Ballast Bags on SLX

Hate to be the first guy to respond when the answer to your question is no. But I am really curious, why do you want ballast bags on your 270 SLX 496 mag?
 
Extra weight for wakeboarding and surfing behind the boat,

I have not done it on a Sea Ray, but very familiar with doing it with a Mastercraft. In addition to the built-in, under floor tanks, we put a bag in each rear storage locker, a couple 350lb (I think that's what they are) bags on the floor by the rear bench and another between the bow seats. I would just experiment and see how it goes.

BUT, and this is very important, you CANNOT surf behind your stern drive. You can only safely do this behind an inboard boat because it's done anywhere from about a foot to 10, maybe 12 feet away from the back end. You are running a HUGE risk that if someone falls near the boat, they may not get a second chance at life. VERY, VERY dangerous - those props are like a gigantic blender on steroids.

Have fun moving the bags around to fine tune the wake for boarding, but skip the surfing. I know it's tempting and you're thinking that you can do it if the rider is cautious... but don't - this is why there are Darwin Awards. And the thought process of "I've seen other people do it and they're fine" doesn't cut it - they're only "fine" until they're not.
 
I have not done it on a Sea Ray, but very familiar with doing it with a Mastercraft. In addition to the built-in, under floor tanks, we put a bag in each rear storage locker, a couple 350lb (I think that's what they are) bags on the floor by the rear bench and another between the bow seats. I would just experiment and see how it goes.

BUT, and this is very important, you CANNOT surf behind your stern drive. You can only safely do this behind an inboard boat because it's done anywhere from about a foot to 10, maybe 12 feet away from the back end. You are running a HUGE risk that if someone falls near the boat, they may not get a second chance at life. VERY, VERY dangerous - those props are like a gigantic blender on steroids.

Have fun moving the bags around to fine tune the wake for boarding, but skip the surfing. I know it's tempting and you're thinking that you can do it if the rider is cautious... but don't - this is why there are Darwin Awards. And the thought process of "I've seen other people do it and they're fine" doesn't cut it - they're only "fine" until they're not.

It works fine when towing someone just like a wakeboarder. It would be nice to have more defined wake back there.

sWkw8NA.jpg
 
If you keep far enough back, sure. When you mentioned wakesurfing, though, I had the "normal" surfing in mind with no rope and close to the boat. Which, by the way, is AWESOME! The way you are there, there's no chance to get into the prop. But once you get a real "wave" going, though, what will happen is that it's very easy to catch up to the boat when you're riding the wave. Very easy. And the only truly "surfable" wave disappears about 15-20 feet back from the boat. Which means to really surf, you have to be close.

But if you use a long rope and play around with weight distribution, tabs and speed, you should at least get something going that you can play around on (just won't be able to let go of the rope). But that can still be fun, too!

Generally, we surf around 10 mph and also installed surf tabs (different than trim tabs as they actually "shape" the wake) to further help fine tune the wave.
 
They do the same thing for any boat....make it sit lower in the water for a bigger wake.

I'm wondering if it's practically any different than sticking an extra fat person or two on the boat. My instinct says it's the same.
 
Yeah, weight is weight. The boat doesn't care what the weight is. What WILL matter is the amount of weight and PLACEMENT of the weight in the boat. You might find it helps to have some forward, too. For what it's worth, we end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,800lbs of water weight, along with the surf tabs to really fine tune it.

You might also want to experiment with speed and, especially, drive trim angle.
 
Does your model have that false floor? Do you think it's sturdy enough to support the weight? The ballast bag, by natural design, does do an excellent job of dispersing the weight of the whole area - but check it out and see what you think. In the end, you're just gonna have to play around with different positions to see what works best with your hull.
 

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