Using lead on a 04 SANTE...

I was curious if anyone had some ideas on where to place the lead and how many #'s to start with. I am looking to clean up the wake on a 04 SANTE and make it less of a "wall" and more rampy. Any ideas or suggeations would be appreciated...

Thanks, Rich

lol, thats why you purchased a SAN right??? A steep wake is what SAN is all about.. The characteristic of a SAN wake... Anyway, to answer your question, like any boat, adding weight to the nose will cause the wake to ramp out a bit. And for the record,"clean up the wake," IMO refers to getting rid of the wash. Not a characteristic of a SAN wake.. Try adding at least a few hundred #'s upfront. Better, put a full ~500lb sac in the bow's (fill it up as much as possible) walkway first to get an idea of how much lead weight you would require. The sac is an all around better option imo anyway...

What is your current weight situation?

Other than only adding lead to the bow it's pretty tough to get rid of the steepness while adding more weight.

When you say "clean up the wake" what do you mean? What speed are you going and how much weight?

The SAN wake is very temper mental side to side.
I have about 1300lbs extra. The more weight you add the bigger the wake or the faster you can pull. I just balance the wake mainly buy moving people around.Three of us ride all the time. I weigh 205lbs, the other two weigh 123 and 140. So I balanced the boat with lead so when i'm riding they don't have to move.
And like CDM said it is suppose to be steep. Slow your edge and think about going up not across and you will see why it is called the Super Air.Good luck.

Tim where do you put the lead? I normally have myself 210# my buddy and his wife 175 and 105 respectively. When the ballast is full I get the starboard wake washing out so I have to let about half of the port side out. I just wanted to decrease the steepness a little, thanks for the info on SAN cdm I wasn't aware of their wake shape, also by "getting rid of the wash" you are.... cleaning up the wake? Thanks for any additional ideas on my question

In my boat I have add an extra 520lbs of lead spread evenly throughout the boat. The Nautiques becasue of prop torque tend to need a little extra weight on th drivers sid of the boat. I have one extra lead bar behind the drivers seat that i use to fine tune the wake while under way if it needs it.

You need to speed up a bit if the wake is washing out especially if you have all the tanks full and more so if you have addtional ballast or alot of people riding. I think you need to get up to at least 20-21mph for the wake to clean up. I ride at 24mph and have ridden a clean wake all the way back to 85'

John

Thanks for the info John!

The boat must be balanced from side to side, that is what matters. You should be able to tell if the boat is right down the middle. Every boat is balanced different depending on what you have installed,multi batteries,heavy subs,cargo,etc. If your boat does not plane at about 16 miles an hour you don't have enough weight up front.
RE:johns- I heard that the reason Nautiques prop spin the other way is for balance.In Florida you only need driver no third, so boat is set up for that reason. Just something I heard.

thanks again Tim

Richard, the SANTE is gonig to be more of a vertical wake no matter how you weight it. Once you get used to it you will definatly enjoy it. In my opinion its the best on the market.

Tim is correct on both points. I sat down one day and calculated everything. Kinda goofy but what I did was draw a little picture of the boat and calculated the ballast tanks, added lead bars, my sub box, ice chest and extra batteries. Then I made sure to have the boat evenly balanced side-to-side and front-to-rear(V-drive engine will always cause more weight in the rear). After trail and error I still found I needed a little more weight on the drivers side. Next are the unknowns because different drivers and passengers weights. Normally when we ride people have to move around a bit to get the wake "just right". If need be I can move the 65lbs lead brick behind my seat around a bit to get the rider the perfect wake.

John

Try adding weight under the bow seats to make the wake more rampy and less peaked. When I added more weight up front without adding more in the back my wake got less peaky, less desireable in my opinion.

Thanks for the info, for the record i am just trying to decrease the steepness a little while i get better, i just learned in the begining of '03