what tower, if any?

[petergriffin]

I am pretty new to wakeboarding and currently have a 19.5' 1994 larson, is it even worth it to put a tower on my boat with some fat buddies? It puts out a pretty good wake right now, but im wondering if i should just wait a yr or so and get a new boat or if this will be ok for now? Plesase someone that knows about this reply to me. thanks.

[Mr Bean]

I have no idea what a 19ft Larson is or looks like but anything other than an inboard whether this be a weighted tournament ski boat or a dedicated wakeboard boat will throw out an optimum wake for wakeboarding.

However, as a relative novice almost any wake will do and get you into the groove. Try things for a season and see how hooked you get then decide if you wanna upgrade. View this site (and wakeboarder.com) regularly and you'll soon get the hang of things. There's shed loads of advice available - you just need to know which bits to take with a pinbch of salt!

I used to own a 16ft Fletcher V hull with 115 hp outboard that I boarded behind quite happily for a season or two. The main problem is the lack of a swim platform and the difficulty this presents getting your board on and onto the water. I now have a tournament ski boat (with sacs etc) but if I went back to boating in the sea I would change it for an I/O without hesitation.

The boat has to match the conditions/environment in which you plan to use it. Trying to launch a heavy, immaculate £50k inboard ski boat down a steep rocky slipway into salt water makes absolutely no sense to me! For that I'd have a 5-7 year old I/O that had already suffered lost most of it's depreciation and had deteriorated enough for me to not care about the additional nick, graze and spot of corrosion that is inevitable with coastal use.

A tower or even a pylon will help keep you in the air once up but won't dramatically affect you ability to get airborne. I wouldn't put these on anything other than a boat already throwing a decent wake. I'd save my money and add to a more appropriate rig later on (if it didn't already have).

Pylons are as effective as towers they just flex a bit more and, in an open bow boat, you have the problem of the cable affecting the headroom in the front seats. A tower is clearly best but is a lot more expensive. Don't get fooled by the argument that a tower isn't much more expensive than a pylon. Sure, when new there's not much difference in price but you see quite a few used pylons for £150-£200 but the chances of finding a used tower (that will fit your boat) are slim. So, the choice is used pylon for @£150 or new tower for @£1k.

Hope this helps.

[Tower_boy]

Hey,

A larson 19ft sounds fine to me - its a nice boat and due to its size will throw a fine wake for beginners right through to intermeidiate basic inverts (with a tower)

I would think that maybe a std fat sac would be as much weight as you would want to put in (max 600lbs ish...) but its not too neccesary. this will make a difference to the wake size but only the same as having a few more people with you.
something important you need to think about when weighting your boat is engine size (do you run a 4.3 or 5.0 litre engine - i'm guessing at a 4.3ltr merc) - If its a 5.0 then you can think about adding a little bit more - but be careful, weighting your boat stesses you engine - you don't want to go damaging that for the sake of some wake.

On the tower side I would recommend it, a tower will help you go bigger and further so its always a good idea :wink:
it will also let you free up storage space if you add some racks to it. saying that though they aren't cheap! expect to pay minimum $695 for a tower, all the way upto $2k plus.

You could always go cheaper and get a pole, but because your boat doesn't have a std ski pole (like a mastercraft) then you need a "universal" extended pylon, these start at like $500 for skylons, or get onto bigairpylons.com - they do one for $295!!

At the end of the day, weighting is good.. so long as you don't overdo it and a tower is ideal, but if your budget won't stretch go with a pylon (one of those non flexy kinds tho :wink: - i'm not sure what Mr Bean's been riding behind!)

Later,

Mike

[Mr Bean]

A Mastercraft 205. The flexing/movement I refer to is side to side not front-back. With only a single cable attaching the pylon to the front towing eye (as is common on most tournament boats equipped with pylons) some side to side movement is inevitable - especially when the rider cuts real hard to the side of the boat.