How high should my water ski tower be?

Pusher

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I am mounting a ski tower on my 17' fishing boat for an arch but might tow my more adventurous wife behind with it. It is 84" from floor to top of tower. It looks ridiculously tall, but googling the issue seemed to say 7' was right.
Is 7' a wakeboard/waterboard/skiing height or should I chop it down for asthetics?
 
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Scott Danforth

Grumpy Vintage Moderator still playing with boats
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I would reccomend a bigger boat for a tower
 

oldjeep

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Couple things
1) Its a wakeboard tower, you typically don't ski off of them
2) 7 ft above the deck? Pretty high but tower heights vary. The factory tower on my Malibu is at about 6ft 2"
 

Pusher

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Haha, I probably won't be building a boat around a ski tower but then I'm a fish nut.

So 7' is more a wakeboard height? How high should a ski tower be?
 

hemi rt

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we set the top of a ski pole so the line is 4" above the motor with the boat sitting level.
 

skibrain

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I've had pylons on outboard-powered boats and towed without. From a recreational skier's standpoint it makes little difference (height of the tow point 75' from the skier). A short pylon can increase convenience of rope handling for driver/spotter. I've towed recreational skiers just fine from one of the rear transom eyes as well. For really HEAVY skiers doing slalom start behind a light boat, I've found towing from a pylon (yes even a short 3' one) makes the boat slower to get the bow down and up on plane.

So how high should your tower be? Probably don't need it, but if you think it looks cool, see height info above. :)
 

Pusher

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Thanks Skibrain. I'm actually not going for looks. I like to fish salmon, steelhead, halibut, and hopefully sturgeon. I GREATLY dislike having fishing gear all over the deck.
 

QBhoy

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As mentioned....
If you are referring to a ski tower and meaning a wake tower, they aren't ideal for skiing from.
A wake tower is high meaning the dynamics permit the wake boarder to achieve pop and lift for tricks etc it's also a different stance when wake boarding.
For skiing, I think the ideal height of the attachment would be at around mid torso level to the skier and the rope parallel to the water when the skier is up.
 

Pusher

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Thanks for the added feedback. I think I'm going to mount the tower as-is for fishing. If the wife isn't interested at all I'll pull it off and upgrade to an actual fishing arch (with an after-the-fact apology to the wife of course $$$šŸ˜ ).

Now for the snow to melt -.-
 

Pusher

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Has anyone custom built a cover for a bimini top? I picked a second-hand one up and it doesn't quite fit right.
 
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