Tubing/Submarine

[deckwork]

Hello everyone, we are new to boating and the forum allthough i have been reading posts and getting great info for a while now. We have a 17 foit open bow with a 3.0 IO and tryed tubing for the first time a couple of days ago have a 3 person flat style tube with short back rests the only place to hook onto is ski hook, i was nominated as the tester as my wife operated the boat so i climb on in thinking this should be easy well i dont know what we did wrong but the tube kept diving i am not a heavy guy and was sitting in the middle seat of tube which is a little forward of other seats, thinking we needed more weight i put our 4 year old on my lap leant back as much as i could and went slow. Well that didnt work the nose just dove in and the screams started, and with frustration starting we just pacoed it in until we can figure out what we did wrong. So if anyone can give us some pointers or maybe the style of a tube that is less prone to submarining that would be great, thank you all.

 

[southkogs]

Welcome aboard deckwork:

You probably need at least two riders in the back two seats on that kinda' tube. You want to start with a little "nose up" attitude so it can get on plane.

 

[Vegas Naturist]

Also, make sure the tube is fully inflated. It should feel relatively hard so it skims on top of the water instead of sinking in a little.

 

[sphelps]

Is the tie off on the tube on the bottom or the top of the tube . Some video of the action would be fun !:lol:

 

[BSTN]

Going slow is probably the problem. Start off by going WOT to get the boat on plane and then throttle down to whatever speed you want to pull the tube. I know with the tube I use that it will nose dive if I start off by pulling slow (i.e. no wake speed).

 

[four winns 214]

Fully inflate the tube. It's got to be hard to keep it from submarining. It takes some inflation horsepower to fully inflate a large tube. I use a shop vac .

 

[SDSeville]

Inflation is important, but you can pull even a half flat tube once it is on a plane. Many of our tubes will dive at slow speeds. We just take off a little less aggressive than you would for a skier (not slalom). You don't really have to punch it, but you need to get up enough speed to get the tube to plane fairly quickly. Once it is up on a plane, you can experiment with how slow you can go before it falls off.

 

[White90GT]

Yep as said, make sure it's fully inflated and somewhat hard to the touch. As you take off with the boat, my guess would be with the little 4 cylinder in the boat, you probably will want to gun the throttle and either watch the tuber or have a lookout watch the tuber to see when it is up on top of the water, Then back off the throttle enough to get the boat moving 20-25 mph or so. This is usually a nice easy pace, boat is up on plane and not too much stress on the tube.

 

[ssobol]

Where does the tow line attach to the boat? If the line is attached to the trailer strap eyes, this puts the thrust line of the tow pretty low which can pull the nose of the tube down. Try a higher tow line attach point or get a tow line that has a booster ball. I used a booster ball on the tow line from my RIB when tubing and it helps a lot. Also make sure that the payload on the tube is not over the tube's limit.

The tow line on the tube should attach to the lower part of the front of the tube or slightly under the front edge.

 

[geneseo1911]

What is the make/model of the tube? We have an Airhead Viper that submarines even when it's empty. Riders have to be trained to lean way back to keep it from happening. Sounds like you just had your weight too far forward.

 

[inthedirtagain]

Booster ball made a huge difference on one of our boats that had low tow points and an outboard. On my boat with the 3.0 sterndrive, I found the same problem with low tow points, so I added a ski hook just above the drive and reinforced it with a piece of 2x6. Just raising the tow point 1ft higher off the water line made a huge difference and was much cheaper than buying another inflatable device (and storing it). I picked up the ski hook from a local boat shop for about $30 and had it installed in less than 30min.

 

[slag]

I got rid of an airhead tube (purple) that used to do that. Most tubes wont submarine, but some are just poorly made. The tubes we have now don't have that problem and hook from the bottom so they pull up ever so slightly.

 

[dmoriarty51]

slag was it this one? http://www.iboats.com/Airhead-Slice..._id.999313#tab_container_ProductInfoContainer

I have low tow points and have trouble with my 8 yr old on it, Seems to me she doesnt weigh enough to get weight on the back to start it nose up. Soft starts or punching it gets the same dive. Bought a booster ball but she is terrified of the tube now... maybe next season