I'll make a better post when I find my ballast spreadsheet, but....
Today we (Sean Jackson, Thane Dogg and Troy Lindstrom from wakeworld) logged 4.8 hours, during which time we burned 24.8 gallons of Chevron Super. It cost $61.00 to refill. This works out to the highest recorded GPH of 5.2, and $PH of $12.71/hr.
Why up from the normal 3.6GPH?? Lotsa ballast.
In the very forward bow we had 400# in lead. In the walkway, the 700# of Bump. Across the Bump in the bow seating area, we had a Tube Sack partially full, let's say 250#. In the trunk, 700# of Bump. In the port v-drive compartment, a nearly full bag of unknown origin, but I believe it's a regular Fat Sac (48x20), we'll call that 500#. An identical sack in the stbd compartment filled to about 400#. Totalled all up....best guess 2950 pounds. Now, the crew was small (never more than two in the boat except for once, and then we could barely get it to plane).
When we surfed, we moved the stbd v-drive bag over to the port locker, moved all the lead from the bow into the port aft seat and layed the tube sack (375#) along the whole port seats. Then, the third man sat on the port/forward side of the engine hatch. Did that for maybe a little over an hour. I can't speak to the quality of the wave, but it was fun (albeit a little scary to drive ;-)
Back to the boarding config. That's a ton of weight and it was really taking forever to get on plane. I told the guys that I was kinda embarassed and they told me that it really was doing good for the amount of weight in there. They said, "you shoulda seen us at the Canyon Lake competition last weekend - took half the lake to get up on plane." It really wasn't that bad, but you had to give it 100%, and leave your foot for what I'd guess to be 10 seconds.
Basically, they liked the wake a lot. That much weight in a SAN would've made a really serious wake, but it's a narrower, shorter hull, you know? Also, they said it was just super firm. Not huge, but really firm and VERY GOOD pop (I'll second that, FWIW).
At 80ft, we could get down to 22.5 before the whitewash started showing. That's really damn good in my book. I normally ride with the sections out of the rope (60ft?), but they made me back it out five cuz every single jump was into the flats. Now, that's pretty good for me, because I really try hard to go up, not out. The pop was just incredible, but not like a wall - really nice transition into vert. The lip on the wake was noticeable and really kicked me higher than its height would suggest.
I am really looking forward to trying the SAN fully ballasted, but for now, the S22 just shizzled my nizzle today.
Oh yeah, the lead. Troy puts together these 40-pound sacks in fabric bags with nylon handles. Had ten on board today. I know the S22 is out of trim in stock config, so I've been looking for about 200# in lead to place in the bow. Ended up buying four of the bags today. I'll tell you what (and this is no exaggeration) with 200 in the bow, the boat drives like it's supposed to. Night and day difference, even/especially with MY base config which is just the two Bumps. Not only does it bring the nose down, it dampens what I'd call pitch oscillations. This leads to better speed stability, which leads to a better pull and a more relaxed driver. I don't need the extra tongue weight, so we'll just move them back when getting ready to trailer.
A great day. Started at 62F, ended at around 80. Water's in the seventies and the sun came out early.
