Echo Skis 5k Budget Build

[viking]

Yes I could surf ropeless no problem. The pocket is not very long and were really up close and personal to the back of the boat but it got the job done!!

[trayson]

I think you're making your ballast system way more complicated than you need to.

If you have 5 ports to work with on each bag, that's freaking awesome.

Do you already have intake thru-hulls on your boat? If not, use the mushroom style and not the scupper style, and then go to your Tee with your two intake pumps. Put a check valve inline. (check valves are cheaper than vented loops and all you're doing is preventing passive draining of the bags back through the fill pumps when turned off). I don't know much about vented loops because honestly I didn't use them in my aerator system.

Make sure your fill pumps are as close to the thru hull as possible. Either put them vertically with the input facing down, or if you have to put the pump sideways, then make sure the output it pointed up to the sky.

Now, I'm scratching my head at what you're doing with the drain side. Here is what I would do if I was you:
Run your drain pumps from the bottom of the bag and put your drains as far up and forward as you can without making the run toooo long. as long as your drains are ultimately above the top of the bag then water isn't going to leak out of them. Maybe this is where you were thinking of employing the sprinkler valves?? to basically cap the drain line because it'll be hard to get the drain outlet higher than the bag? I don't like sprinkler valves. they are a bottleneck and make your system slow. If you can get away with having your drain and vent lines above the height of you bag, then you're golden. (on both my drain and vent lines, I loop my lines up to the very top of my gunwales. I haven't really had any problems with passive draining thus far. I also criss cross my rear vent and drains to the opposite side of the boat because I list the boat. this wouldn't apply to you with a surf system). I used 90 degree plastic thru-hulls for my drains because it made it really easy to loop the hose up higher in the gunwales than the drain and back down to the thruhull.

I guess to me it sounds like you're trying to use sprinkler valves to overcome some passive draining that might not be a problem if you can engineer your hose runs higher than the tops of the bags.

My NSS only stuck out 3" on the side and about .75 to 1" on the bottom. so at slow speeds, yes you would notice that turning away from the gate took more effort than turning toward the gate. But again, it's only 3" sticking out the side and it was still possible to turn against the gate, it just took more time and distance to accomplish the turn. in contrast, I had a HUGE ghetto gate on my XLV and turning against that gate was basically impossible. That said, you get used to just turning with the gate really quickly. it's not a big deal.

[EchoSkis]

If you have 5 ports to work with on each bag, that's freaking awesome.

Yup, a lot of the Sumo Sacs come with 2 threaded ports on the bottom, 2 threaded ports on the top and one quick connect on the top.

Do you already have intake thru-hulls on your boat?

Not yet I'm going with two mushrooms.

Put a check valve inline. (check valves are cheaper than vented loops and all you're doing is preventing passive draining of the bags back through the fill pumps when turned off). I don't know much about vented loops because honestly I didn't use them in my aerator system.

I'm going to try using these vented loops in the bow. link They are used for marine toilets so I figure they might work. In the back I'm not sure if I will be able to mount a loop higher than the bag. (if that is necessary)

Now, I'm scratching my head at what you're doing with the drain side.

Since the boat will also be used for slalom I want to make sure I can get the max amount of water out of the bag. The sprinkler valves on the vent line and one drain line would be so that I can raisin the bag. It would be more practical to just use check valves and that might be the way I go.

Thanks for taking a look at my plan!

[trayson]

That vented loop looks encouraging, especially for the money. Make sure you report back on its use.

[EchoSkis]

Hey guys,
I have been able to put some work into this over the last few days. The first two days was just spent bringing the boat back from the dead. It hadn't been run in a few years so I went through and replaced some basic components like plugs, hoses, impeller and cleaned the carb.
Next was the ballast install. I got some GGIII parts from Newty and 996scott (thanks again). After seeing what they gave me I ordered everything else I needed. I changed my ballast setup a bit. The front bag is filled by a rule 2000 and drained by a rule 700. The rear bag is filled by a rule 2000 and a rule 700. Then it is drained with a double rule 700 setup. I did away with the sprinkler valves and just ran a thru hull for for each vent and drain line. Both Rule 2000 has it's own 3/4" thru hull and the rule 700 used for filling has a 1/2" thru hull. Everything else pretty much stayed to plan.
I will post some pictures and a breakdown of the cost after the weekend. Hopefully we can test the system out on Monday. We have been busy preparing for our trip to the collegiate water skiing All-Stars tournament this weekend. If you are going to be near Decatur Illinois stop by our booth and say hi.

~Ryan

[newty]

Glad you got some use out of that stuff. Keep us updated on the progress. Oh and, Pics or it didn't happen!