Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Does anybody have a picture of the u-bolts on the transom. I heard many people talking about them to attach a rope for tubing, and I don't have them on mine. I've searched all over and can't find a picture to see what they look like. I may want to add them instead of using the toons to pull. I've read all the pros and cons of pulling with the toons, so maybe the u-bolts are an option.

What do you use to tie your boat down on the trailer?

Take a bit more time, and build yourself a ski tow bar. Pretty easy to do, and not expensive at all if you can purchase the raw materials and build yourself. I did everything but weld mine, and the welding was cheap (cost me a bottle of Jack, and a case of Busch Light).

Otherwise, if you don't want to do that, and want a more instant solution, you could use u-bolts or even eye-bolts to the transom. Just make sure you get it through a cross brace. Personally, I'd use the eye's on the ends of your logs (with a "Y" rope) before I'd add bolts to the transom.

[quote="NonHyphenAmerican"]What do you use to tie your boat down on the trailer?[/quote]

They are strapped by the eyes on the toons to the trailer.

[quote="GXPWeasel"]Take a bit more time, and build yourself a ski tow bar. Pretty easy to do, and not expensive at all if you can purchase the raw materials and build yourself. I did everything but weld mine, and the welding was cheap (cost me a bottle of Jack, and a case of Busch Light).

Otherwise, if you don't want to do that, and want a more instant solution, you could use u-bolts or even eye-bolts to the transom. Just make sure you get it through a cross brace. Personally, I'd use the eye's on the ends of your logs (with a "Y" rope) before I'd add bolts to the transom.[/quote]

Yeah, I have a Y rope that would hook to the toon ends, but some people say the welds will break doing that.

[quote="taylorjm"]Does anybody have a picture of the u-bolts on the transom. I heard many people talking about them to attach a rope for tubing, and I don't have them on mine. I've searched all over and can't find a picture to see what they look like. I may want to add them instead of using the toons to pull. I've read all the pros and cons of pulling with the toons, so maybe the u-bolts are an option.[/quote]

Here you go...

I won't tow a tube with my OEM ski bar because the nose of the tube is pulled upward, and it's easy to launch passengers into the air. And after passengers drop off, the tube can go 20-30 feet into the air.

You could use a short harness and the rings you're using for tie downs.

Most of the rings being used are not on the toons. They're on the flat trim holding down the plywood decking. And they're be anchored through a crossmember or structural part on the back of the boat--not just through the trim.

Sometimes they use a ring like is used on the bow of a boat to hook a winch rope through. Often, they use a "U" bent 180 degrees into a ring with two washers and nuts. I don't know which is the strongest.

But for anyone that's using a harness and rings to tow a big tube and 2-3 people, make sure you use a very, very strong tow rope. Neighbors had a couple of common ski ropes break while tubing and the passengers thrown into fixed boathouses to great injury. It's not uncommon for a skier or tuber to double the boat's forward and lateral speed behind a boat with an aggressive driver.