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Wakeboard Tower Install

     I bought my Four Winns Horizon 180 new in 2001. After 5 years of wakeboarding, I decided it was time to try out a tower. I researched the net and local shops until I narrowed my decision down to two towers. The Big Air H2O Tower from BigAirPylons.com or the Monster tower from MonsterTower.com. Both had good reputation and actually showed pictures of their towers from customers. I chose to go with the H2O based on its looks.

     The package got to me very quickly and I soon realized that there was definitely "some assembly required." The first thing i did was lay a blanket on the ground and spread out all the parts. After making sure everything was there, I read over the instructions to get a good idea of what would be needed to complete the project.

     The first thing we decided to do was build up the tower on the ground as instructed; however rather than drilling and bolting everything, we used duct tape to hold everything together. To get the Pins to fit, we had to use the drill to make the holes a bit bigger, but this was mentioned in the instructions, so we were not too worried about it

     This allowed us to hold the tower up on the boat and get a rough idea of what it would look like when it was mounted. It also showed us where the mounts would need to go so we could choose easy access points. We took pictures and then examined them before proceeding, determining that putting the tower more towards the rear would work best.

     Next came the really uncomfortable part of drilling into the hull of the boat. We put a piece of duct tape to keep the possibility of damaging the area round where we drilling to a minimum.

     After getting all four mounts installed, we moved on to drilling the holes for the bolts that held the frame together, all 18 of them! The bit and instructions provided worked very well; however, the hole it made seemed to be too small, so we had to use another bit to make the bolt fit right. And just in case anyone asks, metal shavings can be very hot!

     We used clamps to hold the sides in place while we drilled on them. Finding out that the intense heat made the duct tape gooey, we had to spend a good while cleaning up the tower after everything was in place.

Some pictures of the finished product: