Hard tank ballast system for Supra/Moomba?

[Fman]

Would it be possible to have a company fab up some plastic hard tanks to install in the ski locker compartment??? anyone know if a company like this exists???

Enjoying my '08 22V, but I have to be honest, the bag system I am not digging on. This week I could not get one to drain because it kinked the line, I had to step on it for 5 minutes to finally apply pressure to get it to drain. Moving the 750 lb sac was impossible with all the weight. I am going to install kink free 3/4" bilge line to help alleviate this, but was thinking maybe someone could fab up a plastic insert to fit in the ski locker. Attach some fittings and you would be good to go.

Dont always need the full 750's, but without gauges having to eyeball 400-450 lbs of ballast pretty much sucks. I started timing it with a stop watch which seems to work okay, but geeze, they build this nice boat and put a low grade ballast system in it!!!! I dont get it! Its a wakeboard boat!!!! People use there ballast system all the time, and when you have a slow filling, non-reliable system it puts a sour taste in your mouth!

I wish Supra/Moomba would just goto the hard tank system, there are a few pro's to bags, but to many con's that go along with it. Anyone have any ideas for this??? or possibly finding a 60-90 gallon plastic water tank that would fit in the locker?

Thanks.....Travis

[NCSUmoomba]

My 2001 Outback came with hard tanks in the rear ski locker. Of course I took them out to add more weight since they were only 350 pounds. I have thought about the bigger hard tank route, but the only thing is that you give up all the storage space permanently. I was even thinking about some sort of hybrid system with a solid top and bottom with bellows sides so I don't have to babysit the sacs while they fill to make sure they are positioned properly.

[tazz3069]

Last year I had asked that same question about the hard tanks. The answer was "Everybody who has the bags, rave about them" That is why they are not going with hard tanks. I really love my boat. I had two problems. One was the fill time and two was the bags. Well I fixed the fill time. I just have to deal with the bags now. Actually, I really have a problem with the center bag. I think that it is way too big for the ski locker. When full, the door pops up and everybody stubs their toes on the thing. I always have to watch the door to make sure it does not fill to capacity so the door does not pop up. There is a member in the Supra site that had custom hard tanks made for his 22SSV. I was going to go that way. The only problem that I saw was that I was going to permanently loose all the room in the rear lockers. I can not remember his name.
Tazz

[jester]

Guys,
I am trying to find someone right now to build me some custom hard tanks. It is just finding someone to build the tank. The goal is to lose as little space as possable. I still want to be able to get a wakeboard into the rear lockers. I have not had good luck finding someone right now but i will not give up hope.

I also hate the bags.

[Fman]

A tank could be designed to fit around the dead space in the ski locker and still give ample room for vests, ropes, boards etc... I dont know how Supra/Moomba could say people are raving about the bag system. Other than being able to add more weight easily, what are the advantages??? and I second the ski locker popping open, mine does the same exact thing. I think I am getting more air in the bag than water.

If you look at all the top wakeboard boats, they all use hard tank systems, if they were that good, Mastercraft, Malibu, Nautique, etc.. would all be going to the soft bag ballast.

Soft ballasts work, but marginally, and for as nice of a boat as my Supra is, I think its a damn shame they did not put a better ballast system in it that actually performes as well as the rest of the boat does!

[sandm]

problem is all the "other" boats that are using tanks have them below the floor or out of the way where they do not take up as much room, but the first upgrade seems to be adding bags to put in more weight. centurion enzo and all the mastercraft boats have companies that are adding bags and seems to be the first upgrade. I have looked at nautique(210) and you lose a ton of room in the rears just to have tanks that you may not use all the time.
I am guessing if you put in a tank in the rear locker, most would either bitch that it wasn't big enough and too hard/expensive to swap out, or to get the 750 in the rears, you now lose all storage..

now the center ski locker is another story.. I agree with the stupid pullhandle stubbing toes and do not even begin to understand why skiers did not build in a tank there, as that space is completely useless imo. if you store a ski in there, you would have to pull it out to fill the bag, and if you are filling the bag, you are not slalom skiing, so it's really pretty useless, however trying to get a tank in there after the fact would require separating the hull. not for the diy'er..

[dtlaine]

When I bought my 2007 OBV, I thought I wanted hard tanks. The dealer carried Malibu, so he was going to order the tanks from Malibu to install (that's the easy source that you may be looking for). There were two problems with that set-up. They only hold 300 lbs each, and they take up room all the time. They were going to be vertical against the outside of each compartment, so there was still quite a bit of storage, but not as much as with a deflated bag. Then one of my neighbors told me to go w/ the bags because they are much more flexible. I'm glad I went with the bags, but there are undoubtedly advantages with the tanks.

