Tubing Advice

Need the big kids advice here, got 3 Lil ones going on vacation and want to pull them with the new rig. Its a 94 alumacraft back troller with a 25hp, not ideal but know it can he done. Growing up my Dad would pull us with a similar Rebel, but being he fried the transom on his due to a few reasons I want to avoid any and all.

Would assume hook rope to both sides of transom, which there are u hookups set to go, but what about rope? I see they have bungee style rope, will this help in any way or just for fancy tricks?

Tube, does the skinnier type cause less pull than the larger round type? And are there ones with hard bottoms or soft, haven’t looked much but any difference?

Need a new prop for the Johnson, any pitch better than others for pulling tubers?

Any other advice much appreciated, just want to get the kids on wake and enjoy what I did as a kid.

I have a much bigger motor, bigger kids! I can recall using my brothers boat at one point and sounds like the same set up as yours. I had a bridle or a rope with clips on both ends for your transom eyelets there was a pulley with a small float which would roll back and forth on the bridle. Bought at Walley World. Also the tubes with the material stretched out under the tube part seemed to give less friction. Never used those skinny hot dog toys.

I don’t have any advice on buying a tube but if you are having trouble getting planed out pulling a tube. Instead of pulling in a straight line you start out by circling the tube and straighten out after you built some momentum and it will pop the tube out of the water much easier. Make sure you don’t have slack in the line when you straighten out though.

Well this opened a whole can of worms, ugh. So ideally I need the motor and boat running right. As searching for props I ran into this concept of your cav plate running even with the waterline, OK makes sense but had no idea of it before only to find out my motor has a 22.5″ shaft, the funky one Johnson has or had for some years, so no way can I shim up the motor freaking 3″ without some work because the splash well takes up the whole back.

And upon looking for any info that might elude to this on the motor found a nice stock sticker to the top of case, which reads a whole different motor of 30 HP, which contradicts the sticker on the frame, but its a 25hp case? So now the 10 3/10″x12 prop I ordered earlier might not be suitable if it turns out to be a 30, throw in I need to find a tach, find my rpms, somehow get the plate at water level so it’s not a foot under the boat made this innocent tubing quite an exercise for my brain today.

Its a good thing though, learning a lot and very excited to get it running correctly, getting 27mph now with crap prop, and motor way down so can’t wait to see the gains, hopefully push 32-35!! Be able to get the kids on skis Lol.

Not sure, but adding a hydrofoil may help get on plane when pulling a tube. The setup would probably benefit from a foil if you add a third person in there too.

Maybe I’m taking the simplistic approach here, but before you go spending money on different props etc etc – wouldn’t it be worth trying it the way it sits? Especially if you’re doing it for one trip.

Last year over the 4th I brought my 16ft/40hp boat to my uncles cabin on a small lake near Bloomer. Randomly decided we wanted to pull a tube… I just used the el-cheapo tubing rope/float they had over there, attached to one back corner of my boat (side that doesn’t have the transom electric). With 3 people in the boat (plus my dog) and one person on the tube, I could pull them 26mph which was way plenty fast, almost too fast at time.

Just a thought.

I hear ya Pete, problem being that’s what my dad did for us as kids and worked just fine, but having to replace the transom BC of too much stress being on one side of the boat and completely grinding the engine the whole time is something I want to avoid.

The prop I have now is beat up, and getting another cheap alum, then repair my old one for a good spare is something I wanted to do anyways.

And the boat is a beast to get on plane now with just me, and finding out with the prop being a good 12″ under the boat explains a lot now that I know, but when she gets up she does move really good. Guess I just want to having it running optimally, as a whole, will be better for the long run that way I can follow Dean next year at FYB……Lol.

you might want to look into one of those plates which attach to the plate right above your prop. It will pop you out of the water faster and keep your boat level while cruising along. You also can stay on plane at a lower speed.

I’ll look into those. First I need to decide what to do with motor, seeming it runs really nice, I will probably just be shimming it up 4″ and get the prop at the ideal point to push along, and with the lil bigger prop with a smaller pitch I ordered that should get the boat at a higher rpm to shoot out the hole better with the tube temporarily, might just have not to go WOT depending if I feel the RPMs are to high with the smaller pitch. 12 pitch with a 25hp I wouldn’t be worried, but not knowing for sure if its a possible 30 really throws a wrench in the mix so don’t want to burn the motor.

dbright wrote:

I don’t have any advice on buying a tube but if you are having trouble getting planed out pulling a tube. Instead of pulling in a straight line you start out by circling the tube and straighten out after you built some momentum and it will pop the tube out of the water much easier. Make sure you don’t have slack in the line when you straighten out though.

No No No. By circling the tube you don’t know where the line is. It could be behind the tube and if you are on plane when that rope hits the legs of the tubers it will cut, break or something worse to the legs. This is above and beyond the whiplash effect of the sudden jolt to the arms of the tuber hanging onto the tube. No No No to this suggest method.

ALWAYS pull the slack slowly until you know the rope is tight from the transom to the tube then take off.

I’d go with a one person flat tube.

Sorry I tried to post a link but it did not work…
http://goo.gl/zFTehf

Something like what I have linked to above. They are easy to pull. I would also suggest getting a bridle so you can hook the line to both sides of the transom. I doubt it will damage your transom, but if you wanted the shock cord would minimize the shock load on the transom as the tube hits waves.

25 hp may be enough to pull a single rider. Your kids will have fun. They may not go flying over wakes, but I am confident that they will have fun.

As said earlier, I would not spend a ton of $$$ making changes to the boat and motor. Just try it as is.