Effective/safe way to tow a boat behind a house boat?

[snowboard]

Hahaha strange ass question i know.. but does anyone know of an effective way to tow a 21'6" direct drive boat behind a big ass houseboat? i cant beach it at night because its direct drive so also need suggestion on how to tie it up at night..

i was thinking just bring tires and tie the boat up to the side and let it bang against the tires?? i dont want to have to stress about it at night.. i know it wont exactly float away, i just dont want to damage my baby, but i do want to bring it.. i dnno any suggestions would be appreciated :)

[Stunt66]

Just get some buoys and tie the boat to the side when your going but make sure its tight so the boats dont bang on each other. At night when you dock the house boat just tie the small boat to the back of the house boat or anchor it a few feet out from the house boat if its too shallow. Just make sure whatever you do to the boat it is really secure, our sea doo's floated away last year over night but we found them about 1km away along the shore. no matter what you have to bring the boat, houseboating sucks with out one.

[RoGZ]

check wakeworld for suggestions on this, lots of guys are using those hippity hop things from toys r us between boats instead of the usual bumpers and say they work great, prolly want to get a couple good anchors for at night, lots of guys on wakeworld houseboat at lake shasta so they will have lots of advice

[snowboard]

Originally posted by RoGZ
check wakeworld for suggestions on this, lots of guys are using those hippity hop things from toys r us between boats instead of the usual bumpers and say they work great, prolly want to get a couple good anchors for at night, lots of guys on wakeworld houseboat at lake shasta so they will have lots of advice

fuck, those guys are ballin.. there is pictures where they are towing like 4 x-series boats, or 4 wakesetters. fuck im jealous haha..

[Paul]

WOW....not a stupid question at all. Here's my tail of the Shuswap:

My trip 2 years ago resulted in being the most expensive trip to date. We picked up the sweetest Yamaha PWC from SeaDog Rentals. The gave us a pole (boom?) to use to tow the thing behind our houseboat (Waterways). Day one we were partying around where the Sea Store is when we noticed we didn't have our PWC anymore. Some guys radio'd into the seastore saying they found one floating in the middle of the lake about 10 km back. Luckily we hitched a ride with a family that was able to take us back to it (yup it was just floating out there) otherwise the houseboat would have taken forever to take back to where we lost it.

So we radio back to SunDog Rentals and they said, "just tie it up with rope behind the boat". Not a good idea as we later found out. Next day we start cruising around only to look behind our boat and see nothing but the handlebars of the PWC. Somehow the thing flipped over, the engine compartment starting filling with water, and it flipped back over correcting it self. We probably dragged it around for half a day like that.

It took all 17 people on the boat to pull that thing out of the water onto our back deck. We flipped it over and drained the thing.

Be very careful about tieing up boats. Make sure somebody is always watching them.

PS - our captian didn't put insurance on the PWC rental. 17 people had to split $11k in damages.

Cheers :thumbsup:

[snowboard]

Damn, yah you have to roll a PWC the correct direction if its flipped i think, so the engine compartment doesnt get water in it.. i'm pretty sure i read that on the back of one once when i was floating behind it with a bleeding nose hahaha..

The wake world link was amazing and im not as nervous about towing it now... ill figure it out and keep an eye on it..

[98type_r]

beware of pranksters who like to untie boats in the middle of the night.

[RoGZ]

i think you'll also want to make sure your boat is tied up perpendicular to the shore and not parallel to prevent waves from swamping your boat, you have a moomba outback right, (either the yellow and white or purple and white one correct) if is sits low in the water this might be more of a concern, some people have told me that the wave can come up quick in the shushwap

just my .02

[snowboard]

Originally posted by RoGZ
i think you'll also want to make sure your boat is tied up perpendicular to the shore and not parallel to prevent waves from swamping your boat, you have a moomba outback right, (either the yellow and white or purple and white one correct) if is sits low in the water this might be more of a concern, some people have told me that the wave can come up quick in the shushwap

just my .02

Yah the purple and white one, shes pretty low lol.. i dunno, maybe ill do that, and just tie the tower to the highest deck of the houseboat in an attempt to hold it up hahahaaaa..
I think i might throw one of the ballasts in the back for the towwing also.. just the smaller one though..