[bergermaister]

Funny I came across this post as I'm researching a winter project - I've got two rear hard tanks at 250lbs each and am considering yanking them out and going with two bags instead.

1) for more storage space when they're not being used.
2) for more weight (bigger bags) when they are being used!

I believe I can just plumb a bag into my existing setup where the tanks were if I do it this winter.

I also am considering adding a ski locker bag but if I do that I'll have to be careful not to overload the locker with popup shades, beach toys, chairs, tents and other crap when we go camping on the beach and accidentally slice the bag. Are they made of pretty tough material?

If I do go with the ski locker ballast I'm considering plumbing it in with a separate control switch as opposed to using a hand-held pump. Anyone else done that? I'm not too afraid to drill holes in the hull anymore after my stereo installation project. I'm thinking I'd prefer to have the separate controls in case we don't want to use all the ballast all the time.

[yearround]

Are they made of pretty tough material?


they are made of very strong stuff. i have has a slalom ski fin ride on top of the rear bag (with lots of other stuff on top) for at least 1100 miles on the trailer, not even a mark on the bag.

[RobertJ]

Berger, if you are going to change out your hard tank system I would be intersted in working out a deal on your old tanks. I am down in Salem.

[tazz3069]

Hard tanks. This is the way SC should go. I have been in all the mentioned above boats. Yes they all have hard tanks. All the tanks are below the floor board. SC need to put in hard tanks below their floor board. Also, those boats, as well as the SC boats have a device that sink the back end of the boat in the water.

SC has the wake plate
Malibu has the Wedge
Centurion has the Tail
Nautique has the Hydro Gate
Tige says they do not need it (I call BS)
MB really does not need it. Have you seen their system. Holy Crap!!!!
Sanger has dual wake plates
Master Crap with a 65 gallon gas tank and their hard tanks. Not sure what else they have.

All the boats mentioned above all have hard tanks except the SC boats. Yes all the boats do add extra weight to it. That is when it is competition.
Did anyone see the Bro Stock 09' in Lake Powell this year. It has been on fuel channel several times. Supra sponsored the event. All the top riders were there. Yes the bags were used plus lots of lead weight was added so they can get the air they were getting. I am not knocking SC boats. I have one and enjoy it for what I use it for. I just wish that they would test other options and not what is going to be presented in the 2010 boats. I mentioned on another thread that my LSV has plenty of room in it until I fill the bags. I need to remove everything, coolers, helmets, etc., when I want to fill the tanks. I do remember that the bags were filled and my sons forgot his helmet. Well I had to empty over half the bag before I was able to pry the helmet out. Then we had to wait to fill the bag again. My buddies Malibu and Centurion boats, we do not have that problem. As a matter of fact, my buddies Malibu has 4 tanks, 2 in the rear, 1 in the center, and 1 in the bow.

I agree with Fman--

If you look at all the top wakeboard boats, they all use hard tank systems, if they were that good, Mastercraft, Malibu, Nautique, etc.. would all be going to the soft bag ballast.

Soft ballasts work, but marginally, and for as nice of a boat as my Supra is, I think its a damn shame they did not put a better ballast system in it that actually performes as well as the rest of the boat does!

[sandm]

centurion has the switchblade, fancy name for a wedge.
tige has taps. fancy name for a wakeplate
didn't sanger go to 3 plates?
mastercraft has wakeplates as well, x2 has 3 for '10

although I don't disagree with you on the hard tanks, look at any one of the boats with them installed, ask riders getting big air, and all of them will tell you that they have either removed the tanks for bigger bags or have added bags over the tanks rendering storage useless.
for the average joe, not needed, and in that case, supra should have put in a lid over the bags in the back. this would allow you to open it to place more storage under it when bags are empty, and when full, the bag would be under a "false floor". similar to the '09's with the rear step under the sundeck, then storage under that.

to get the best wake out of an xstar though, you are adding bags.
nautique has bags that go over the rear tank for added weight
centurion has the surfsacks to replace the rear tanks and so on.

imo, mb and epic are the ones that have the best setup right now. tons of weight and all hidden to either surf or wakeboard. supra should go that route..

don't follow the others... innovate...

