Re: New to tubing
You guys have to realize I came from a long line of male influence, some good most very very bad I am the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family so my youngest aunts and uncles were really my big brothers and sisters, from the age of 5 I spent every spring/summer/fall weekend at Roosevelt or Apache lake in Central Arizona, I slalom skied at 9 yrs old. With all this time I had about 7 older brothers(Uncles and uncles friends) trying to kill me, we would spend Friday and Saturday morning Skiing, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning tubing, we didn't have these cool rooney canvas covered tubes, we had used inner tubes normally 3' to 5' in diameter set up just like I said a strap around it hooked to a rope and pull your shorts on tight.
Once the victim was ready to go we had two boats running just under plane in a figure eight pattern while the boat towing the tube got up to speed, then the tow boat would drive through the intersection of the figure eight (3' waves), the grand finale was whipping the moron still on the tube through the intersection of the figure eight, I have old pictures(horrible condition) of at least ten or fifteen different riders completely upside down 2' to 4' above the surface of the water in what we affectionately call the mid air cartwheel. We had this down to a system perfectly choreographed, the best riders knew exactly what was coming there were no secrets and no one was immune, anyone that wanted to drive the boat could BUT they had to ride the tube (paybacks). OBVIOUSLY I survived, but I have to tell you kids these days are such panzies, I see 1' waves and the kids are bailing off the tube, my wife told me I wasn't playing fair and I stopped the boat I was so fed up with these candy well you know I pulled the tube in told the boys to get off, inflated the tube until you could play a tune off it and threw on a life jacket, told the wife "give me your best shot Panzy!" I definitely got some street cred that day she really tried to throw me but SHE gave up and let my step son try and he couldn't throw me either, that was a tequila night by the way.....
Late this last summer my aunt and Uncle(my favorite uncle) came to town and we invited them on the boat we had all the kids there too, after the beating me and my uncle put on each other I have never heard anything but "you have a death wish!"
Mind you my uncle and I got very drunk that night to help the aches and pains go away! Getting old sucks!
tomn3 I would get one double and two singles of the same type, this allows you to have a single for 1 kid, a double for 2 kids together, 2 singles for war(trust me this is fun) and a couple of combinations in between, get a good air pump for in the boat one that deflates too, this makes keeping 3 tubes on the boat very easy, it takes a couple minutes to inflate and about the same to deflate and the kids won't whine about how your driving sucks since they are trying to push each other off the tube. I wired a 110v inverter on my boat and use it for the 110v air pump its very fast.
I am in the market for a tractor tube though to deal some justice to the teenagers though, you can never have enough of that kind of justice!!