[RoGZ]

ah right...i remember inquiring about your boat last fall before a buddy and I decided to import a v-drive from the states, did you slap that tower on in the fall, i think you had the pole when i was looking at it, hows the surf wake on it?

if you ever need a third lemme know :-D

[snowboard]

Originally posted by RoGZ
ah right...i remember inquiring about your boat last fall before a buddy and I decided to import a v-drive from the states, did you slap that tower on in the fall, i think you had the pole when i was looking at it, hows the surf wake on it?

if you ever need a third lemme know :-D

Yah my dad ended up breaking off the pole, he was so embarrassed when he told me lol, hes not the type of guy to forget things like taking it down when going under a bridge hahaha... so we split a new roswell tower. great tower, the quality of the board racks is not amazing, but the tower is great.
the surf wake on this boat is absolutely amazing! 2 in the boat and one riding and its perfect with full ballast. but like said before, it sits hella low and ive had water running over the sides before hahahaha...
its actually back up for sale this week! im looking at splitting a v-drive with my dad maybe..

[RoGZ]

go to the states and get the new boat man...seriously not even kidding, so much cheaper, we went to sacramento to pick up a tower and speakers then to Redding to get the boat, did the trip i 4 days with only one night in a hotel. if you have any questions on importing let me know its soooo easy

[Sailz]

Little kick back but when towing a boat on the shuswap be very very careful. last year we were out for 4 days over The Canada Day weekend, CRAZY storm Saturday nite was smashing peoples houseboats into each other on the beach....anyways wake up the next morning pull off the beach and a brand new $80k X-Star had become swamped and flipped over upside down and was unable to be righted........boat was completely totaled.

Thank god it wasnt mine!

[snowboard]

damn son
thats almost as bad as when we beached our boat, and spaghetti sauce flew off the stove and spilled everywhere hahahaha

[Afrodeziak]

Here's some experience talking...a bit of a rant on the side as well :)

When towing, just pull with a rope. Not too short though.. 10-15.. Seems like a lot, but really it's not. Well the rule of thumb, never use a bow line that is long enough to reach your prop, for obvious reasons.. as it does happen.

Story of a Seadoo getting dumped and handlebars dragged off sounds shitty. I've never heard of anything like that going on. Makes me wonder how long the rope was, as well amazed that so many people on a houseboat wouldn't have a clue that there should be a boat attached. Perhaps spend more time out on the boat in the fresh air and not inside playing nintendo? haha


As for tie ups, my first thought is that you have to be careful. There's a lot of complete idiots who pull in at spots like Neilsen's beach and wedge themselves into spaces that a normal boat wouldn't even be safe in over night. People not tying their boats up worth a shit, that sort of thing. There can be some pretty heavy storms with wind and hail out there... I'd hate to see what would happen when 50 boats with poor tie-ups/not much room between boats come into the equation.

I've kept a boat overnight alongside the houseboat. basically where your shorelines that come off from the houseboat are, you just tie into them and use the shoreline to keep your boat from hitting the houseboat. This is where proper shoreline rigging helps (tight and going out from the houseboat). If you're worried about rope rubbing on the ski boat, you could use bumpers and whatnot.

Best idea, invest in a proper anchor... anchor the bow of the boat.. tie a rope off the stern to the back of the houseboat. a lot less to worry about that way. just make sure its out of the way of idiot houseboaters that may park too close. If you want something pretty neat, I got a "Boat Buddy" a while back. It's an anchor rope that is actually a bungee chord. You pull yourself into the house boat, let the rope out and the boat goes out on its own. Probably not recommended for overnight anchoring though.

B