A classic question we get asked at Big Air is “Can I mount a tower on my boat”.
Fair question!
Here are a few simple guidelines/questions we suggest for making that decision.
1. Is my boat large enough?
Our recommendation is that your boat be a minimum of 16 ft long and have a beam of at least 6 ft. The reason for this is to give your boat stability when pulling with a tower.
2. Is my fiberglass hull strong enough to have a tower installed on it?
We recommend a minimum of 3/8″ of thickness for fiberglass hulls for tower installation. If your hull is thinner than this, then reinforcement can be done by laying additional fiberglass on the interior of the hull or installing aluminum or treated plywood reinforcement.
3. My boat hull is radiused, how can I attach a tower mount that is flat to the curved surface.
Some towers come with radiused rubber inserts to help conform to the shape of your hull. If this is not the case, then you can often use a belt sander on the supplied rubber insert to shape it to fit your hull. Extra inserts can often be supplied by dealers upon request.
4. My boat is an aluminum boat… Can I still mount a tower?
The answer is yes you can mount to aluminum boat gunnels. It is recommended that you place extra aluminum sheet or plywood on the interior of the mount location to help spread the load out across the aluminum hull.
5. There is restricted access to the interior of my hull.
This is not an uncommon situation. Many of today’s boats use interior panels to hide any of the hull. Typically you can remove many of the panels on modern boats by lifting upward on the panel, which will un-hook it from the hull. Sometimes there maybe screws buried deep into the interior cushion..check closely for these. Occasionally there will be no open access once these panels are removed. In these cases you can use a large diameter hole saw to cut a hole in the area that the panel covers. (Note: make sure you aren’t cutting in a critical support area or through wires or cables).
