S17 Water ballast

[Clem Freeman]

Did any of you ever build a Storm 17 with water ballast? I'm thinking of adding it as otherwise I'll have to sail on Jib and Mizzen only when my wife comes out as she is a tad nervous.

[steve jones]

Hi, Clem,

 Good to meet you at SEAFAIR, nice job you have made of your boat.

 As you know I had fitted a water ballast system on my S17, which gave about 100 kg of ballast. I mostly sail single handed so I thought it prudent to do so.

  There are athwartship baffles either side of the cb case and fore/aft ones ahead and aft of the cb case.

  The overall deck resulting from the mod. is to leave a  self draning well about 2ft ahead of the mizzen, I fitted a grating to flush the ballast deck back to the mizzen, and a pump discharging into the ob well.

  The forward end reached the forward bulkhead, which meant there was a potential for the forepeak to fill with water and be difficult to pump out.

  My temporay solution was to level off with expanded foam, and fit a weather ledge.
Had I kept the boat I would have sealed off the fore peak from inside the boat and fitted a fore deck hatch.

  I fitted an  air vent close to the foreward bulkhead as well.

  Water ballast works for me, but certainly slows the boat. Gareth Rowlands in his S17 could easily outpace me, in both my S17 and BR17.

  Most of the modifications I have made have added weight, but I cruise rather than race.

  I off to Falmouth next week , hope to meet up again .

All the best .

Steve Jones BR17  Nona Me

[Clem Freeman]

Steve,

Thanks for the information. I tend to do mostly cruising and probably solo so not concerned about outright speed. How did you fill the tank, was it pumped in or did you use the same arrangement as on the Bayraider? I've been toying with the idea of fitting lead ballast but do like the idea of being able to dump the ballast if required.

Clem

[steve jones]

Hi  Clem,
   On mine it was just a bung through the hull accessed through a flush deck hatch.

   The BR17 has a forward facing large self bailer to fill and an aft facing self bailer to empty. the deck hatch is much larger to access both bailers.

    I have a couple of bungs draining into the sumps either side of the ob well, but use a hand pump into the ob well for faster emptying.

  I used a hand pump on the S17 and opened the bung prior to recovery on the trolly.

  All the best,

 Steve

[Simon Holden]

Clem

I'm sure that you have seen these photos of an S17 being built with a ballast box - but just in case you haven't there are 2 on the original CD which came with the kit in the 'photos for panel kit' folder. I've tried uploading them but I think they're too big.
I'm interested to hear that you find the S17 a bit unstable as I am coming to the end of my build (painting topsides with 2-pack - argh!).
I guess the water would have to be equally distributed fore and aft of the CLR. I'd love to know how you get on if you follow this route as I may be following suite
Cheers

Simon

[Clem Freeman]

Simon,

I'll check the disc for the photos, may well be on there and I've just missed them.  The S17 seems to be more dinghy like than I expected but this may be more down to my inexperience than anything else. Once I've sailed her a few more times I may well change my mind. The conditions I was sailing in were quite blustery and subject to sudden wind shifts, probably not ideal for a first outing. Steve did tell me he did a lot of solo sailing in the S17 and was greatful to have water ballast in anything above a f3.

Clem

[EDWIN DAVIES]

Have just returned from a sail in my S17. Tried out the water ballast for the first time. It really makes a difference. One photo shows the waterline with and one without ballast,

[EDWIN DAVIES]

Had a cracking sail today, small lake, wind 12 mph gusting 29. Would not have been on the water without water ballast. Some difficulty tacking as I had miss routed the mizzen sheet and had difficulty freeing it. Must get it right before Bala!. I must add no main sail set.

[Clem Freeman]

Edwin,

Really must get round to putting water ballast in mine. Been to busy restoring a Dauntless 23 from 1969 that I somehow acquired!

Clem

[TonyHankin]

I too am worried about stability when sailing my homebuilt Storm 17. I see from the specs that the grp version is some 100kg. heavier, is this why the homebuilt version really needs more ballast? As it is too late to build in a water ballast tank has anyone any other suggestions? I had thought of 2 X 50lt flexible tanks either side of the centreboard case but this would be rather bulky!
All suggestions welcome!

[Tony]

Hi.
Have you considered using lead flashing?
Easily available -if not cheap- can be folded, hammered into odd shapes, screwed down or left free, modes to fit the floors,  etc.
Have used it on "Four Sisters" for years- 90kg in the form of drilled ingots dropped onto threaded studs fixed to the keel. Works great but not as versatile as water ballast. Ie when it's i it's in! A pain to lug on and off for trailing, though.
   

[Michael Rogers]

Hi Tony H (to distinguish you from the other Tony - you wouldn't want to be mistaken for him, now would you?).

Up until 2011 I was sailing my kit-built Storm Petrel (14ft), probably the tippiest Swallow Boat ever? I found water ballast a great help. I used semi-rigid (= can be sort-of squashed down flat when empty) 15 litre cuboidal camping water carriers, up to 4 of them, stowed either side of the dagger board case. I think you'd find 50 litre tanks too big/heavy: they'd have to be filled in situ, meaning access to a hose etc, and emptying them would be a big problem. Another advantage of multiple smaller units would be that you could move them around, at least a bit, to adjust trim if you wanted to.

I filled mine outside the boat after launching, using a garden watering can with about 2ft of hose on the spout, then lifted each into place - quite manageable. Incidentally, trying to dunk them under the water to fill them was useless - they just squashed flat and virtually no water went in! That's probably very basic physics, but muggins me had to find out the suck-it-and-see way.

Using six of them would give you 90kgs of trimmable ballast really low down in the hull, involve a modest outlay, and probably add about 10 minutes to your launching schedule. Water ballast really is great, because you don't have to take it with you and you leave it behind when you come home! And it always surprises me what heavy stuff water is.

Very best of luck. Can you let us know how you get on?

Michael

[TonyHankin]

Thanks Tony and Michael, I used lead flashing for the centreboard ballast, it worked well. Going to local builders to see what 90kgs looks like!
The 15kg water containers look like a good idea too, I`ve used them when camping so will look into that too.
I`ll keep you posted,
        Tony (H)