Ballasting Your Boat

Approaches to adding weight where you want it

by Paul “Capt’n Pauley” Esterle

Naval architects design our boats for average conditions. Their calculations assume uniform loading conditions and average weights of people and gear. The real world often impacts those design specs negatively.

Often, cockpits can hold more people than her aft underwater volume can support. In some cased, four adults in the cockpit will put the scuppers under water. Ideally, the waterline stripe should be equally exposed.