You can definitely surf with little to no ballast with the right board and speed but you need the boat leaning on your surf side - go with human ballast!

Based on your background and experience sounds like you could set that thing up no problem. Cutting holes in fiberglass is no biggie after your first one. The rest is basic knowledge of wiring and a little plumbing. Lots of forum articles and how-tos - although they may have ended up in the archives (see the light gray text link just left of center at the bottom of the pages).

When you say only one ballast - what exactly do you mean?