Tubing Tow Point

[ND-Maxum]

Hello I am new to this forum and last weekend we were towing the kids on a 3 person tube and after we were done I noticed I bent my transom tow hook see attached images. I'm lucky I didn't rip the hook out of the transom....
I went to my local marine supply store to get a new one and the parts guy told me that I should NOT be using this one for pulling tubes and said I should be using the transom hooks and use a self-centering tow harness like the one in the picture. I'm not sure how that is going to work with my swim platform and support bars.
I'm wondering what others are doing out there? My boat is a 2007 Maxum 1800 SR3 4.3L Mercrusier and has the factory waketower.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Derby Time]

I've seen a number of boats with damaged transoms due to pulling tubes including 1 of our own. You did not rip it out of your transom, but it would appear as though you did do some damage. I would look the inside over closely, but I looks to me like you should not be using that hook any longer without shoring that area up from behind.

I do not see why using the lower transom hooks would be an issue as long as you get the pulley out far enough. The only thing that can happen is that the rope can kind of drag the front of the tube down. This can be avoided with a football shaped floating device in the rope between boat and tube.

Good luck!

[ND-Maxum]

Originally Posted by Derby Time

I've seen a number of boats with damaged transoms due to pulling tubes including 1 of our own. You did not rip it out of your transom, but it would appear as though you did do some damage. I would look the inside over closely, but I looks to me like you should not be using that hook any longer without shoring that area up from behind.

I do not see why using the lower transom hooks would be an issue as long as you get the pulley out far enough. The only thing that can happen is that the rope can kind of drag the front of the tube down. This can be avoided with a football shaped floating device in the rope between boat and tube.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply. I took a good look and there no damage from that tow hook.

If I were to pull from the stern bracket and I turn a corner I’d probably rip the support braces off. I ordered a new tow hook and wondering if I put on big stainless steel backing plate to spread out the weight. The tube I had was quite large it plowed under and now the kids hate it so it went back to Costco. I do have the bobber ball too which I didn’t use this last time out. But definitely going to use it more often.

I have pulled a 2 person small flat tube with my girls on it from my wake tower but haven’t tried with a 3 person tube.

[shrew]

The challenge with tubing is there is a large amount of surface area creating significant drag. As the tube size and number of riders increases, the amount of drag increases almost exponentially. (Apologies for a bit of hyperbole). These giant 4 person floating islands have massive amounts of drag.

In the case of the OP....how large is the tube and how many riders??

[ND-Maxum]

Originally Posted by shrew

The challenge with tubing is there is a large amount of surface area creating significant drag. As the tube size and number of riders increases, the amount of drag increases almost exponentially. (Apologies for a bit of hyperbole). These giant 4 person floating islands have massive amounts of drag.

In the case of the OP....how large is the tube and how many riders??

I returned the Havasu 3 rider tube I was using as it would submarine and the kids wanted no part in that and thought it was cursed. So I picked up a new one with less surface area. It's a 3 rider 76"x61" my friend has the same one but in a 4 rider and my kids like that one so I got the same brand in the 3 rider. I also made a new surface plate to my new hook I just picked up and also made a larger backing plate so I can sandwich it together. See photo. Also after seeing the bent tow hook I looked closely at how I had the rope attached and realized that it was pulling at the bottom of the ring and not in line with the studs so I found a way to tie it properly so the rope pulls inline with the mounting studs.