[tazz3069]

Switch Blade that was what I was thinking. I call it a whale tail. All I know is that it is very heavy.
Yes Sanger does have three My mistake. I just went to their web sight.
Master Crap not too keen on their boats. Never been a fan
I do agree that MB and Epic haveing the best system.
I like the false door thing. It just needs to be made sturdy and strong enough to hold all of the stuff put in there.
I just might have a winter project. Put in a false cover over my bags. I really like that. I need to think about that.

[Guma]

This was one area that steered us away from the Moomba and have since decided to go with a Tige as seen here...
https://forum.moomba.com/showpost.php?p=75920&postcount=58

Tige has the Taps system, agreed fancy name for a wake plate. They also have the hard tank ballast system under the floor. I am not sure about previous models but for 2010 the standard system is 900 lbs, 400 in the bow, and 250 under each rear locker. They have Surf and Pro options for ballast as well. Surf option explained below, and I am not familiar with the Pro ballast layout.

The downsides to this are, the bow tank is directly underneath the seats, so you give up this storage space. The rear in each side is only 250lbs, basically one big guy on your boat and have made up the difference in ballast on one side. I am opting for the Surf Ballast system which does add a bag in each rear locker of 300lbs. So back to the bags with the hard tank system, but with this we have something to grow into initially without giving up our rear storage.

The upside is Tige does need less ballast because of the Convex V hull along with the Taps (wakeplate). In our 2 demos I have seen the 22Ve and 24Ve in action. The amount of change in the wake purely based on using the wakeplate was impressive. Once we started adding ballast and adjusting the wakeplate, it was no question about the quality of the wake at both wakeboard and surf speeds.

With no real world experience, only reading forums and watching vids, I think bags are here to stay. They offer too much in the way of custom applications and being able to add more ballast when and where you need it.

[sandm]

tazz, go check out an '09 supra and on the drivers side, there's a solid steel panel under the sundeck that opens up. it's pretty sweet, but not sure of it's real use as is. can't think that most would remember to lift up the rear hatch just to walk into the boat, and then step in the middle of the seats before stepping into the boat, but it's a nice idea.

I think the whole false floor could be made for under $200 and some 1" tube steel with a steel floor, then rhinoline it. doesn't need to hold a large amount of weight, unless you made it super sturdy, then plumbed another bag on top. now you have wakebags underneath, and ditch the gear to fill up another surf bag when needed :)

[moombadaze]

Was at the boat show this last weekend (pisspoor show at that) and took a look inside a mastercraft x2 and was suprised at how small the rear storage areas were-it did have the tanks back there and comparing it to my lsv they just had no room. I am a fan of the bags-since all we do is surf i have removed one bag in the rear and its amazing how much stuff can fit in those storage lockers. Now I do like the idea of the ballast tanks under the floor-out of sight and still have all the storage.

[bergermaister]

Sounds good RobertJ - PM me your contact information and I'll keep it on hand here for when I get around to it. Probably won't be until after the holidays.

[jclevoy]

Put me in the camp of "liking the bags".

Sure they can be a pain in the butt, and it is necessary to monkey with them to get them to fill/empy properly sometimes. However, it is worth it IMHO so that you don't lose the storage space. Sometimes, we are filling the rear lockers with all kinds of junk to accomodate our different guests. Also, I am trying to decide how much ballast to keep in my rear lockers, and it is easier to change out bags than to upgrade hard ballast. We always have a bigger bag in the back right locker for surfing, and I am just not sure that I would want unequally sized hard ballast tanks in the rear lockers (the right rear would need to be bigger than the left in my boat).

I guess all-in-all.........If I was a hard-core wakeboarder, then the hard tanks might be alright. We are a bit more leisure, so the bags fit our needs much better.

My 2c. Take it for what it is worth.

[moombadaze]

On my last road trip with the boat, I had on top of the empty ballast bag-4 surf boards and 2 kneeboards and a few odds and ends and room for more-the other side was full of stuff also, if i had hard tanks something would have been left at the house as the truck bed was packed full also

[RobertJ]

Here is my plan. I am looking for smaller hard tanks that are about 9"- 10" tall. These will be the foundation of our old man wakeboarding ballast, about 300 pounds (35-40 gallons) on each side plus the center sack . I will put a carpeted floor on top of the tanks and still have about 12"-14" from top of tank to top of compartment. I will then have both sides plumbed for an additional 200 -250 pound bag for surfing. These bags will sit on top of the tanks. This set up will allow me to store items in the locker and not have to mess with them when we are wakeboarding. If we want to surf we may have to move some gear to unroll a bag and fill it up. Not a perfect system but one that I think will suit our needs just right.

