In this edition of Over Weight we will be taking a look at Gerry Nunn’s Malibu Wakesetter 23 LSV. Gerry’s boat is known to have one of the biggest wakes out there and a lot of guys like to ride behind it. It’s so big and so good to ride, in fact, that a lot of today’s top wakeboarding filmmakers regularly shoot their riders riding behind it. Needless to say, Gerry’s got a lot of weight in his boat to make the wake as big and rampy as it is. Here are some of the details.

Boat: Malibu Wakesetter 23 LSV
Additional weight: over 5,000 lbs. (Gerry also uses the Wedge on occasion)
Speed: 26 MPH
Rope length: 87’

When I asked Gerry about how much weight he had in his boat he told me he had no idea, he’d never taken the time to add it all up. I remember the first time I saw Gerry’s boat in person. It was his previous 23 LSV (an ’05), but he has his ’06 weighted the same way. The amount of hidden weight he has just made me shake my head and chuckle. The only “visible” weight in Gerry’s boat are a pair of rectangular Fat Sacs stacked on top of each other in the bow walkway, along with a couple lead plates on the floor for minimal tweaking and evening out. The rest of the weight is all lead and Fat Sacs hidden under seats and in storage compartments.

Gerry’s “lead weight” is some of the most unique and organized I’ve ever seen. He has dozens of plastic PVC tubes, about 2-feet long, filled with tire weights and capped at each end. The tubes are clean, compact, easy to move around, and heavy – pretty much ideal for weighting a big wake boat like the 23 LSV. Along with the PVC pipes, Gerry also has some flat lead plates lying around underneath various seat compartments. While all of these things are great ways to weight a boat, Gerry doesn’t really know how much each thing weighs, so we could only guesstimate.

In the bow of Gerry’s boat are the two Fat Sacs stacked on top of each other, which weight about 300 lbs. each and the internal ballast tank, which is always full.

Under the spotter’s seat and inside the storage compartment behind it is a lot of lead weight. There is also lead weight hidden under the seats on the port and starboard sides of the boat.

Each rear locker also holds a 400 lb. Fat Sac and some more lead. All of Gerry’s flat lead plates are wrapped in scrap carpet to prevent them from damaging the interior of the boat.

The internal ballast of the Malibu 23 LSV adds up to 1,250 additional pounds of weight. These are always full on Gerry’s boat.

To top off all of the extra weight Gerry has loaded into his boat, he will also use the Wedge from time to time, depending on the number of passengers in the boat. If there are only one or two, he will use the Wedge to peak the wake up a bit and make it a little bigger. If there are more than two people, though, he will keep the Wedge up, because with all of the ballast and lead weight, passengers, and Wedge, the boat wouldn’t be able to get on plane.

While lead weight usually only works if you keep your boat on the water (or very close by) because towing that much weight could kill a car, the way Gerry has his boat weighted could easily be translated into various Fat Sac arrangements. Rather than lead under the seats, just use smaller sacs.

Pretty much all of the top pros have ridden behind Gerry’s boat and pretty much all of them agree that it is one of the best wakes to ride on. So if you’ve got a 23 LSV and 2.5 tons of extra weight laying around, throw it under the seats and in the storage lockers and get ready for some hangtime.