Weighting your Nautique

Befoe I get yelled at, I did do a serch and found nothing pertaining to my question. I have a 1997 Super Sport and was wondering how people weight there Nautiques, mainly V-drives. I ask because I am about to purchase my Fat Sacs for my custom system, and would like to see how the wake looks with X amount of ballast. Pictures would be great, Thanks, Michael

There is a good "show your wake" thread going right now. Look at Gramp's rundown on his weight.

E.J.

I was looking for weight to load on the boat and ran into some steel shot that I thought would be perfect for weight. I used this weight on the boat last summer and what a difference it made. The wake is bigger and when people are in the boat I can move some bags around on deck to adjust the wake shape. I have a super air so most of the weight from people is on the port side. This makes it nice so I don’t have to ask people to move around. I have no belly tank but I have the two wedge tanks in the rear. With this I store 200 lbs in the bow, 400 lbs in the belly (ski locker) 100 lbs on each wedge tank, and 200+lbs on deck to move around. I loaded the boat with 1500 lbs and worked my way down in 50 lbs increments. I ended up with 1000lbs of steel bags and the two wedge tanks full. This seem to work out the best for us the boat planed right away with the new lowest pitch prop we could get for it before we add the weight. We live at 5,500 in elivation so the prop was a must you should look in to one if you don't have one already. Sorry no pic for you.

http://www.planetnautique.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2192&post days=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I talked to a guy at the MC dealership yesterday who rides behind a friends Super Sport, i think it was a 97 model. Anyway, he said they weight it with 2500 lbs!!! I am looking to see some pics of that, it must barely be floating!

I ride behind a 95 super sport and we have a full sack in each rear compartment, and one in the center locker. We use a cooler full of concrete for movable weight to balance out the weight of the driver. The wake is huge.

The stock wieghting in a SAN, which is the same boat is 300 in the ski locker (Center) and 250 on either side of the engine. This stock setup makes a pretty nice wake, not huge, but a nice blend of ramp and pop. We then added another 200 on each side of the engine over the wedge tanks and about 400 in the bow. This increased the wake height and made gave it alot more pop, which takes some getting used to. All this was done with three people and a rider. The boat planed pretty quickly after the initial wheelie and planed nicely, very little bow rise overall. So it was about 1700 lbs total ballast. The wake was firm with no wash out to about 80 ft

From what I have read and experienced with the SAN hulls, you should probably start with the stock, 250/250/300 (RR/RL/Center) and add equal total weight to the storage and bow. This should keep that nice blend of Pop/Ramp. As you add more weight, you are gonna see the trough on the outside of the wakes get deeper.

Jack's post above shows him doing the same thing, loading the bow and extra in the rear about the same. SO he's running about 1500lbs total, which will give you a very intimidating wake.

Let me be the third to recommend the same SAN set up. As Flux (Capasitor???) said, 250/250/300 built in is a good start. For beginner to intermediate riders that is what we use. When we start pulling the more advanced riders we put a 400-500 lbs in the bow/walkway and either people or additional 200lb bags on either side of the engine. With people in the boat you actually want to add 500-700 lbs of weight in the front of a SAN. The stock with 5 people in the back and a 400-500 up front is primo.

One other tid bit. At this set up you will probably want to run the rope out to 80 feet, 85 is even better !!!!

I have a 95' SS. Right now I have my custom bags on order. It will be about 2300lbs. of just water ballast and I might add another 200 lbs. of lead. Two 500s in the trunk about a 700+ in the locker and a standard 600 fat sac up front. Should be great. Last year I had Two 600s in the back and another 500 in sand and the wake was nice, but the best day was when we had that 1700 lbs of ballast plus 10 people in the boat. Should be about equivalent to the new ballast with about four people. HUGE!!!

I see everyone talking about a "center locker" on this thread...what exactly is a center locker? Is this the locker under the passenger seat where the battery is?

Also, I don't know much about Nautiques...but is the 1995 Super Sport a V-drive? I didn't really know they had V-drives in nautiques back then.

"Center locker" is the locker in the center of the boat. You walk right over it on your way to go sit in the bow. It is big enough to put skis in, but we fill them with water
Yes a 1995 Super Sport is a v-drive, I have one.

Thanks Wake Fun...now I know what you are talking about...my girlfriends Chapperal deck boat has a center locker, but my MC direct drive does not. Pretty sweet place to get some more ballast in, I wish I had one.

Since you seem to know what you are talking about, I wanted to run something by you...I read in Wakeboarding Mag this month that a good ballast ratio to go with is 60% in the rear and 40% up front...in your experiences, is this right on?

Also, I rode this past weekend for the first time in my X-5 with only about 1000lbs of ballast and 3 people and the wake had good shape, just not much size. Should I be apprehensive about running up to 2000lbs the next time I go out? Would 2000lbs be pushing it for a boat that is 19'8"? Also, how do you know when you are running too much ballast? What happens? Does the wake start to get smaller and the boat start to handle like crap?

I know its a trial and error thing, just wanted some feedback...thanks.

Andrew,
I run a '96 205 DD right now, I am running 1200 in the back. a little less than 550 in the center cooler/locker and 2 275 bags under the front seats. You should be fine with 2000lb the boat will just be a bit sluggish. You may find you might want to change your prop pitch down a little

Andrew,
My 95' is a 21' boat. I have 700lbs in h20 in the back + 260lbs of lead in the back. I have 600 lbs of h20 in the center locker. I have 130lbs of lead to move around the interior of the boat. Total weight of ballast is 1690 + 2 batteries and all the other crap in the boat. Then throw in 5 friends for another 800-1000lbs. You will not be disappointed! Oh yeah, when I went out the very first time with all this weight and stopped the boat, I had water come over the back and into the boat From then on I let off the throttle easy...........On another note my coast gaurd plaque says 1250lbs max!!!