[Fman]

Everyone brings up a lot great pro's and con's to bags. One thing I will mention about Supra is the Sunsport model has a great ice chest, very useable and large. This definitely frees up the ski locker from having an ice chest in it. And with the Z-5 Cargo rack, you really only need to put vests and ropes in the ski lockers. These can easily fit into the lockers even with a 750 LB sac full.

There is something to be said about the X-star, Malibu LSV, Air Nautique having to add fat sacs to get the weight necessary to produce a "pro quality" wake. Its almost kind of funny, seeing as these boats are a good 20-40k more in price than a Moomba or Supra. Personally, I will never be that good of a rider to demand that large of a wake, my 22V with 1900 lbs puts out more than I can handle.

I still am hoping SC will eventually go to a hard tank system. The 2010 model does have the ballast flow monitors which is moving in the right direction. However the hard tanks will always drain better, and having an actual sending unit to monitor the level of ballast is much more accurate than a flow monitor. As mentioned earlier, the new MB with 2,500 lbs of ballast that fills in 60 seconds/drains in 45 seconds is awesome. This is the direction SC needs to go, I am confident they would sell more boats with a hard tank system. Many people shy away from there boats because of the ballast bags.
And lets face it, they are a hassle at times, you need to remove them after every time on the water or else mold and mildew will develop under them.

SC makes a great boat, with a marginal ballast system. It needs to have the weight along with user friendly, hassle free useability for the owner. Having no pumps like the MB would be a huge upgrade and a lot less headaches for people. Case in point, someone has already had to dig into there '09 JABSCO pumps because they were not holding water.

[cab13367]

I much prefer the bags. Makes it easy to change out the bags and choose the size/weight sacs that work for your particular situation. I have x-2 bags in the rear lockers (455 lbs each) for wakeboarding and love them because they are only 32" long which means I have plenty of room in the front of the ski lockers for a cooler, life jackets, etc. They are also easy to drain and remove to dry out the compartments afterwards. I have a 750 that I swap into the surf side locker when it's time to surf. I have the stock 400 in the ski locker.

Also, when driving to the lake, I put three wakeboards in one locker and three wakesurf boards in the other plus all the life jackets and fat sacs. Try that with a boat that has hard tanks in the rear lockers.

Sure, hard tanks or in hull tanks would be nice but only if the capacity is exactly what you want. I have a friend who has an MC with hard tanks that have 250 lb capacity each. He and his kids have outgrown it so he bought additional sacs that he now has to fill manually. I personally love the flexibility afforded by the sacs.

Now the whole water sprinkler based filling/emptying system I agree could be a lot better and they have addressed that with the newer boats.

I've never had any problems filling or draining any of the bags (other than I wish it would be faster) so going to hard tanks just for that reason doesn't make sense to me. I do take a second to make sure the hoses and bags are positioned correctly before I start filling so maybe that's why.

[cab13367]

Oh, and I don't know what the big deal is with the ski locker lid popping up when the bag is full. I kind of like it so I know when it's full. When the door starts to come up, I just hit empty for a few seconds until it goes back down then I'm good. I did shorten the door pull shaft so it doesn't stick up as far when the bag is full.

You can always have fly high make you a custom bag to your exact specifications to alleviate this if it's something you can't live with. The price they quoted me was about $100 more than the closest stock size. This would also allow you to get more weight in the ski locker if that's something you want.

[moombadaze]

[quote=cab13367;76334] I did shorten the door pull shaft so it doesn't stick up as far when the bag is full.

quote]

same here-actually just bent it

[tazz3069]

I was thinks of putting latches on the door. The exact same latch that is on the engine cover, but without the lock. I just need to make sure that it wil work properly and it will not ruin the bag at all. Well my to do list is starting to grow as my ski season is coming to a close.

[ramin24s]

i have an 05 lsv with hard tanks in the rear. im not sure how much they weigh but i would like to get rid of them and replace them with bags. email me if anyone is interested.

[bergermaister]

I FINALLY pulled my hard tanks out last night and will be working on plumbing in the bags tonight. So, couple questions for my amigos...

1) Any idea where to buy that high density plastic board used for dividers between the engine compartment and the storage lockers? Looks like the same stuff as the bottom/base of the seat cushions. I thought I saw it at Lowes here one time but can't remember for sure.

2) I have a single fill pump with a T and two drain pumps (one for each side), all tied to one switch. For surfing I'm putting in a manual valves (for now) on the fill to be able to only fill one side. However on the drain, the switch still turns on both pumps. So with only one side full, will the pump on the empty side burn up if it is running dry for a few min?

Thanks!
-Berg