Re: Installing Wakeboard tower, safe?
About a month ago I helped my BIL install a tower from
www.diywake.com. This is the best priced tower I have seen. The installation is sturdy, and I think he is going to be very happy.
My BIL does plan to pull tubes with his tower. I don't have a tower on my boat, but I do have a ski pylon. Most towers and ski pylon manufacturers say that you should not use them for tubing. If you observe around your waterway, you will notice a lot of boaters pulling tubes with these devices. I think the manufacturers recommend this for safety reasons and not structural reasons. In my case, I installed a pylon because the tow rope was always in the wake, and it made it difficult for the boat driver to sling the tubers across the wake. I would not install a tower on my boat if it was only strong enough to pull a wake boarder, but not strong enough to pull a tuber. Because of the higher tow point, there is danger that your tubers could catch more air than desired. Thats why I believe the recommendation is made for safety reasons and not structural reasons. The tower and boat are plenty strong to pull a tube. If everyone on the boat is sober, and you keep your speed down (be reasonable), you should not have any problems pulling a tube from a tower or ski pylon.
We did learn some lessons during the tower installation that may be helpful.
1) Measure twice, cut/drill once. We did not have any problems, but we took our time (3-4 hours), and the installation turned out really nice.
2) DIY towers are skinnier at the top than the width at the tower mounts. Some towers (such as Monster) are approximately the same width at the top as they are at the mounts. The reason I mention this is because it impacted my BIL's bimini top. We were careful to mount the tower high enough that the bimini could swing under it, but we did not take into account that the bimini was wider than the open area at the top of the tower. This prevented the bimini from being able to move into an open position. Since the top of the tower is a fixed width, there was not anything we could do to prevent this, but it was kind of a bummer knowing that we now had a bimini project. The next weekend my BIL removed about 6 inches from the front bow of his bimini, and then reconnected the tubes. A few adjustments of the bimini straps and he was good to go. Not a bad adjustment, just disappointing to learn we created another project.
3) Most disappointing was the performance of the boat. Although the water is still cold, we have already tested the tower with me as the driver, and my BIL as the wake boarder. His boat has a 4.3 liter V6. Before the tower installation he always had plenty of power to pull a wake boarder up from the regular attachment. Now the tower is acting like a big lever. When I hit the throttle with my BIL hanging onto the the rope (he is about 190 pounds), the bow shoots straight up, and the stern digs deep into the water. The boat then struggles for a few seconds to get on a plane. Given the increased bow rise, I don't see how a slalom skier can hang on long enough to get up if the rope is attached to the tower. Performance is fine once the boat is on a plane, and there are no performance issues when the boat is not towing anything. Knowing what I know now, I would still install a tower on a 4.3 liter V6, but mine and his next boat will have V8's to add a little more grunt when pulling.
Below is a pick of the boat with the newly installed tower. The pic was taken before the adjustment was made to the bimini top. The yellow coloring in the mountains are desert wildflowers growing from above average rain over the winter. The daytime temperature here in the desert are already perfect for boating, but the water temps are still in the high 50's (too cold for me). In about 3 weeks the water will move into the mid 60's, and I will be in.
