Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I am new to boating in general and very new to pontoon ownership. Lookin for newbie information on tube pulling with a pontoon. I have seen some discussion on the subject, how does one attach the tube to the back of the pontoon. I have seen special pulling poles on some boats....are there other options?

Joe

Welcome

Those are called ski tow's. Most look something like this http://columbia.craigslist.org/boa/1267146898.html
The rope mounts in the center, since it is higher it will help keep the rope out of the water. Less a ski tow, next option would be cleat or grommet in the log. I always attached to the log. Most manufacturers have the ski tows as an option or can be purchased later, think there may be a few aftermarket one out there to.
doc

We have a ski tow bar on ours, we like how it holds the rope up out of the water some, on our other pontoon the rope hooked to ubolts down by the deck.

This is a much discussed item for toons here is a good link with my homemade one which was already on toon when I got it.

Welcome to the jungle

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1530&hilit=tow+bar

I would NEVER hook up any tow rope to the gromets on the actual tubes, well unless you are wanting to put stress cracks on those welds and possibly creating bigger problems in the future. I am making one like Curtis has on his...slow but I will have it ready next season. I currently have tow hooks that were factory installed on mine and I use this....works good but I want a tow hook instead it keeps the rope out of the water. I think I picked this up from Walmart for 15.00 I think.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... d=10928519

i emailed the manufacter of my boat.

They said no problem pulling a tube with the lifting eyes on my pontoon.

Also I see that some tubes indicate they should not be pulled by a ski pylon.

I pulled my old toon with the new toon using the grommets. It was that or use the cleats, which have small screw or bolts holding them.
My thinking was the gromments are designed to lift a toon so if you boat weighs 2400lbs each should be able to handle 600lbs. That even before you get into the safety factor built in. I just use the cleat for tying off and that's about it. The ski tow would certainly be better if I pulled tubers on a regular basis. Anyway this was a one time deal just to get the old toon on the trailer, but if it did that, I would think it would be able to pull a fat guy on a tube.
doc

Make certain you get a long enough bridle as well. They come in different lengths....I think mine is 12' for an 8 1/2' wide toon.

We bought a large tube this year and it's working awesome. The warning labels on the covering talk about using a tow rope that has at least 4100 lbs tensile strength, so you can imagine the stresses on your toon.

we also have the tow bar. love how it keeps the rope up out of the water

The other nice thing I like about the ski pylon bar on mine is that I've actually used it a couple of times to lift out a boat battery and position a new one in place. My battery is tucked back under the sun deck on the port side and there is no easy way to leverage that thing up and out with the motor in such close proximimity. So, I just took some anchor rope, ran it through the battery box cover top loops, threw the rope over the top of the tow bar and pulled down on the rope and the battery swung right out where you could manage it.

I know this is way off topic and apologize, but thought I would share this with other 'toon members. I'm new to the sight as well, but I've really been impressed with the knowledge, insight and help the members are willing to share.

I pulled two 12 year old boys weighing 100 pounds each on a towable using a factory installed ski tow bar on a 2009 Sun tracker 21 foot party barge with a 90 horsepower Mercury Optimax. As I was starting out the front of the tube went under just a little and and I kept on going (about 7 miles per hour) trying to pull it up and out of the water. To my surpise the tow bar snapped in two. It snapped in two places just above the support bars. It put a hole in my very expensive optimax engine cover and then sank and was lost because you only loop the rope around it and it slipped off as it sunk. It is anchored to the deck by a thin aluminum plate that is welded to a heavier aluminum plate. It popped the welds and pulled up the plate but did not rip the plywood. I will get a picture of it next time I am out because it is impressive. My point is, these towables can really load down a boat. I was surprised that a ninety horsepower engine could snap this bar because it is heavy duty. However, I think it snapped because this was at a bend and just above a weld. I think that when the bend was made and the weld was done it weakened the tube because both tubes broke in exactly the same spot. I think the ski tow bar is for wakeboards and skis to keep the rope up and out of the water. A skier holding on to a ski rope wont be able to snap the bar. For towables you should hook it to the eyehooks because keeping it up and out of the water is not as important and you won't snap your ski tow bar.

I was told by our dealer to not use our ski tow bar for tubes, etc. We were instructed to only use it for wakeboards or skiers. It was a little disappointing because I thought that the ski bar was for all things and that's why we chose that option.
They suggested we use the pontoon eyes to hook a tube to and gave us a special attachment rope to do so.

if you hook your tube lines to the lifting hooks on your toons you WILL eventually crack welds on the brackets between the toons and the deck. look at the load path from the motor the transom to the deck down through the brackets through the toons. it is the dumbest possible place to hook a towable. i know because i towed two tubes that way for several years and got the wrath of my welder friend who had to fix the bracket welds. i had him add a simple bracket on the back of the transom to use for pulling tubes. the load goes from the motor to the transom to the bracket, done. im working on a design of a beefy pylon that will be strong enough for pulling towables. if you've ever started two slalom skiers or two wakeboarders who like to sit in the water too long, you know that people can put a lot of strain on the mount, not just towables. also have a big guy slalom and cut really hard and he can outpull your motor's thrust--been there done that. i'm amazed at how flimsy some of the factory and aftermarket pylons and towers are.

POrding wrote:I was told by our dealer to not use our ski tow bar for tubes, etc. We were instructed to only use it for wakeboards or skiers. It was a little disappointing because I thought that the ski bar was for all things and that's why we chose that option.
They suggested we use the pontoon eyes to hook a tube to and gave us a special attachment rope to do so.

btw, Pording, ask your dealer to put that in writing so he'll pay for the expensive welding repairs you'll probably eventually need.

If you don't have any place to pull from, try pushing the tube.