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how to figure out boats weight capacity and how much weight is currently on the boat
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The best way to do that is kind of just look up the model number, the year or whatever
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of the boat, and you'll be able to find the normal dry weight of that boat
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That's going to be the boat's weight without a full fuel tank, without a full freshwater
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wash down tank, without a full waste tank, without all your gear on the boat, without
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the people on the boat, and you're pretty much going to work off of that number
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Now, the other way is to have a weight. You can go to a weigh station and weigh it
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You can take it to a marina and have them pull it out, and most forklifts are going
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to have a scale built into them so they'll be able to see what the weight of the boat
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is in its current state, which is going to have a lot of your gear and stuff on there
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And then most boats that are not yacht certified are going to have a placard on the side of
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them somewhere on the boat that's going to give you the personnel capacity as well as
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your weight capacity. You know, a lot of 21 footers, stuff like that, those smaller boats are going to tell
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you you can only have four or five people. You can only have, you know, two 2,500 pounds on the boat
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A lot of times that weight limit is based on how the boat performs in the water, how
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that affects the static waterline of the boat, being where the waterline, the outside waterline
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is on the hull, and then a lot of that factors into where the deck drains are and stuff like that
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So if you put too much weight in the boat and the static waterline is normally, you
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know, four inches from the deck drain, but you overload this boat and now all of a sudden
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the boat's down in the water far enough to let water into the deck drains, then you're
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going to sink the boat. And once you overload a boat, I mean, there's other issues there
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I mean, you put too many people in the boat and now all of a sudden it's topsy turvy and
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you can roll it. Turns are going to be a problem. Bow plowing is going to be a problem
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Performance is just going to be a problem all around. You see it all the time. People overloading a boat to just haul people to sandbar, stuff like that
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I mean, people overload boats to a ridiculous amount where they're just going from, you
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know, a hundred yards over to the sandbar. And so they put 34 people on the boat with all the coolers, the umbrellas, the gear
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the chairs, like everything. Another problem with overloading it is probably going to be the strength of the boat
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Let's say it's a cheaper made boat and you put too many people on it and you start to
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break the fiberglass of the deck to the gunnels, create stress cracks, stuff like that
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So I would say those are going to be your main things of overloading a boat above capacity
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