, nice edge. I am running 250 in the front, and 500 in the locker. I trim as far as I can go, and get similar results.

I just filled my ski-locker with as many sand-bags as I could fit in there, it actually helped the boat to plain faster as it got the front end down. On days when everybody wanted to sit on the back I had big problems getting out before this. Also it seemed to make the wake much cleaner. I didn't put any in the seats but thought about it. There just didn't seem to be enough space.