1. Sand
San makes a great (cheap) means of ballst. The best way (other than a beach) to get sand is to go to your local concrete supplies retailer, they will be able to sell your bags of sand! These bags will not cost you much (onl around $10). The advantages are that they are cheap so you can have as many as you need/want. Also they are flexible so you can move them around and change them to suit your needs. Obvious disadvantags though, are that your boat will be full of bloody sand. Sand is heavy and thus hard to carry in and out. It also will leave less room for boards and the lie on your deck.

2.Fat Sacks
If the idea of fulling your boat with sand sounds a bit Maori to you, you should look at buying yourself some fat sacks. Fat sacks are really large bladdres filled with water, that have the advantage of being emptiable - pumps are availble for this task. You will probably need more than one sack to produce the best wake - one each side and one in the fron and back would be nice, but your boats floor might not be able to handle this. It really does depend on the size of your boat as to how much of any type of weighting system you need.

It is importnt however to try and keep the boat leveled off and make sure you don’t put all the weight in the back this just makes the wake big and mushy. Keep weight even throughout the boat!

3. Friends
Frends are a great form of ballast, they are easy to move (usually) and come in lots of different sizes. Obviously the more (and larger) the better. You really should have no less than six plus your equipment. Make sure you have at least one person up front, if open bow

4. Concrete
This is a bit more difficult. You can make up a flower box from wood and fill it with concrete. You should cover it with carpeting so that the boat doesn’t take a beating. Two of these (one on each side of the boat) is required, a third would be great. The problem with these is that, you have trouble placing them in the boat and taking them out.

5. A Ballast system
Many of your new wakeboard boats are equipped with their own systems. Press a button and the boat has tanks, which fill with water when the boat is moving. After your done for the day and while the boat is stopped, press the button and the water is pumped out. It takes about 15 minutes to drain the built in tanks. See your dealer for technical info.

Remember
You can use a combination of these different methods to suit your needs and bidget. The ideal wake is one that has a nice curl, it’s firm and has a small lip at the top. If it’s curling over, it will be to mushy. If it’s straight up, it will feel like a brick wall. The lip helps to spot the top of the wake. Good luck and go BIG!