Jet Boat Weight Distribution

Hello,

I have a 1650 Triton Front Stick Steer with a 90/65 Outboard Jet. The transom has been raised and reinforced with a tunnel cut. I am redoing/extending the front deck and I am trying to decide if I should move as much weight as possible to the front or keep some weight in the rear. I have a fuel tank and 3 batteries that can all be moved to within the front 5 ft of the boat. Would this be too much weight on the front or is that not going to apply in this case?

thanks in advance

 

My experience with jets that we built and at the guidance from a technician at Berkeley Jet, back in the day, was that you should keep most of the weight at the rear of the boat
We installed in our 21 foot boats, with 1200 pounds of engine, pump and intake, windshield with seating for two up front, the fuel tanks to the side of the engine against the transom.
So 60 gallons prox at the rear. This method kept the boat running at an up attitude of between 4 and 6 degrees and did not allow the front
to dig in on a turn that can occur with too much weight in the front.

We had an aluminum floor 16 foot rigid hull inflatable come through the shop, center console.. I think the outboard jet was a 115/90 Merc. The fellow purchased the boat and
there was about a 30 ish gallon fuel tank in the front as well as passenger seating forward. Console steering. I would estimate the deadrise at somewhere around 14 degrees plus or minus 2.
He would get the boat up on plane, 25 knots and anything beyond that the boat radically came off step and plowed the bow down. We determined that the the weight in the front
coupled with the tunnel influence caused the center of lift to go behind the center of gravity (I will risk it) (the dynamic center of lift) and the boat would rotate over this center of lift and let the bow drop.
So we emptied the tank into some spare portable tanks that we had, and strapped in 25 gallons of fuel into the portables right at the transom. Problem solved. We removed the fixed front tank and moved the tank back against the transom

I could not find a deadrise angle of your Triton, probably not any. Unless you have significant steering strakes on the bottom, I would expect that you will have a lot of drift in the
corners. Certainly, keeping more of the hull in the water will add directional stability but too much bow down, can cause the boat to do a 180 degree end swap.

I recently took a 16 foot 9 inch Ultrasport boat that had a console and a prop outboard. Added the transom extension, removed the console steering and added a windsheild near the
bow with seating for 2. Ultrasport with all of its problems had the gas tank in the bow and I found that it performed quite sluggish. To much bow steer. Certainly you can trim the engine
to get the bow up but the shoe/intake on the jet limits the range of tilt before the inlet water ventilates.