2021 255XE ballast questions

[Sarconen10]

First, let me start by saying I know there are very few people with the new 2021 wake series boats. I am posting this to try to 1) inform the forum of changes made to 2021 2) hopefully someone can educate me on how this should work.

I am looking to figure out how exactly this ballast system is “supposed” to work. From what I can see, the rider control drive features that allow you to set ballast/speed/acceleration profiles is the same as in prior years. However, I cannot find a ballast calibration feature anywhere. From reading the owners manual, you can access a diagnostic menu by holding the settings button for 5 seconds. This bring you to a menu that says ballast times. The manual says these are only supposed to be adjusted by the dealer, (which my dealer was clueless and said set them to whatever you want, it will fill till it’s full bc there is a float.... Ummm no) anyway they can very easily be changed by pressing the plus and minus buttons to set the times. There is a fill and drain time for each tank. The problem is, the times are all over the place. No consistency in any times. Wouldn’t you assume it would take the same amount of time to fill the bag/tank as it takes to drain it? If the port/stbd hard tanks are the same size, shouldn’t they be the same time? I want to change the settings so that it fills the bag/tanks to their full capacity and then drains them without running the pump dry.

So my question is, does anyone have any info on what these times should be set for?

Yamaha says there is 1600lbs of ballast on the boat, but I can’t find anywhere what that means in terms of port hard tank gallons=x, stbd hard tank gallons=x, ski locker bag=x. I know the pumps are 14gpm, so if I could figure out how many gallons each should hold, I can figure out how many minutes the pumps should run.

New to 21, each tank/bag has a overflow hose that discharges overboard. This will prevent the tanks/bag from overfilling.

New to 21?, there are three ballast pumps, each with a hand valve. Very clearly visible in the engine bay and ski locker. What is the normal state of these valves? I know the pumps are reversible, so water flows in and out of the same valve and thru hole. This means there is no one way check valve. So, with the valve open, water can come up the thru hull from under the boat and run to the pump without anything stopping it? Does this mean the pump not running is the only thing that prevents water from going into the tank?




Intake/output thru hull- there are three, all viewable from the bottom with the boat on the trailer. The stbd and ski locker both have a grate covering them. The port doesn’t have this grate? Any idea why? Did Yamaha screw this up?

New to 21- Yamaha FINALLY got smart and gave us a fully automatic, float driven bilge pump. It works even with the batteries off. And does not cycle every 3 minutes looking for water like on previous models. I tested this in the driveway with the drain plug in, filled the bilge with a hose with the batteries off, and sure enough, the pump eventually kicked on and pumped till the water was low enough, then turned back off. While the boat is on and your in the water, you still have the option to run the bilge manually by the connext button or hard push button, but if the pump detects enough water from the float to turn on, you get the bilge letters lite up in red. Finally a good design in my opinion.

 

[Cambo]

I can help shed some light on a few items. I don't have that model but know in depth how the older versions work . They made the improvement to allow the water to over flow that is great and they still kept some type of timer that is adjustable. Sounds like you will need to do your own calibration for the timer that should be fairly simple and others will probably chime in their settings. You can hear the pump change tone when the water runs out

It looks like they put the intake thru hull ports in areas that don't rest on the trailer bunks another good layout item. I wouldn't worry that one does not have a grate

The ski locker bag on the older models would get a siphon effect and fill about 1/3 by itself creating all sorts of timing issues so it depends on the tank or bag location if the valve needs to be turned off.