Axis Wakeboard Boat Forum

Alright. I have been experimenting with ballast set ups for 2 years now, since I had 11 hours on the meter. I have played with as little as 3400 up to 5000, all no wedge. I recently pulled 200 lbs out of my bow tips and moved them to the center of the boat. This affected the ability of my 1235 and cinco to get my boat up on plane, but the wake is noticeably steeper.

With full ballast and lead, my normal set up, I have a huge clean hard booty wake.... seriously get "wow's" whenever someone rides it. Then I added the Sumo 800 floor sack and I get a very huge, clean hard, steeper bootier wake. It is crazy how much steeper the wake gets with that floor sack. After 3200 lbs of ballast, it seems that every 100 lbs makes a noticeable difference. In the bow, as you add, the wake gets more firm, gets a longer transition and the lip flattens a bit. Weight in the cabin does the opposite.

All this to say.... those that are running the wedge (usually full pnp and wedge), try your next outing without the wedge and add the 1000-1500 lbs on your floor. 2 500's, 600's or 750's fit perfectly. The "weight" will be equivalent to having the wedge, according to stated wedge affectiveness, but the wake will be a whole different animal. Hopefully you do not love it, which I think you really will, because then you will be filling sacks manually when you ride after that

I am not a big wedge guy and have always opted for more weight than wedge. That sounds like a monster wake.

Pics.

Johnny what you're saying make easy sense to me because with centering the majority of your ballast you are basically getting as much of the hull deeper into the water which is displacing the water and that equals a great wake (of course the hull shape is a big factor as well). The wedge will dig the back of the boat deeper but will lift the bow. Essentially that's why a few of us are really weighting the bow heavy to keep the bow in the water to help with displacent. I still like the shape of the wake with the wedge but I've never added sacs to the cabin floor. Actually, I don't want to take up cabin space but then again my wakeboarding skills do not justify this need. Would be fun to try though. In addition, your ballast placement in the cabin makes sense in that in a lot of pro videos you'll see 2, even 3 750lb fat sacs in the cabin of X-Stars, 230's, Bu's, etc.

Now you have me thinking......empty rear bags, and maybe tanks too, wedge down, center full, and front full......hmmmmmm

I have done kinda of this set up. I fill center front PNP and run 800 on top of bow seats. But I will always put some weight in the rear. This throughs a nasty wake the only issue is keeping from nose diving.

Here is a pic my daughter took from yesterday with the above set up.

Agreed. Once I upgraded prop to 2315 and started adding weight, I have left the wedge up. Friends who ride my boat were the first ones to comment on how different (nice) the wake was without wedge.

JohhnyD how much weight are you running in your bow tips now?

200 lbs. 4 lead-wake bags. I had 400 lbs but it was sooooo nose heavy that loading boat on trailer was a pain and when riding with ballast empty or just cruising around, the bow was just too low. When weighted fully, it was perfect.

So now I moved the other 200lbs under the side bench seats, as far forward as I can. I now have 400 lbs in the cabin and 200 in the tips. I plan on adding 2 more bags behind my sub wolfer and 2 more behind the batteries.

But as it sits now, it is just a little nose heavy but barely noticeable. It is easier to load on the trailer as well and the wake is noticeably steeper. I like it a lot right now.