On the trip from Cabo to Puerto Vallarta, we finally got a chance to use Rocket Science’s water ballast system. What a treat! While the boat is more than adequately ballasted with just the bulb keel, the water ballast really does make a big difference in upwind or reaching conditions. It reduces heel by about 5 degrees, and we found that it really does a nice job of reducing the boat’s rolling as well. The extra knot or so of speed was also welcome.
While we know that water ballasting is often thought to be a bad idea among the more traditionally minded sailors among us, we certainly welcome having it on board. Rocket Science uses a pretty moderate amount of water, only 1600 lbs, and we can of course dump a tank in under 2 minutes if we need to ditch it. No worries at all.
