Hi Guys,

Wake surfing has turned out to be even more fun than I hoped. Now I need more ballast, and am sick of messing with the Tsunami pump.

Anyone out there added a factory-type ballast system to their Maristar? Basically, I want to add pumps for the rear bags, one pump for each side, and a third pump for the front ballast.

As my boat does not have a ski locker in the center section, just a bilge access cover, I am wondering about stuffing a long bag into that area. The space under there is huge, easily fit a ~2ft x 1ft x 5ft bag? but I wonder about abrasion taking a toll on the bag so maybe add a nylon sack over the bag.

The Jabsco Water Puppy pumps have an auto-off feature for draining and I assume the stream out the overflow would serve as a good "oops, you left it on" reminder. That said, the factory system on the X-2 has a ~5 minute timer circuit. Worth adding something like that?

Suggestions on where to locate switches? Up near the dash or close to the bags?

Thanks for any suggestions/input!

I have my overflow and discharge lines connected and the common line feeds to a thru-hull. The problem with my design is that the overflow inlet is below the discharge line so the discharge has a tendency to fill the bag through the overflow. It is possible to place one-way diaphragm valves in-line with the overflow to eliminate the problem.

The rear storage areas each contain one large Fat Sac which sits in the bottom and extends fore under the cushions by a foot or so. On top of that sac is a second smaller Fat Sac which fills from the overflow of the first sac. There is another sac in the ski locker and yet another under the walk-through to the bow. The final sack gets moved around as needed, as does 200# of lead bags.

It is pretty impressive to see how much the wake shape can be changed by moving the lead around. Once I get it figured out I'll try to remember to post my favorite setup.

And, for anyone considering the process, the Tsunami pumps are much faster than the Ballast Puppy pumps. If I were to do it all over again, I would keep it simple and run one Tsunami pump for each rear storage and another for the front. Ideally, you would run one Tsunami for filling and another for draining.

Adding the thru-hulls was easy and is much better than throwing the hose over the side for fill and drain.

Feel free to drop me a line for details if interested.