Pulling two tubes with a Bayliner 175, am I looking for trouble?

[kellmike626]

Simple question for you guys that have a Bayliner 175, know a lot about it, or have a boat similar to it.

Can i pull two tubes safely without anything to go wrong? I know this varies greatly on the load of the boat and the engine. Well, I have a 3.0L mercruiser, so I know it's not the most powerful engine for towing. I'll most likely be towing two teenagers (average towing weight overall would be somewhere around 300-320 lbs) and maybe two people on board that add up to 400 lbs. Am I in the safe zone, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

 

[JustJason]

Re: Pulling two tubes with a Bayliner 175, am I looking for trouble?

Every boats a bit different. Just watch your water temps and listen for any abnormalities. As long as the engine doesn't feel like it's lugging or struggleing your okay. If it's struggleing then you need to reprop it to get your RPMS's up a bit.

 

[Bayliner175xt]

Re: Pulling two tubes with a Bayliner 175, am I looking for trouble?

Hi we have a Bayliner 175 with a 3.0L in it.
It does really well. tows 2 tubes easy, slalom skier & wake boarder. we just keep the number people in the boat to driver and 2 passengers & at least one in the bow.
We run a 4 blade 13" - 22P prop or 4 blade 13" - 20P (we change blade) that works well for us.
DON'T put to many big *** people in the tubes though, that will slow you down a fair bit.
We tow 2 adults and 2 kids safely.

 

[blifsey]

Re: Pulling two tubes with a Bayliner 175, am I looking for trouble?

Not really related to the boat, but be sure to use tow ropes that are same length and connected to same tow point. Otherwise, when the tubes swing one could "clothesline" riders on the other. We've towed 2 and 3 tubes for years. The kids like me to do large swerving "S" patterns and they play "Battle Tube" They also managed to have rider on one lay down flat and other tube jump over them. Another fun activity is jumping from tube to tube changing places.

We've boated with friends with a 3.0L in an 19' boat that did fine pulling 2 tubes. He had prop'ed it with a 5 blade SS for low end grunt.

 

[kellmike626]

Re: Pulling two tubes with a Bayliner 175, am I looking for trouble?

Not really related to the boat, but be sure to use tow ropes that are same length and connected to same tow point. Otherwise, when the tubes swing one could "clothesline" riders on the other. We've towed 2 and 3 tubes for years. The kids like me to do large swerving "S" patterns and they play "Battle Tube" They also managed to have rider on one lay down flat and other tube jump over them. Another fun activity is jumping from tube to tube changing places.

We've boated with friends with a 3.0L in an 19' boat that did fine pulling 2 tubes. He had prop'ed it with a 5 blade SS for low end grunt.

No worries, I already have the same length tow ropes and I was aware of clotheslining too. The purpose of getting two tubes was tube wars with friends and family. Should get a few laughs and enjoy it

And I will likely reprop next season, I was planning on switching to an aluminum 20P four blade prop, that'll probably help a bunch. Right now I have a three blade 21 Pitch prop on the boat.

As for the weight of the tubers, the biggest one is 260 pounds, the rest are under 170 pounds, so we should be fine hopefully, because we usually only have 4 people on board at a time on our 175. After that, gets kind of crowded in the boat. So, one person tubing there'd be 3 people. 2 tubers, 2 people, etc.

Is it best to use identical tubes also? One of the tubes is just a few inches smaller in diameter than the other.