Ballast Plumbing? Need Help

[rensink]

Sorry if this has been covered but after searching and reading for a few weeks I have decided to just ask the question and post my own pictures. The boat is a 2014 Z3 with the Pro Ballast set up I'm looking at clarification on where these hoses are running I'm not a plumbing expert but I know a few of my fellow TO's are!

I just am working with the port side right now as the starboard side will be the same...

Rear box/cover removed by the amps

The fill line comes along the side of the storage compartment runs up and down to the check valve when the box is there with a TON of extra hose. There is a connection on the top of the bag in the rear that runs up to a through-hull fitting.

The check valve is fill and the other runs to the through hull.

The third hose comes from the bow connection on the bag as you can see the bags are so over-lapped and folded over they never have filled to their potential...
A shot of the through-hull fittings starting at the closest one it goes 1. Empty from the pump, 2. attaches to the rear of the sac, 3. attaches to the front of the sac.


I'm trying to figure out which one is the vent and which one is the over-flow? I am assuming number 3 is the vent as it attaches to the front of the sac? number 2 is routed higher than the other two which is attached to the rear of the sac...

The rear of the boat makes NO sense to me either...the fill line comes up to a check valve and then to a y-fitting which one goes over the engine divider and the other to the front side of the hard tank but the back fitting. The other one comes up and over the engine divider and y's into a line? The bottom of the sac has a connection coming up along the side of the boat through the floor and attaching to the front portion of the bag and a second line coming through the floor and attaching to the rear/bottom of the bag.
The hard tank

The sac


The two connections on the bottom of the bar are they both there to let the water drain down to the hard tank and then emptied via the empty pump when draining?
I don't get the reason for all of these connections...

[JohnnieMo]

I recently mapped this out on my '13. Those back tanks have a dual fill / dual vent. There is a Y on the fill line that splits between the hard tank and the sack. Vent is the same thing. A bit cryptic but you seem to have it sorted out. And yes there are two connections between the hard tank and bag.

I made a graphic although it won't tell you which hose is which.



As for the front it looks like they added a new vent in '14. You have two vents and I only have one. Vent and overflow are really the same thing. Drain is easy because it has the pump on it.

Good hunting!

Sent from my Passport

[Stingreye]

JohnnieMo, if your sacs are missing the vent at the front of the bag, I could see that causing air to get trapped and explain your 2 min fill/empty times and not feeling like you are getting max weight up there.. I can see it being worse if you start filling the rear sac at the same time as your bow will ride a little higher too.

The fact it appears they added a vent to the front of the sac has me suspicious.

[boardman74]

2014's had two vents. Nothing to do with air trapping. The thought was the sacs were over pressuring and they needed 2 vents. This was due to a few issues in 2013. It was found that venting wasn't the issue and they went back to just one vent per point on the 2015.

So you have a fill to the rear top of the sac. Drain on the rear bottom. A vent on the top at the rear and a vent at the top all the way up in the front. The drain and each vent have their own thru hull. So when you fill you should vent(overflow) out of 2 thru hulls. When you drain just one empty. You have the clear hose which is a sign of a later 14 and much better than the black. The black was so stiff there was leaking issues as the clamps wouldn't squeeze it enough to seal.

[rensink]

Okay so I think I have it figured out for the most part one last question the vent hose should be looped higher than the over flow hose or the other way around? I'm in the process of figuring out the plumbing and fixing a few areas where the hoses are kinked and ran in a weird fashion with loops, should I just cross vent the system and be done with it since I'm going through all that work? or is it unnecessary too do it with the stock pro system?

[Ewok]

The vent hose and overflow are the same thing. If they are not crossed to the other side of the boat you may experience passive draining, which is water flowing out of the vent because it is lower than the top of the bag when listed over for surfing.

The same goes for the drain hose, I experience passive draining from that as well, so I ran longer hose for the vent and drain and have their outlets on the opposite side of the boat.

The loops are in the system to help prevent the passive draining and filling but with the bigger bags we use and now come stock, it's necessary to use check valves on the fill lines to prevent passive draining out of the fill pumps as well.

[JohnnieMo]

You already have the check valves so really all you need is to cross drain and vent. However I wouldn't just jump to that conclusion. Those oddball loops may be helping you. I'd confirm you have a passive drainage issue before making alterations.

Sent from my Passport

[bsreid]

All these threads are awesome for getting a better understanding on ballast info.

But I have one question, We are in the process of upgrading our R20 to the fly high W004 and cross venting and maybe the drains. In the very back of the boat behind the batteries, runs the drain line coming from the hard tank. It just seems like a lot of work to cross it over, it is already doing a loop, so is it really necessary to cross it over?
Any help is appreciated, thanks.

[PaceWithGrace]

bsreid,

Can we connect so I can learn from your upgrades? I'm thinking of upgrading my rear bags.

Cheers,
severin dot beauvais at gmail dot com