Water ballast tanks?

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Water ballast tanks?

Postby Breakin Wind » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:43 pm

Under a different topic on self tending jibs, jdoorly made a reference to a boat using a balanced jib setup, the Bayraider 17 by Swallowboats.

jdoorly wrote:Yes, I was speaking of the balanced jib idea, no, I wasn't thinking about the Hoyt balanced jib (I forgot about that). I was thinking about this boat: http://www.swallowboats.com/our-boats/open-boats/storm-17 There was a pic in a 2006 issue of Water Craft (U.K.).

The feature of the balanced jib is that you don't need much muscle or winch to pull it in even on larger boats, because it's BALANCED! :D

ooops, this is a better pic of the balanced jib: http://www.swallowboats.com/bayraider-17


Looking at this site http://www.swallowboats.com/bayraider-17, then reading the description and viewing the videos provided, another very interesting feature (for me) of this boat is their water filled ballast tank on the 17' boat, making it very difficult to lay over, and harder still to keep it down in the water. They speak of approx 220 kg of water (485lbs) in a tank inside the double hull, providing substantial stability (more like a keel boat) in more difficult conditions.

Doing some quick math (which is as likely to be wrong as right), I think that 485 lbs = 58 gallons?? of water, which I further think is about 7 cubic feet of volume, which I further think is a space about the size of the underfloor portion of the bilge in the DaySailer. Not having actually measured anything, but having spent a fair number of minutes looking around under the floor playing with flotation swim noodles, it seems to me, the depth between the inner and outer hull runs from about 8 inches at the access ports to just a few inches 5-6 feet back toward the drain well. With an nominal width of about 3 ft (minus the centerboard trunk), I'm coming up with just about 7 cu-ft?. (past performance is not an valid indicator of future earnings)

So... why couldn't one put a bladder tank (or two) in that space with a water pump that can take on or expel water to add righting ballast when the winds start getting ugly?

This would not have occurred to me prior to seeing this implemented on the Bayraider, but two of my absolute quests in life, are to both get my wife back out on my boat after almost dumping her in the water during a bad turn on a windy day last year, and also to be able to take my 4 year old grandson out for rides, both of these requiring rock solid stability until I am much better at my job of sailing than I will likely be for the next couple years.

Is this a really stupid idea?

Thanks - Scott
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Re: Water ballast tanks?

Postby GreenLake » Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:27 pm

Breakin Wind wrote:....two of my absolute quests in life, are to both get my wife back out on my boat after almost dumping her in the water during a bad turn on a windy day last year, and also to be able to take my 4 year old grandson out for rides, both of these requiring rock solid stability until I am much better at my job of sailing than I will likely be for the next couple years.


The trick to taking small kids is to be able to sail your boat single handed. And to do so in conditions that are all-around manageable, and predicted to stay that way until the end of the day. (Although I must say I've found taking a five-year old actually easier than pure single handing - having even a small "helping" hand can make all the difference).
~ green ~ lake ~ ~
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Re: Water ballast tanks?

Postby PassingWind » Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:00 pm

http://Www.wakemakers.com sells bladders that can filled and emptied. I have a wakeboat that can take on 4k pounds of ballast using these bags. They sell bags that could fit under the floor(at first i thoight you were looking for counter balance). Would cost a few bucks though. You would need to drill thru hull fittings in the hull and add a pump. you could hang a pump manually over the side to fill drain. Not sure of the benefit versus the cost of the upgrade though. You would need to add a battery as well if you havent installed one already..
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Re: Water ballast tanks?

Postby Breakin Wind » Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:06 am

PassingWind wrote:http://Www.wakemakers.com sells bladders that can filled and emptied. I have a wakeboat that can take on 4k pounds of ballast using these bags. They sell bags that could fit under the floor(at first i thought you were looking for counter balance). Would cost a few bucks though. You would need to drill thru hull fittings in the hull and add a pump. you could hang a pump manually over the side to fill drain. Not sure of the benefit versus the cost of the upgrade though. You would need to add a battery as well if you haven't installed one already..


They're not too bad price wise... some models as low as $59, and I think this one http://www.wakemakers.com/straight-line ... g-375.html at $79 could fit under the cockpit floor space. It's too tall to completely fill but I would need two anyway, (one for each side of the centerboard) and so combined I could probably get 400-500# of ballast in there.

Interesting idea, thanks for the link. I'll have to stare at this for a while. I already have dual batteries mounted into the cuddy sole just aft of the mast step, and that would be my access point for installing them under the cockpit floor, so I would need to do this or don't before I seal the battery boxes in, but I still have a couple months to think about it.

Thanks - Scott
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Re: Water ballast tanks?

Postby jdoorly » Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:10 am

Don't worry Scot, eventually you will go sailing without the drain plug in the transom in place and all this will happen automatically. You may wish to install an electric bilge pump before that happens because that's a lot of pumping out by hand! Don't ask me how I know! :oops:

I didn't even know it happened except when my hand fell aimlessly over the side and my mind asked "why am I so close to the water? In the panic mode that followed I didn't think to record perceived performance changes, sorry. I would suggest that you probably don't want water running around willy-nilly in your boat: Think baffles.
Last edited by jdoorly on Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Water ballast tanks?

Postby Breakin Wind » Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:16 am

jdoorly wrote:Don't worry Scot, eventually you will go sailing without the drain plug in the transom in place and all this will happen automatically. You may wish to install an electric bilge pump before that happens because that's a lot of pumping out by hand! Don't ask me how I know! :oops:


Thanks Jay, I took your advice last year and put in the bilge pump before the boat ever touched water the first time. And I've already gone out without the plug in too, so it paid for itself in short order. :oops:
This winter I put in a high level float so it will kick on when I'm not there if the water gets deep enough for whatever reason.

Thanks - Scott
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