[supastipa]

I thought I would share this experience for other owners to learn from. As you can see from my pictures, our boat is one of the small number of Mariahs with a wakeboard tower. Last year at Lake Powell I learned a hard lesson about physics and pulling a tube attached to the tower. After dumping my brother off the tube I began a sharp and high speed turn to pick him up. As I began to turn the boat, the now empty tube submarines pulling the top of the tower with it as I continued the turn. The boat tipped so hard I thought we were going in, I dropped off the throttle just in time to save it. I don't know if this kind of force could ever capsize the boat but it scared the crap out of me. Anyone else ever have something like this happen? Should I not pull tubes from the tower?

[Diablo180]

wow well done! I don't know about that particular model but I know that our Diablo has a tow ring off the stern right next to the gas fill. But then again we haven't been towing anyone so I wouldn't know if you could "dump" a boat by pulling a sharp turn like that.. but there is still a drag on the tower from the tube and pulling it closer to the stern might be a better idea :S

however my boy is a little on the "Overzealous" type when it comes to driving it.. memories of nearly dumping it when he first TD'd it are still very fresh in my mind

[ShabahZ280]

I've always heard towers should be used specifically for wakeboarding, and not for tubing. However, I never heard a real reason why! I wonder if you found out the real reason?

At any rate, glad you were able to get out of it OK. Mariahs tend to really dig in during fast tight turns, I've had a few close calls myself!

Thanks for sharing, these are all things that help us understand our boats better!

[All In]

I think what we have to understand here is that when pulling a skier or a wake boarder, when they go down the only thing that you are pulling is a handle on the end of the rope. When a tuber falls of you are pulling an anchor behind you. My shabah can take some pretty wicked turns and I have felt the grab of the tube digging in. I always pull tubers from the middle of the stern as that is really the only place I have. I don't have a tower. I have thought about getting one but my kids are still to small to use it. I will keep in mind the experience you have had with this and use it in the future. Also very glad to here that you got yourself out of the situation. That would have scared me to death. Great job

[ewcjoro]

Don't pull a tube from a tower, ever.

I am surprised that the tower didn't rip off of your boat. You should to check the mounts for cracks in the fiberglass and to make sure that the tower is still mounted securely.

Every tower manufacturer recommends that you DO NOT pull tubers from the tower, especially in boats not originally made to support a tower.

Glad that everyone is safe!

[supastipa]

ewcjoro....we do have cracks in the fiberglass where the tower is mounted. I always figured it wasn't properly installed on the boat, I guess it could be from pulling a tube from the tower. Live and learn, wish I would have known about this when we purchased the tower. The salesman never mentioned it.

[MtTalari]

Just installed a tower on mine this summer. When I opened the packaging there was a bright orange sheet of paper on top of the installation instructions that said "DO NOT PULL INFLATABLES (SUCH AS TUBES ETC) FROM THIS TOWER! DOING SO WILL VOID THE WARRANTY!" I suppose it is just too much torque on the tower/mounts, not to mention the danger of experiencing what you just did. The tower has been a big improvement in the enjoyment of wakeboarding and skiing and for that it was worth the money, but I would think towing a tube would be alot of fun too in that you would catch way more air! Oh well, I will never try it with my new tower so I will keep dreamin. By the way, those cracks around the mounting points ARE stress cracks. May have been from being improperly installed (there is a proper way to drill holes in fiberglass to reduce the chances of cracks developing) but any unnecessary strain now will only make them worse so be careful.

[MariahMan]

Very interesting discussion as we have a Samson Sports custom built tower on our Mariah that we tow tubes off of all the time. We had the tower installed when we bought the boat ~5 years ago and i don't think we've ever used the stern eye to tow a towable. We often have 3 innertubes out w/ 4 guys 150lbs. + riding doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Never experienced the boat feeling as if it would roll over, nor has the fiberglass developed any sign of stress cracks anywhere.

I was interested to hear what Samson Sports thought about this situation, so i emailed Scott Parnell and here's what he had to say on the subject:

Hi Ryan: Glad your doing well. The question about towing tubes is a common one. I do not recommend towing tubes from the tower-especially tubes designed to hold more than one person. The tower will handle the load fine but depending on what type of boat and the quality of fiberglass used, you could have problems with cracking. The tower is not the week point. The way the tower attaches to the boat, how well was the installation of the tower, the thickness if the glass and how radical the driver gets with a tube are all factors. I pull my kids from my tower but I use some common sense. Whipping a tube with 3 people in it out to the side and then getting some slack in the rope can be very hard on the boat if you accelerate and the rope jerks sideways on the top of the tower when it gets tight. You can expect that a tower with mounting hardware designed specifically for the boat model will hold up better than a universal tower. Since it is hard to know how someone may drive when towing a tube, I tell people not to do it but again, I do it. I have seen the website but didn't realize you started. Nice job. Let me know if you need anything. Thanks, Scott [number removed for privacy]

[MtTalari]

Interesting. I still cant believe you pull 600 plus pounds of weight on several towables with your tower MariahMan! Sort of inspires me to at least try it with my 9 year old niece. Your tower is custom for your boat, and that may be the difference. My tower is a universal tower (Big Air H2O tower http://www.bigairpylons.com/Tower.htm). Anyway, I think a lot comes down to the boat operator knowing how to properly tow a tube. These towers are very strong, and like your tower dealer said, it isnt the tower that is the weak point, its the mounting points.