carguy79ta

Wow. Looks awesome. How many total watts are pushing all that?

Nice boat. My colors also. Good luck with your sale!

Tough call. My dealer is 200mi away. Did have one breakdown on my '17 257, the alternator bracket broke. Had to haul it, leave it then pick it back up,(spend a few days at lake Ozark). They were the closest. I went with Centurion, because they are the biggest, heaviest(with ballast) combination on the market today. I wanted the biggest wave available. (Also run 1000 lead). I have achieved my goal. No regrets. I surfed an M235 and the wave was not as good,hard,push as mine.

I say watertest one. You won't be disappointed.

Just to add to what has been said, I used 40 gal on my first 10 hrs on my 17 RI 257. Combination of cruising and surfing, fully ballasted. Now I have lead, and use a little more fuel, but not much. I am super impressed with the(lack of) fuel I have to put into the boat. Also the surf tabs are way more fuel efficient than surfgate.

Do it...you will love it.

Nice! So you have 900 and you are going to get another 400. Sweet! We were out this weekend and with my 1000 lbs lead, we had a total of 5 crew. The wave was HUGE!! Only thing you have to watch is if you are going to take a swim break, dump your ram fills. The first couple of 257s last year, had lead, and the motor hydrolocked from water backing up thru the exhaust. The solution was to dump ramfill if you are going to break for more than a half hour. Last weekend, we were ballasted up and took a break for about a half hr and we had 2 people on the swim platform and 2 on the rear lockers. No probs.

How do you like your wave, @scottgresham? In general, I like bow weight to keep the bow down. Also it helps lengthen the wave.

Dont be disappointed. I have 1000 in my 257...for a total of 7150 lbs of ballast. The lead brings out the true potential of these boats. All boats have to be sunk for the best wave. Especially flat v boats like Malibus. With the tabs instead of surfgate, the fuel economy is great.

@scottgresham sorry my exuberiance got away from me!! I hope yours turned out well for you! My malibu dealer offered me their '16 m235 that they all used and put 80 hrs on it and I was not impressed with their bottom dollar.

@Darkside !!! WOW !!! That's awesome!!! Dont post that on TMC, or you will incite a riot. I dont think the m235's are fairing quite as well.

Beautiful boat!! You will love it!

I have a bow sack. That being said, with everything full, I have 500 each side with 200 lbs under the forward end of the locker bag each side. Then 300 lbs under the rear seat each side starting at the lead under the locker bag and going forward. I don't have any in the bow since I have the bow sack. If you don't have the bow sack, I would put 400 in the bow and 600 in the back...for starters. If you wanted to duplicate what I do with no bow sack, buy 1500 lead and put 500 in the bow. Enormous push. I saw an m235 on my lake and we surfed each others boat. My wave was far superior to his and he agreed. Also , to be fair, his wave could have been optimized with more ballast. But IMO would not ever be as good as mine.

^^^sorry I meant I have a 2017 RI 257.

^^I understand. I have a 257, everybody wants to go boating... until it is time to go boating. I can't make it...etc. usually it is me and my wife. Fortunately in MO if you have a big ski mirror, you don't have to have an observer. My youngest is 21, they are all tackling a career, don't have time.