Where's your lead at??

[freeheel4life]

Will be surfing a 17 R21 for the summer and haven't spent much time on TAPS3 boats and definitely haven't been in one that has been really weighted. Seems like the general consensus has been lead+water ballast is needed with TAPS3. Just curious where everyone has been hiding their lead??
Definitely going to put some in the spot in rear starboard locker behind the panel. Want to do the same on port side but don't want to stack lead on the batteries. Considering fabbing up a battery enclosure out of HDPE and then stacking some lead on top of it....figure won't need much since there's already two big group 24 chunks there already. Would prefer not to lose out on storage space, and also just want boat to look stock as it is our shop boat and won't be the only one using it this year.

[Germaine Marine]

The furthest point back is best, I run mine under my main bags in the rear lockers. I run 4-600 a side depending on crew.

[freeheel4life]

Thanks elevated-
Was thinking of starting with 250 behind the panels to start with and go from there. Curious what you think with the R21 being a smaller boat. Also I believe the boat we got from tige was an R&d boat as the taps plate are mounted completely different from literally every other Tige out w/ TAPS 3 I've seen this far. Will try to post some pictures later this week. I'm really kind of curious as these boats come out of warranty if it's possible to cut out the floor and add lead where all these boats used to run hard tanks...I know the floor got lower to run larger bags after they did away with tanks, but presumably there's still a lot of room between stringers and floor...

[Germaine Marine]

I think you can accomplish what you need without cutting the floor..... meaning, stacking 300 a side under the bags. That wont affect your storage really at all (About the size of 2 life jackets)

With that being said, if you want to cut the floor then im all for it. I just dont want to do that for resale.

[freeheel4life]

No, I won't be cutting floor either for sure...just curious to see if when these boats are 10 years or older if anyone will get brave.
I'm going to start by hiding it behind black plastic panels and surf it for a bit. We are fortunate enough that we keep rotating a shop boat each summer then selling it. So far it's been great. Will most likely get out a lot on it this summer so have lots of time to make tweaks and play around. Was mostly hoping to have the lead hidden and be able to leave it in so boat appears completely stock when it gets used by others. Also going to fiddle with a mission Delta since we have one around, but mostly had good results with heavily ballasted VX almost no list with Delta. Haven't tried one with TAPS3 and just curious to see how it will affect the wave.

[robricketts]

I put 200 in each rear locker of my rz2. They sit under the bags. I have one more bag in the mid seat area as they fit there well.


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[007]

I don't run the amount of lead elevated does, but I'm always tempted to add more after seeing his photos. I can tell you in a surf XL '15 AVX Z3, I added 150 lbs of lead all the way back on under the port bag and 50 lbgs midship in front of the port bag and it helped produce a very similar wave to what adding 500ish lb's of water ballast on the bench seat did.

[Germaine Marine]

I don't run the amount of lead elevated does, but I'm always tempted to add more after seeing his photos. I can tell you in a surf XL '15 AVX Z3, I added 150 lbs of lead all the way back on under the port bag and 50 lbgs midship in front of the port bag and it helped produce a very similar wave to what adding 500ish lb's of water ballast on the bench seat did.

The dense footprint of lead is a magical thing..... I dont think people comprehend the way it works.

[duffymahoney]

2005 24v with 300 in the bow. 200 is under my filler cushion. I have 2-100# bricks that Tige dealers used to sell, even has tige carpet on them! Then 100 in lead wakes bags under the center bow cushion. Then 200 in each rear locker. I am hoping that rocking a suck gate and new electric valves on my empties will keep water in my sack and allow me to get rid of alot of my lead. My rear bags passively drain the opposite side sack while surfing so I added some valves to keep the water in.