How tall is your tower?

tribal · Outlaw Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 177 City: pemberton,bc

Anyone out there with a really tall tower?I am having my own made up for me by a local machinist and was thinking about making it 10' from floor level.Any disadvantages to a tall tower such as boat sway or anything?

Jay Dutton · Posted: Feb 20, 2003 2:34 pm Post subject:

!0' is pretty tall, espcially when towing on the highway under bridges. Mines 7' from the floor, it looks kinda tall. I think 10' would look pretty crazy and would cause the boat to get jerked around more. I had it made that way because I'm 6'3" and I'm going to hang speakers from them eventually and don't want to worry about hittting my head.

EriCCire · Soul Rider Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 394 City: Minnesota

wow, thats going to be huge, judging on jays profile it will be huge, or the floor on jays boat is really high

Phaeton · Addict Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 572 City: Redding

The tower on the Alpina is 8' from the floor. The really nice thing is you can walk under the tower speakers without hitting your head. The bad part is I had to build a shop with a tall garage door.

tribal · Outlaw Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 177 City: pemberton,bc

I've worked it out for towing and I will be a little bit lower than a logging truck[that will get me under all the bridges around here].I've ridden behind a buddie's bayliner with outboard with a 9' tower.The pull up was noticebly better really good for big pop.His boat did get dragged around alot though but this could have to do with the small outboard 140hp.I rode behind an in also with a 12' tower.That worked awsome but I didn't drive the boat or ride in it long enough to notice if there was any trouble with swaying.Anyone else out there with any experience behind/driving tall towers?

Phaeton · Addict Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 572 City: Redding

I would think that if you got it to tall, when you jump the boat would sway back and pull you over. Just a thought.

Jay Dutton · Posted: Feb 20, 2003 5:03 pm Post subject:

Makes me wonder, how much difference does it really make by increasing the height from say 6'-10'? Will you reallly catch that much more air? Seems like a tower can only help you so much. I've seen old videos of the pros riding w/just a standard 3' pylon getting higher than I can w/a tower.

What kind of boat are you putting it on? I agree w/Phaeton on the boat swaying a lot w/it that tall. My tower looks tall because I have really low gunnels.

Nor*Cal · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 9479 City: Sac

Towers do help you get higher. Anyone remember the pro who made these? Their website doesn't work but it looks crazy.

tribal · Outlaw Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 177 City: pemberton,bc

I'm putting it on a 22' i/o.It's a pretty big boat with fairly high gunnels and weighs around 3000lbs.So far just using the ski tow point there is no problems with the boat getting tugged around.That stiffy sail setup is the one I rode behind before.I thought it was more than 12' but that sounded to crazy untill I saw the pic again.The sail is supposed to help keep the boat from rocking.

Nor*Cal · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 9479 City: Sac

It's 10feet plus whatever the tower is.

fs04laoaksfny · Posted: Feb 21, 2003 7:00 pm Post subject:

wow that damn tower is huge i was on there site a few days ago id love to see how high they go...

riverfreak · Posted: Feb 24, 2003 7:34 am Post subject:

the standard tower size is 54" to 58" from the front mout, most i/o have deeper hulls than inboards....so if your hull top mount is about 3 ft from the floor then you would be close but still over.....I would do it standard from the front mount too tall is gonna look stupid

ohsix · Posted: Feb 24, 2003 7:57 am Post subject:

If you have a huge tower it might be hard to adjust to other boats normal tower heights. I know going from a regular tower to a pylon makes a huge difference and thats only 4 or 5 feet.

grady · Addict Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 547 City: d-block

we gotta see sum pics of dudes wakeboardin behind that boat yo...thats totally sick

Weirdophobia · Posted: Feb 25, 2003 8:17 am Post subject:

Our tower is between 7-9 ft from the water. We've got two points to attach the rope, one at 7 the other at 9 ft. (Look in my profile for pics). Our boat do rock a little but not much. Then again our boat is pretty big (weights empty round 4800 lbs). But I think there is a little difference between the lower and the higher point not much but one do notice it. So 12 ft tower should be pretty cool.

mkcarte2 · Outlaw Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 168 City: raliegh, nc

Wow weirdophobia, how do you ride behind that. I mean, how can the driver watch the skier while in that cabin and everything. Does it take a while to get up to speed? It must throw a huge wake though!!

As for the stiffytower, they used to have a video on their website, but its down now. I may have it somewhere around here.

Weirdophobia · Posted: Feb 25, 2003 3:54 pm Post subject:

Usually we stand on the drivers chair and watch out the roof hatch. It is a lot slower than for instance a malibu (or any wakeboard boat) but the wake is probably bigger.

Nor*Cal · Ladies Man Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 9479 City: Sac

All this is good but other than sway how much extra force is put on the mounting points by going up that high? I was planning on making my tower 6ft taller than the mounting points. Would that increase the pressure enough to worry about spider cracks?

The backing plates are going to be fairly big and I'll put a layer of marine-tex on them when I install the tower this way any gaps are filled. Any thoughts?

tribal · Outlaw Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 177 City: pemberton,bc

That's a pretty wild boat weirdophobia Wink

So how much difference do you think there is in rocking from the 7-9ft.

Fishmaster · Posted: Feb 27, 2003 8:15 pm Post subject:

A 10' tower sounds awesome, count me in with those that would love to see it. We've done a lot of technical stuff understanding where a tower would fail and it is most likely to rip out the fiberglass at where the front legs mount to the boat.

You may want to first glass in some 3/8" plywood on the underside of the deck as big as you possibly can. Then use the same size backing plate of aluminum. Also make the pad that contacts the boat at the rear legs as large as possible also becuase this it the most probably place to stress crack the gel coat.

Good luck and post pics.

salmon_tacos · Posted: Feb 28, 2003 8:45 am Post subject:

The force on the mounts totally depends on the design of the tower. I used this really cool applet to figure out the forces on my tower mounts to see how strong I needed to make them.

http://www.jhu.edu/~virtlab/bridge/bridge.htm

Basically, the farther apart the front and back feet are compared to the height of the tower, the less stress there is on the mounts. The extreme case of this can be illustrated by imagining a Monkey Bar or other cable-supported hoop without the cable. With it's mounts (2 bolts) only inches apart, it would rip the fiberglass right out.

So, having a tower with the mounts really close together, places a lot of stress on the mounts.

The key is the shape of the triangle between the mounts and the rope attachment point. If you increase the height of the tower but keep that triangle the same, you won't increase the forces on the mounts.

Fishmaster · Posted: Feb 28, 2003 9:39 am Post subject:

Excellent points Salmon Tacos,

You may want to check out http://www.inboardtalk.com/tower/tower.html where Matt did a great job providing info about when he built his own tower. He also did a lot of analysis for me on the Monster tower and posted it to http://www.inboardtalk.com/tower/concept/monster.html.

tribal · Outlaw Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 177 City: pemberton,bc

Thanx for the tech tips guys Smile

I'll definatly post pics this spring when done.