How do you weight-balance your boat?

[Full_Monte]

I fish a 15 ft. aluminum boat. In the stern, I have the boat motor, gas tank, deep cycle battery, a downrigger, my weight and some fishing gear. After using the boat, I look at the scum line and find that I have about 10 inches of freeboard left in the stern and about 30 inches in the bow. I know that I should have more freeboard in the bow than in the stern, but I think I'm heavier in the rear than I should be. I'm thinking about moving the battery or gas tank to the bow to compensate. What have you guys done to balance your load?

 

[Lundman]

I come from the small aluminum boat land and have also had to make adjustments with the weight load in the front - it was very apparent the difference how my boat ran with my 70 pound 12 year old son versus my 270 pound fishing buddy. When he was up front the boat was level and cruised alot better - so to even the load when it was just my son I loaded two 80 pound sand inner-tubes in the front bow - made the world level again...

The inner-tubes were nice because they lay flat and aren't as hard as other weights I was considering.

Good Luck

 

[DLM]

Lundman, did you find that the weight up front helps any in controlling the boat in the wind?

 

[Full_Monte]

Thanks for the idea. It would work, but I'd like to adjust the weight distribution without adding weight. My limit is 800 lbs. with motor, people and everything on board. I have a lot of weight in it already. The only thing I can think of is to move the battery and/or fuel tank forward, but long fuel lines and long electrical cables aren't too attractive an idea.

 

[MMDON]

Moving the batteries forward is your best option. Ziptie the cables to the gunnel and you won't notice they are there. Use marine wire rather than welding cable for your run. Tinning is important in your cable wire. Be sure to coat your battery terminals and connectors with Vaseline to avoid corrosion problems.

 

[Full_Monte]

Can I run just one positive wire and ground the negative to the boat without causing problems?

 

[MMDON]

Can I run just one positive wire and ground the negative to the boat without causing problems?

Noooooooo! You will make your boat a "hot" boat. Never ground to the hull!.tooexcited

Grounding to the hull will also cause Galvanic Corrosion to your boat!

 

[Full_Monte]

The instructions on my "black box" say I have to ground the boat to the battery to make it work. It's already grounded...I'm just wondering if I can get away with sending that much current through the hull.

 

[MMDON]

Your black box is grounded to the boat to remove minor stray currents that are brought to the boat by worn out zincs and such. It will not override you making the hull the main ground for the electronics on your boat and will cause the hull to pit and corrode.

You asked but you can do as you will.

 

[pacman77]

I have a small 12ft runabout when my mate is up front it is great on and off the plane without him it sticks staight up until it gets onto the plane so now all my gear up front with a old truck battery and alls good going solo again.

 

[Cariboospeed]

In my 12' 'glass tub, I just sit close to the middle. I don't really like this boat, its quite hard to control in any kind of breeze.

 

[Troutski]

Battery...

I put one of my batteries up front along with a 35 # anchor, one more thing I did was move my downrigger and weight amidships. Between those things my 15' alum. runs fairly nice in the water while trolling by myself, and even better with a nice healthy friend and all his tackle in front. To get this thing on plane I did install a hydrofoil to my 25hp...I just can't believe I waited so long for these improvements.

Chuck

 

[Full_Monte]

A 35 lb anchor? Wow! Interesting. I put on two downriggers...one on the stern port side and one amidships on the starboard side. I do have a couple extra downrigger weights in the locker up front, along with my 5-lb anchor.
Interesting thought about the hydrofoil. I never really thought about it. I hear that they work. That would help on getting up on a plane. I think my scumline comes from the many hours of trolling and I would still have the same scumline marks even with the hydrofoil.

 

[twisted lines]

My battery is in the middle seat, the gas tank is forward of that, and my Ice chest and sliding seat are used for a movable ballast and it works well for me, if the dog would just quit moving around.

 

[Excaliber]

I have a 15" Gregor too and weight is an issue for sure. With three batteries in the boat and the gas tank I'm already carrying another good sized person weight wise before anyone even gets in the boat.
Throw in the two 12 Lb anchors, downrigger and Minn kota on the bow plus all my tackle and two icechests and I need a bigger boat.

All three of my batteries are in the back storage areas but I can still get it up on plane pretty easy. It went from a 22+ MPH boat to just under 18 with two of us and all the above mentioned gear.

The only good way to deal with the weight we want to carry is to get a bigger boat. We're already looking.

 

[Full_Monte]

How about you giving me your 15 foot Gregor and I'll make a patio boat out of two of them, with some planks holding them together. thumbsup

 

[Excaliber]

Now that would be something wouldn't it?

 

[Kokanee Katcher]

I have an older Lund 12' and it was a nightmare to fish from in the wind and to get on a plane. I moved my battery to the front seat and strapped it on top of it. ( There are two notches in the seat on the forward side so it worked great.) All my problems are solved. The boat has round drain holes through the bottom of each seat so I ran a small PVC pipe from the bow seat to the transom to route my wire to the electric motor.

I like the idea of the inner-tube filled with sand! If your fishing pardner gets on your nerves, tie the tube to him and toss it overboard. Hate to use a perfectly good anchor. tongue2

 

[SmokeOnTheWater]

Hi Monte

There are many great ideas coming your way on this post. When I had my 14' Smokercraft I didn't have the luxury of adding more weight simply because it couldn't carry the weight and it wasn't a deep V design. I tried the weight transfer and that seemed to work the best for that boat. Now with my 17' Smokercraft (Tournament Walleye design) my weight distribution problems came back to haunt me. I guess what I'm saying is "A bigger boat is not always the answer". My current boat has two live wells, one just in front of the windshield and the other just forward of the motor well. I found that filling and using the aft live well took me forever to get on plane with 100 hp. As I said in a much earlier post, I converted my aft livewell into a tackle storage compartment, added a hydrofoil (doesn't help for trolling) and now things are working much better. Weight transfer is the answer in my opinion. Your rig will also handle better when trolling by keeping the bow keel further in the water. Use the PVC to prorect any fuel lines or electrical wiring plus it makes for a cleaner, more professional appearance. Good Luck!

 

[Full_Monte]

Hi Guys,

Sorry for not answering sooner...just returned from two weeks of "fishing-not catching" in the Sierras.

After looking at my boat and all your kind suggestions...I'm thinking that moving the battery forward would help a lot. My electric start Yamaha outboard, two downriggers and fishfinder will need to determine what size wire I will need to run from the bow to the stern. I will also have to build a larger storage compartment up front. This is starting to sound like a lot of work!

I still like my 15 ft. boat. It will move at 25 mph (gps) with my wife and me aboard with only a 25hp motor at 7000 ft altitude. It will also troll at .6-.8mph on the same motor. In two weeks, I burned 25 gallons of gas. Not bad, I think.

One idea I just had is that to test the battery-move idea, I should disconnect it and move it up forward prior to doing all this work, just to see what it will do. I can pull-start the engine without the battery. Shoulda thought of that during the last two weeks when the fish weren't biting.

Thanks for all your creative thinking.

PS....just had a "good ol' boy" solution pop into my head. Since I outweigh my wife by 100 lbs, we could just switch places in the boat and I could save all that re-work. Howzat sound? On second thought, it may be a formula for too much stomach acid. Giving up control of the tiller and all the electronics might be more than I could handle....