Problems That Will NOT Go Away

Took my moomba out for the first time since last October, and some of the same problems are back. I fill my front fat sac all the way up, about half an hour later, i take a look at it, and about half the water is gone. I can't understand it, the floor is dry, and nothing is leaking out the drain hole, on the side of the boat, that I can see. I fill it up again, same deal every time. The rear bags always still completely filled. This has been happening for as long as I can remember. Does anyone have any ideas?

Another question that I have, is that my debth finder always works 100% perfect, never skips a beat. I used my boat at a lake here in ND one time about a year ago. Its a heated lake, and never freezes. And my depth finder stared acting up. It would only show the depth when going slow. After that I used it on 3 different lakes 130 hours over the summer, and it never acted up again. I returned to this lake a couple days ago, and it did the exact same thing. I plan on going back to this lake a lot more now, and the water level is low, and I really need it. Any idea's? Is there a way I can turn up my frequency or something? I'm guessing that because it never freezes, it has a lot more stuff growing on the bottom of the lake, because it always works on all the other lakes.

Hope someone can help me with these problems, thanks for the help

if it's a heated lake then that means there's a huge power plant or something similar dumping tons of water into the lake. If that's the case, god only knows what kind of interferance you could be getting from the plant.

The heated lake may happen to have a much softer bottom. It scatters the sound waves and makes it hard to get a good reading.

It is concerning that you have such a need for it to work all the time. Unless you happen to have an expensive forward-scanning sonar system, your basic depth finder is good for three things:

1. slowly cruising around to survey a new lake

2. assessing the current depth of a known lake

3. telling you that you just hit something

For #3 above, you'll have other signs too, such as realising that that loud screaming sound is your own voice. :-)

Seriously though, like GPS, a depth finder is not technology on which to rely. Take any depth reading as only a suggestion, especially at speed. I.e. it may give you a usable warning -- or not, especially if the depth changes quickly. It's not something on which to bet your boat or your life (or the life of your rider, who generally doesn't have a depth finder, and could be 50+ feet out to the side). Foreknowledge is much better.

If there aren't any official nautical charts of the area, asking around might lead you to some maps that locals have made via the slow cruise method. If there is a marina on the lake, that's the place to start. These amateur maps are usually intended for fishing and may be incomplete. However, they at least will give you a good idea of where to definitely avoid.

Best wishes,
Ian

When I first got my LSV, the front and right bags would fill about half way all on their own. Each solenoid has an override switch that when down renders the fill valve open all the time. You may have the same problem. Or it could be a valve problem. See the owners manual on the ballast system section. I don't know much about depthfinders.

I'm a skier so I don't know much about the ballast bags but could the water be siphoning from the bag when you are cruising?

How about leaky hose fittings at the pump? On my XLV, this is embedded in a hornet's nest of hoses around the transmission (under the rear bench seat). A leak there would go into the bilge.

Ian