The final step, after you purchased a wakeboard boat is to get a wakeboard tower for it. Wakeboard towers help you get more height when doing tricks. What to look for? Read on…
They say wakeboarding is fastest growing water sport along with wake skating and wake surfing. I’m not sure about that since I head it said over and over for many sports :) but it’s getting popular for sure. OK, the point of wakeboarding (after you got the basics straight) is to jump high and do tricks. The first step is to get a wakeboard boat that produces bigger and better wake and the final step is to get a wakeboard tower for it. Wakeboard towers will help you get more height when doing tricks. Why? If you rise the area where the tow-rope is tied to the boat you will be able to jump higher since the rope will not be pulling you down. Going higher gives you more time to execute tricks in the air.
In the early days wakboarders often used seven foot tall Skylon manufactured ski pylon. The idea was influenced by products like fishing towers. When they started making wakeboard towers just for wakeboarding wakeboard towers gained stability and an option to remove the tow rope. The early version of the wakeboard tower was patented by Ski Nautique in 1996 and they started selling professional wakeboard boats with the factory installed wakeboard towers.
Wakeboard towers are used for more than just towing. You can use it for hanging wakeboards without cluttering the boat floor. You can use it for mounting speakers and tower lights, to get that vibe going. Seeing the popularity of the towers and demand, now most of the wakeboard boats manufacturers provide an option of including the tower. It creates confusion for what kind and what type of tower to fix for the boat. Custom towers are of biggest advantage as they come specifically designed for the boat with having no adjustments and are very rigid. Custom towers are offered by many companies. Universal adjustable towers are produced by most of the wakeboard tower manufacturers and are usually quite cheap.
Another added dimension for selecting a wakeboard tower is its design and style. You can choose a tower that will match your wakeboard boat and your boats color. You can choose between standard black or powder coat, custom color powder coat, brushed aluminum, polished aluminum and polished stainless steel. Polished stainless steel finish is the best suited as it is the hardest, very durable, scratch and salt resistant, also free from tarnishing.
Earlier towers were welded to the wakeboard boats and this would create problem if you wanted to store the boat with a big clumsy wakeboard tower welded to it. So now most of all the manufacturers are producing the towers that can be fully or partially collapsible and you can store your boat in a low ceiling garage. Partially collapsible towers are swooped and cage towers.
Wakeboard towers are manufactured by using aircraft grade aluminum tubing usually 6061 or 6063 as this has great strength in ratio with the weight. Stainless steel is 300 percent stronger compared to aluminum. Finally both the materials are strong enough for holding the pull of the rider. Though stainless steel has advantage with salt water and bad weather conditions, manufacturers use 6061 or 6063 aluminum.
You can install the tower yourself in a few hours, all you need are some very basic tools. You should also get a specific installation instructions given along with the wakeboard tower which will give you detail information from the manufacturer on how to stick that wakeboard tower to your boat.