2001 23V rebuild from the ground up

[SONIC]

Will do. That will be easy as the seating is already setup that way.

[freeheel4life]

Just an idea. If you were to cut out floor between stringer and hull to get more room for ballast, instead of doing ENTIRE locker with ballast now that it is lower you would have room on top for some drop in trays or some kind of net over bag for some gear. Always the downfall, you can fill the boat with ballast but have no room for jackets rope and flag...just a thought.

[SONIC]

Agreed!
I do plan to make some drop in trays on top of the ballast, so getting some additional depth would be nice.
However with the stringer setup on the 23V there's no more room for water ballast below the floor, I'll probably cut small hatches in the floor so that I can fill the spaces with lead if I decide it's necessary.

I think I'm going to shoot for absolute maximum on the ballast, because I can always just not fill all the way up. I'll likely put some dividers under the seats so I can use/not use the additional underseat ballast.

The problem is finding the balance. I want to be able to still use the boat as a runabout, or pull a tube/wakeboard if I want to. For this reason i don't want to go overloaded on lead because I can't just pump it overboard to get back to cruising.

It will likely take some experimenting to see how much weight she will carry around and still be comfortable to cruise in. I think 3-500 lbs of lead would still be fine for cruising.

I plan on a hefty prop and don't care much about top speed, just want to be able to move around the lake if I so desire. 30-35 is fine with me, I have motorcycles to go fast

Thoughts?

[SONIC]

As far as lead sinking the boat if it swamps...
At that point it's insurances problem, I don't care if it's 2 feet underwater or 100

[JohnnieMo]

But lead is more dense

Liquid lead is a bit more challenging to deal with

More ballast is a good idea overall. I've always avoided lead because my poor Avalanche was already at its limit towing my boat. However I now have a Duramax. Maybe I need some hard ballast too!

[freeheel4life]

We ran 250 a side in the rears of an r21 this last summer, and that combined 500 in lead weight was a huge difference especially with only 4 people on the boat. I know its been said but being able to concentrate weight in certain areas with lead seems to be beneficial. Some kind of access/door in rear lockers to stack lead subfloor is an awesome idea. If you know you are tubing/having multisport day you can always pull some out as you can count on having more bodies on board. Then put it back in for weeknight surf session with just a couple of people real quick My favorite.

[SONIC]

Yep that's exactly my thought!

I've also got a Duramax and I routinely pull 20k+ lbs of lumber so it doesn't even notice the boat

[SONIC]

So begins the glass work:

For the seat I stuck it together with polybond b39 and am now glassing over it.
That one's cured (I did wet it out better) on the inside for reinforcement. Now I'll use cloth on top after I round over the edges, then glue it into the boat with the putty and glass it in. Then I'll finally get to glass the floor.

This is my first foray into fiberglass using epoxy resin and not polyester.....it sucks. Having to wait 24 hours to cure makes work very very slow. With the quick stuff I would have been done by now haha.

[duffymahoney]

It could have been cool (easier) to leave that as a shelf. No fiberglass going down, like the new axis boats, makes for good storage.

[duffymahoney]

And amazing work!

[SONIC]

That would have been a good call!
I don't know how I would have made it match up with the original though. That's pretty clever on axis' part though, less materials AND more storage.

[duffymahoney]

Yeah, I would just have left it how it was stock, then just added this. I think its a great design by them. Simple and effective. Boats are too complicated now

[SONIC]

Drew up my ballast bags this afternoon for the rears
I can add another 332 lbs per side if I move the battery and TAPS pump. Still deciding on that.

[freeheel4life]

Only serviced one new Axis, but I hated the rear bench seat while I was in it. Having a picnic table bench with powder coated aluminum and a vinyl piece on top is not a seat. IIRC, it was a new(er) A22.

Are you planning on building your own bags as well?? If so would love to see your process. One thing to consider if you are, is how the fittings and hoses will flex as bags fill and drain.
Some have gotten it right, and others not so much. From what I've seen no fitting from any bag builder does well if the fittings get rubbed against hatches above or on glass/solid structure around them as bags expand and contract. So consider hose and fittings so they move as little as possible, yet still have room to move, if that makes any sense. Why i like reversibles over aerators, amongst other reasons.

[SONIC]

I hadn't considered making my own bags, I'm not quite sure how it's done. I may have to look into it.
Kind of seems like a good way to sink a boat though, I can just see them filling all the way up and then bursting hahaha

I'll be using reversible aerators are just too many possible failure points for me. I'm okay with slightly slower fill times.