addind some ballast

want to add some ballast to my boat, would like to know which soft bag would fit best in rear storage locker of an o5 lightening c4 (centurian). have 550 lbs lead but would like to up the ante a bit. also is it best to plumb into existing ballast, or to get a seperate pump and go seperate route. not too worried about how long it takes to fill. thanks for any info

I have the older Lightning hull. The Fly High 750 fits nicely in the older hull. The 750 is 20x20 inches by 50 inches long.

Last year I replaced the hard tanks with a pair of 750s. This year I put the hard tanks back in. I removed the blank felt box covering from the hard tanks and I’m laying a 750 over the hard tank, so I'm getting a few more pounds in the locker this year. I'm filling the second 750 and placing it either over or under the long bench (not full when it's under). Or, I'm putting the second 750 behind the driver for goofy surf.

I strongly recommend Fly High fat sacks. The material is very strong and the plumbing fittings are absolutely the best.

Don't know how this works out for the C4 hull, good luck.

Oh, it's was very easy to plumb Fly Highs in to my Lightning. While surfing there's a lot of bow rise. Last year the fill inlets were siphoning the ballast back out while we were surfing. I added a pair of flapper type check-valves to correct the problem.

Nice! We used to have a similar setup on our 210. Worked well for us to.

Sorry to barge in, I just got back from Havasu and all I had was the center stock ballast filled and 250 in one of the lockers. Put out what appeared to be a decent wave but wouldn't allow me to ride without the rope on my coex for more then a couple seconds. Realistically what do I need to get a good wave going. This is on a 2002 centurion cyclone v drive. I was going to buy one of the 400lbs pro series surf sacs for the locker. Do I just need to stack up more weight on the side we surf wherever we have room in front of the back seat? How much weight do I need to get something rideable? Anyone have experience with this boat or something comparable? Anyway, I appreciate any advice. Really looking forward to getting this dialed in because it was pretty fun even with the rope so I can imagine it would be even more so without. Maybe the coex is a little small? I kind of heard you need a bigger wake for those.

At 220 pounds I’ve surfed behind my ’04 Lighting a 21.6 length boat with stock center tank at 230 pounds and one stock 180 pound side tank on a HL 5.6 Broadcast. The wake is surfable but not real satisfying. So as you can see above I’ve maxxed out what you can do with a Lightning.

The cyclone is a 20 foot boat, with low gunnels, right? A smaller boat means you will be more ballast limited and generate less displacement. That doesn’t mean you can't get a good surf wake but it won't match a LSV or Enzo.

The wakesurf tribal knowledge says that new riders need to start on bigger boards, especially if your wake limited. I've never ridden a Coex. Some boards are just faster than others. For a small board the Inland Surfer Yellow is pretty fast. Rider weight is a big factor.

Water depth is important; I always surf in water deeper than 14 feet. How deep is your lake?

The easy recommendations are to, slow the boat down, add weight, and try a bigger board. I’ve surfed a small Trick Boardz Free style at 8 mph to 8.5 mph. The easiest way to add weight is to invite a bunch of friends and have them sit along one side. You should be able to surf a small wake on a large board like a Shred Stixx JaMako or and Inland Surfer Red. If you wake is small you may be limited in what you can do once you get up and surfing.

Thanks Ed, the lake is really deep so I don't think that was an issue. The wave just seemed really soft, didn't have that nice pocket yours appears to have. I don't know if that's just an issue of weight or placement of weight or what. I had to get nearly right behind the swim step to get the little bit of push without the rope. Think I should have tried it farther back. I was kind of pulling my self up towards the back of the boat to get that feeling of where I might be able to let go.

Yes, the boat is just shy of 21 feet and I'm sorry but I'm not sure what the "low gunnels" comment means exactly. Had storage limitations so that's as big of a boat as I could purchase. I was varying speeds between 9.5 to 10.5 mph.

I think I'll try adding some more weight behind the drivers seat, I'm a goofy foot, and see what happens. Probably a bigger sac in the locker. Any suggestions for how much weight I should try and have when I try again and where it should be placed. I'll probably try a little bigger board as well.

Bryce, Ohhhh... Goofy, that's more difficult.

First low gunnels, compared to the Avy, I'd say the gunnels of the Lightning are relatively low. If the gunnels are low you have to watch how much weight you’re using. A bass boat is much worse but I don’t think that anyone is surfing behind a bass boat with fully loaded live wells.

I can get a good goofy side wake but it’s harder. I have a hydraulic trim tab. When we surf on the goofy side we set the trim tab 50% to 100% down, mostly 100% down. We set the tab all the way up for regular surf. I don’t know if the goofy trim tab trick works on other boats, if you try it, let me know.

I’d also recommend playing with your set up while you’re still in the boat. Move people forward and back play with speed, play with the trim tab. Make changes slowly, wait a minute or two to see how the change in set up works. Get a wake that you think looks good. Then get out a try surfing with the best looking setup but be prepared to continue to adjust while you’re out on the wake.

We surf about one mph slower on the goofy side. It’s really important on my boat to get a hard list going, about 20 degrees. We were hiking out to get a good list and wake but caught a lot of flack for it. I’ve since mounted weights on the tower to help with the list, draws a lot of looks too.

I’ve made a number of experiments including working on filling the spray pockets and filling in the Lightning hull extension. I think that some of the ski boat hull features actually help building a surf wake but often funky surface features appear until you really get the wake dialed in.

There are a couple of other tricks I use to make the goofy wake a little better but I’m not prepared to share.

When I dunk the Centurion lettering, the wake is always good.


That's about 18 degrees of list


Don't do this any more, The local patrol knows I used to do this, they didn't say anything at the time. I'm on a first name basis with these guys now and now know that they thought about stopping me.


We don't hike out any more we use tower mounted ballast


That's about the best looking Goofy wake picture I have


It was getting dark when we took this picture - looks cool.



Filling in spray pockets, not a good idea





(Message edited by Bigshow on May 09, 2007)

Bryce,

I find that weight in the bow is needed to get a good push from the wake and to lengthen the surf pocket. Most boat have one side that is better than the other when surfing. This usually is the port side.

Thanks everyone, sounds like I just need to buy a couple extra sacs and experiment. I'll let you know how it goes.