I have no practical experience with this, I'm just curious as to what your train of thought is on wanting to lower it.
I can understand the re-boarding aspect and agree it would help, but I personally wouldn't consider that an area that warrants improvement on a blaster. My only (very slight) issue with boarding a blaster is occasionally getting my vest hung up on the seat hump during side mounts. That's just me tho...
More importantly imo, how does it make the ride better? Are you saying this from experience with changing the cog height on a surf blaster or is this a hunch?? My thought is that for rotation (ie rolls or flips) you would want the cog (with the rider/ski considered as one) to be as central as possible. Think of a frisbee or wheel here. A lopsided weight distribution will seriously hinder rotation for anything. I can't imagine anyone has accurately located the vertical cog on a blaster (again, with rider), but I'd be willing to bet is already below the geometric center. And of course on a car you want it as low as possible for weight distribution when cornering, but that all goes out the window on something that gets leaned into a turn.
Again, not trying to bash the idea by any means, just trying to understand the reasoning behind it...
:beerchug:
Well, like I said, I have two major reasons for the lower CG with the battery:
1) Weight distribution. This is really sorta central to my new Blaster build (see avatar). I decided to go with a 12 vein Solas Aggressor pump. Although, IMO, it's far superior to the Mag pump, it is, from what I can tell from installing it, heavier. At the same time I did this project, I moved the waterbox to the rear, and changed that to a TDR for a Blaster 2. When I sat the ski in calm, flat water, it seemed to sit a bit lower in the rear than it did before, but that could be in part to me removing the foam in back to install the rear exhaust fitting (PITA). In flat water, it would probably be fine and actually might make better hook-up, but for me, all I do is surf ride, and aside of jumping waves, I really like to RIDE waves, and I like a ski that sorta skims through the middle of the bottom of the ski (I hope I'm explaining that so you guys understand what I'm saying).
It sorta gives me the feeling like I'm on my long board. Hard to explain, and unless you surf you might not get what I'm saying.
2) Boarding in surf: When I fall off, and the waves are bigger than maybe 2-3 feet, when you are old like me, you only have a couple chances at most to get back on if you fall off out there. And, if you are timing sets to get back on (like I have to), the last couple bigger ones will hit the upper part of the ski and tip it over easily because I believe that it's top heavy and the CG is too high.
That's MY logic on MY ski.
Zimmy rode it at Daytona and loved it. He didn't have any problem getting it upside-down either...
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