removing ballast?

[umpire111]

have just acquired a second hand boat and there is a definite list to port- someone has suggested removing some ballast from the starboard side- anyone ever done this, any ideas as to which part of the floor to remove?

[YamYam]

I would check a couple of other things first. Arrived home from work one day to find mine at a slight list. Eventually traced it to a badly leaking water pump which had deposited most of my water tank along the port side of my boat. Bugger to get it all out and dried out

[junior]

When my water tank is full my boat lists slightly. Once I've had about 5 showers and 4 cups of tea it levels out. If I were you I would add some movable temporary ballast that can easily be got rid of if you find out that your list is caused by something simple and fixable.

[ditchcrawler]

All boats are different, if you don't have a problem as above then just store your beer and wine that side

[Burgiesburnin]

Empty or fill your water tank first.

Have you spoken to the former owner?

Also check the water depth that you are in, you could be on the bottom.

[NMEA]

If you have centrally mounted tanks rather than side mount and the reason is ballast rather than any of the above suggestions, do not remove ballast but rather move it, moving 50kg of ballast from one side has roughly the same effect as removing 100 kg.

[umpire111]

If you have centrally mounted tanks rather than side mount and the reason is ballast rather than any of the above suggestions, do not remove ballast but rather move it, moving 50kg of ballast from one side has roughly the same effect as removing 100 kg.

Is it easy to move across, assume the flooring just unscrews?

[Grace and Favour]

Is it easy to move across, assume the flooring just unscrews?

Dependent upon what the builder used as ballast - - yes, it's probably easy to move.

 

The most common ballast options are bricks, paving slabs, steel plate, pig iron ingots, or, if you're lucky - lead!

 

Less common ballast (thankfully) would be something like gravel - - which is much messier to move around.