Re: Adding on to a ski pylon
My brother has become addicted to wake boarding. I have a 15.5 foot Larson Tri hull with a 120 HP Johnson outboard. This last weekend i took him and his buddy to the lake . Both had never gotten up on the board well we had success with both and now the addiction. I have a ski pylon with two supports that go to the rear of the boat. From the floor to the top is around 40 inches. I was thinking of making a sleeve to go over the existing pylon and raise the tow point up about 3 feet. Will the two rear support bars be good enough support or would i need to run a cable to the front of the boat. If The cable to the front is the majority then i will make it higher. What is the average hieght for a tower.Thanks in advance
I get to ski on a lot of different wakeboarding boats with my different friends. I'm 6'2" and I generally have at least 2-3" to spare in head clearance to the bottom of the wakeboard tower. Add the tubing thickness and then the tow point being a little higher I'm guessing the average tow point height would be in the 6'6" to 7' range.
As for the cable to the front of the boat - my brother had a setup like that and he had a cable up to the front of the boat. I wouldn't try it without it. Lot's of pull with the higher tow point. He had a tournament ski boat with water ski pylon in it. By the sounds of it yours may not be as sturdy?
I would be hesitant to recommend you go any higher on it with those rear leg supports (not to mention how they are attached to the boat). You absolutely don't want any part of your tower flying out of the boat at speed and with people in the boat and a rider behind.
I'm going to guess with a 15.5' tri-hull you're not getting that big of a wake? If so, and you're not doing a lot of jumping, then the lower tow point you have may do you just fine.
If you're going to keep the boat then there are a bunch of economical options for towers out there from many different tower companies. I mentioned
www.wakeboardtowerreviews.com in another thread. Seems like a pretty new site that reviews wakeboard towers that may be of interest to you?
They don't have the Monster Tower MTE on there yet but that may be a value priced tower that would fit well on a 15.5' tri-hull boat? The site does have some pictures of different towers on different boats that may help you get an idea how high up the tow points are on boats with towers.
Have fun with the wakeboarding!
