Who's got Ballast in their 31TE?

[addon323]

Does anyone have cement or lead ballast blocks in your 31 TE?

I have a starboard side list with a singles Cummins 450, no generator on the port side, full fuel in all three tanks, and several cement ballast on both my starboard and port sides. Confusing thing is that I have more ballast on the port side then the starboard but yet my vessel is leaning to starboard. They are not near the center line either, but on the other side of each of the hull stringers. They are also a few feet from the back of the transom.

In order to keep my bow down at cruising speed (2200- 2400 RPM, 14- 16 kts), I have to run full tabs. I replaced both trim tab actuators and indicator switch this year and they are working properly. At WOT my engine is reaching the max RPM of 2600 and 18 kts with full fuel in all three tanks and full water.

If you have any ballasts in your stern, can you please tell me about them and your vessel.

I am contemplating on relocating them to offset the starboard side list at rest or remove them completely. I am just concerned on how the vessel will react to a large falling sea while underway.

Thank you

Rich

[amber jj]

Our 2000 31TE has a bunch of divers lead weights in the rear port side under the muffler.We have twin Cummins 370's and a 5K northern lights Genny on the port side.We don't seem to have any problems with ours.

[Russell]

If the forward to aft trim is ok you might move one or more blocks from the starboard to port side. The starboard side looks very low in the picture, so just removing some from the starboard side might improve list and fore and aft trim if the transom is also lower than it should be. I do not know about the 31 but the 28TE requires very little trim tab when underway.

[Pitou]

Hey Rich -

I hope that more of the single screw 31 TE owners will respond to you with pictures of their ballast and their configuration specifics.

Your ballast blocks look different from what I have previously seen as ballast in the Albin bilge spaces of 28's and 31's if they have anything at all. I've always seen lead ballast as attached in my pictures below. The pictures show the ballast from a single screw 2002 31TE with a Cummins 450 C series and a Northern Lights generator port side and a 28 gallon holding tank starboard / exhaust also runs outboard on the starboard side. Same setup as you except the addition of the Northern Lights.

I'm not a marine architect, but depending upon the response that you get to this thread, I would consider removing all of the ballast and starting from scratch finding a balance of fore, aft, port and starboard or removing ballast from the starboard side first until your boat levels from port to starboard.

My 2006 with a Cummins 500 QSC, Northern Lights port side and holding tank and exhaust to starboard has no ballast and is balanced.

IMG_1963.jpg

IMG_1964.jpg

[irishwake]

That looks like my setup.

[Pitou]

That looks like my setup.

Good eye, it's not only your setup, it's your boat!
I had the broker send me those pictures when it first came to market.

Any idea how much weight you have on each side? What do the markings say?

[addon323]

Thanks everyone for your input. Looks like there is no standard consistency of the location, type, or the amount of ballasts in the stern.

I think I will remove or move the starboard ballasts to the port side and see what happens. I will provide an update shortly.

[irishwake]

Pitou,
the four lead weights have no markings as far as weight. I would assume they are in the 30# range. The boats sits level, but it appears at one time there were more weights that had been removed from the stern and starboard side also in the stern.

[wpcv1776]

We have a 2004 31TE with single Cummins. The only ballast is much lead in the aft port corner. We don't have a generator but if we get one we will install it there and remove the ballast. We also added 300 feet of chain to the anchor locker and that has the added benefit of keeping the nose down a little, so we only need about half the trim tabs while cruising at 15.

[Ben62]

Mine had lead glassed in on the port side when I bought it. I had it removed when I installed a genset.

Ben