Twin 175 Yamahas, 1100 pounds of motors. Going on April 11 th
Oh good ... that'll help balance out the boat.
Quite honestly, there have been about as many Great Alaskans running stern-heavy as there have been that run a little bow-heavy. This is one of the trade-offs. Lightweight boats (for their size/weight versus weight of cargo and onboard stuff) are going to be a little more of a teeter totter versus big heavy glass boats such as a SeaSport or Orca etcetera. Recall that displacement/boat weight is the NUMBER ONE killer of high gas mileage or efficiency on the water. This boat design is light on purpose ... combined with the monohedron hull form and optimized aspect ratio, it gets double the gas mileage compared to any other boat in its class. Of course, there's that weight trade-off ... you benefit from keeping where the CG is in mind (about 1/3rd of boat length forward of transom) and try to keep the heaviest items as close as you can to that area ... the 'green zone'. Items in or near the CG, plus or minus a few feet, have less leverage over the boat's CG (shorter moment arm) than items further from the CG ... like Dan said, if you build lightweight forward, you might want to keep your batteries and tanks a little more forward of the CG and perhaps avoid large heavy motors or use a single rather than twins. The opposite applies if you go heavy forward, easy to do in the more 'live aboard' accommodations boats ... try to lay things out to keep as much of that forward weight aft as you can and consider balancing out the boat with a heavier motor, twins, or slightly longer motor brackets (or hydraulic jack plates instead of a light simple bracket), or put batteries under the splash well etc. An option that I've mentioned before, as well, is the movement of fuel tanks to behind the aft pilot house bulkhead by adding saddle tanks under the gunnel on each side. This is also a way to gain extended range for the boat even if you do have the end-to-end under-deck tanks as shown in the plans.
It's just a matter of keeping all weights considered as you design them into the boat. Both the standard Great Alaskan and Kodiak have proven performance even if the trim was/is a little up or down from 'perfect'. All that have been built have been amazing boats ...
Brian
