2013 RZ2 Pro Ballast Issues / Questions

[Tulsah]

I had the opportunity to get an orientation trip in with the previous owner of my boat this week (2013 RZ2 - pro ballast). During the course of the trip, we ran through all of the ballast configurations for wakeboard, port and starboard surf, etc...

We noticed that after draining the rear to the point where no further water was being expelled through the hull, there was still several gallons of water in the sacks (same issue on both sides). While I have no basis for comparison, the previous owner indicated that in his use of it last year, the drain pumps would suck all of the water and air from the sacks, collapsing them flat. We were not able to get either side to do this.

My question is - what is normal? Do I have an issue, and if so, what might it be? Thanks.

-Tulsah

[mnpracing]

I've never gotten mine to "suck flat" as some have stated in other threads. My process for draining is that I hit "drain all" when we are done and shut them off one-by-one as I see no more water coming out. This is typically done at a stand-still while floating or idling around. Once all are drained initially, we set taps to 6 or 7, cruise at 14 mph, get the nose up and hit "drain all" again. This gets surprisingly more water out, but does not suck the bags flat like all the air was expelled. Since the bags fill with little air in them (vented) the bags do go down to the floor, but they don't look like you took a vacuum to them and wrinkle up (not sure if that's what the implication was above). There is a little (very little) water left in my enzo sacs because of the way the floor steps down along the sides of the boat. Hope this helps.

[Z3CO23]

With the stock bags (OEM 350) make sure to fold them back up in the stowed position with the Velcro skirt. This helps get the residual water from the fly high fat sac to the hard tank below. The system fills the hard tank first then the fat sac bag. When draining the bag, it drains to the hard tank then is pumped out. Residual water gets trapped in the bag because of air etc but also because the bag can't fully drain to the hard tank if it is laying flat. This will be the same for a larger sized fat sac as well... say the W004 or W005. The technique above of cruising slow with taps high would get the water back as far as possible for sure and help with draining. Essentially your have to help the fat sac gravity feed to the hard tank, if that makes sense. That's how I do it and I have very little residual water.

[Z1Fan]

If you need to completely drain them for winter storage, the only real way to do it is, get under there and basically hold them up or sqeeze them so all the water hits the drain pump, and then pump in plumbing antifreeze, but in general your never going to get it all out.... RZRCO23 is correct with the rears, but the fronts are a pain because they will get all twisted up front...

[Tulsah]

Thanks for all the replies. Next outing, I'm going to try these suggestions.

[Galaxy24]

I know this is a little late but some added information: I have a 2013 Z1 so this may apply to your boat. I do exactly the same for my rear bags as previously stated. However, for the front ballast I drain twice. Once in the water and once while out of the water. For example, we pull the boat out of the water onto the trailer at the end of the day and before we wipe it down I will drain the front ballast. I will usually get a little more water out of them. Just some extra info which may help.