lead or fat sacks?

[ShAkAjAcK]

in everyones expierience what works better lead or fat sacks?

[Rhawn]

Depends on space and money. Water is the cheapest weight by far and lead is pretty damn expensive. If you have lots of room and patience to fill sacs, go for water. Tight spaces, use lead. You'll find most people weighing out their boat use both. I'm a cheap ass so I use 50lb bags of sand wrapped in duct tape for those unseen areas.

[timmyDecker]

To reiterate what Rhawn said, it depends. A pound of water weighs as much as a poung of lead, so if you can get 500 lbs of water where you want it, it will work just as well as 500 lbs of lead. Obviously, lead is denser than water so it takes up less space for the same amount of weight.
Another consideration is the "permanence" of the weight. The weight of lead is going to stay on the boat from the time you put in until you take it out. With water you can keep your fat sacs empty until you get where you're going and then fill them up just before riding. Likewise, it's easier to drain/fill your sacs for different riders.

[ontrider]

I would go with fat sacs for sure... it's just easier overall.

[Bambamski]

we use a bit of both.

I probably have about 4-5 hundred pounds of lead in my boat. 300 or so in the back and 150ish in the bow. plus a sac in the bow and this works well

we also tow the boat with an F350, so the extra weight isn't an issue at all. The boat sits on a tandem axle trailer which doesn't hurt it.

If you're towing with a large truck and your boat trailer can handle a little extra weight, I would go with some lead and a sac.

I got the lead from a scrap yard, A couple of 40-50 pound bricks which pretty much take up no room in the boat which is nice. I think I paid around 30 cents a pound

[ontrider]

I empty all the extra weight before towing.

[Bambamski]

your a4 sucks for towing though Ont. I wouldn't tow with any extra weight either...

[ontrider]

ummm.... yeah. If I hit a hill the boat would probably end up towing the car.

[bmartin]

Most use both and most have way more water balast than iron/lead/sand. It is realy not an either or. If you trailer a lot or over long distances, the more attractive sacs become since you can leave ALL the ballast at the lake.

I use almost all sacs for balast and supplement with about 100lbs of fixed weight for balance. I do keep two of my sacs that do not have automated pumps pretty much filled all the time when I keep the boat at the dock and just drain those when I need to trailer it which is not very often. I suppose I could have used lead instead of those 2 sacs, but liked the idea of being able dump the weight and refill when I wanted to ride other lakes.

Anybody want to reopen the 'bouyant neutral weight' can-o-worms.

[LakeIolaLuke]

Lead's a pain in the ass to get out of the boat when you need to trailer, like everyone's saying. But moving a few hundred to a thousand pounds would be a pretty good workout, just don't know if you'd want to do that before or after a nice long set.

[grapic]

I use fat sacs for most of my ballast but have about 300 lbs of lead, some tucked away and never moves, some I move on a regular basis to balance the wake and create a better surf wake. If I could not have both I would go with fat sacs.

[howabouttheiris]

OK, I will be the old, safe guy.

Remember that water is neutrally boyant. If you (insert accident here) and take on water, the additional lead weight will sink your boat.

Most boats have enough floatation added to stay on the surface if they "sink".

Go for sacks.

[NewAx1sRidr1990]

for me, fat sacks cuz i have to drain inorder to get into my lift

[david-d]

ontrider, what kind of A4 do you have?

[waterdork88]

use large blocks of gold... and if you arent rich.... try silver