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Best Practices - Towing Behind a Houseboat


Chauncemaster

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This weekend Im going on my second housebouting trip to Smith Mountain Lake and I'll be towing the VLX behind the houseboat on a 75 foot rope clipped to the boweye. I've done it once before with no problems but after seeing pics of all the horror stories on this site I want to be extra careful.

Here are a few things I have been considering but haven't come to a conclusion on.

  • Should I tie off the steering wheel so the rudder remains straight or just let it flap around?
  • In order to get the bow to ride even higher, would it be a good idea to fill some or all of the REAR ballast or would the extra total weight counteract any advantage of the bow being a few inches higher?
  • If while driving the houseboat I see a HUGE set of wakes approaching, is it best to just keep driving at full speed (8 mph), slow down while the wakes pass, or try to turn so we hit them at a right angle?

Opinions?

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I have a freind that tows his boat tide up to the side of the houseboat. he uses several big bumpers and just goes.

said he has never had a problem with it

it does have some benefits

you can access the boat while underway

it wont run into the back of the Hboat

no chance of forgetting to take a turn wide and drag the 'bu into.........

and at 8mph you can always add some throttle to the bu to help speed things up

(i would not do this with a tower on the ski boat!)

but mostly everone goes out to play, in the ski boats, while a 3 or 4 people, moves and ties up the Hboats

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I have a freind that tows his boat tide up to the side of the houseboat. he uses several big bumpers and just goes.

Thats an interesting idea but in my situation the houseboat's deck is about 3-4 feet off the water so the bu would slide under it a bit and smash up into it whenever we hit some bumps. There's nowhere good on the houseboat to tie up to even for anchoring overnight so I also end up anchoring separatly and swimming back.

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Understand first that I have absolutely no experience in towing behind a houseboat. But, like everyone else, I have opinions.

Thinking through your question about whether you should slow down for larger wakes or not, I believe you definitely should. This would be the opposite of what you would do if you were driving the bu. The difference being that the Malibu is being towed by a rope tied low on the bow and the tension on that rope will prevent the bow from rising over very large wakes. Where as if you slow or stop, there will now be slack in the tow rope allowing the bow to rise more readily. I also think in this case (slowing or stopping for large wakes), rear ballast could be beneficial. If you drive through the wakes the ballast could end up being a detriment.

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definately tie off the steering wheel, other wise the boat tends to shift back and forth in an unpredictable manner. I've never towed a boat with ballast tanks, so I dont know if that would be beneficial or not.

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Thanks for the opinions and link to a previous post. So everyone is in consensus about tying up the steering wheel and using a long enough rope. As for the other points I think I will try filling the rear ballast at least a few hundred pounds to get the front about 3 inches higher and the swim platform in the water. I'll also probably slow down a bit if going over big wakes so the tension on the rope doesn't try to drag the bow through the wave instead of over it. I haven't read about anybody else towing with ballast but I think it should actually help more having a higher bow than it will hurt havign a few extra hundred pounds in the boat.

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My daughter was out on the LF TAA Malibu WS 23 LSV a few days ago and she said that they had something similar happen to that boat while they were at Powell I believe. They apparently were towing the boat behind a houseboat when someone looked out and the boat wasn't there. It was submerged still on the tow line. They stopped the houseboat and were able to get the boat back up and it was running here in Portland. I don't know the whole story. I guess they dinged the prop here too and they were looking to borrow my prop puller, but managed to get the prop off with another one.

Edited by obski
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I believe most of the cases where boats sink behind houseboats are due to folks not paying attention - you must slow the boat down if there are big wakes - otherwise the tow line will pull the boat through the wakes instead of allowing the boat to float up over them. - Just keep an eye on the boat, it will become aparent quickly

Not sure about the tying off the steering wheel - never heard of that - just make sure it is straight... it should track just fine

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Here's a link to a horrific story from Lake Powell, but at the bottom it gives a bunch of pointers on how to tow from a HB (click on the "Boat sinking story" link at the top):

http://www.riverlakes.com/antelope_narrows...%20July,%202004

After seeing those pictures I am going to have nightmares tonight before we leave for the houseboat tomorrow. Cry.gif

I am 99.9% sure we will be fine because we towed a response last time with no issues and my VLX can take a considerably larger wave before it comes over the front. There will definitly be not one but TWO people watching the boat at all times though. Fortunatley the waters on Smith Mountain Lake's main channel are glass compared to what must go on i nthe narrows with huge tour boats and vertical rock walls.

Im still filling the rear ballast though. I want to be able to see the skegs from the houseboat and then we'll be ready for any wake someone can throw at us!!!

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Here's a link to a horrific story from Lake Powell, but at the bottom it gives a bunch of pointers on how to tow from a HB (click on the "Boat sinking story" link at the top):

http://www.riverlakes.com/antelope_narrows...%20July,%202004

After seeing those pictures I am going to have nightmares tonight before we leave for the houseboat tomorrow. Cry.gif

I am 99.9% sure we will be fine because we towed a response last time with no issues and my VLX can take a considerably larger wave before it comes over the front. There will definitly be not one but TWO people watching the boat at all times though. Fortunatley the waters on Smith Mountain Lake's main channel are glass compared to what must go on i nthe narrows with huge tour boats and vertical rock walls.

Im still filling the rear ballast though. I want to be able to see the skegs from the houseboat and then we'll be ready for any wake someone can throw at us!!!

Sorry about that. I felt the same way when I read that the first time, but it was an education for me on what can go wrong when towing. I thought the list that they gave at the bottom was very educational.

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You don't need to tie the wheel. Just turn the rudder straight and the momentum will keep it going forward

Not an inboard! - that thing will be all over the lake. Maybe a V-drive is ok, but an inboard will shift back and forth continually, even if you started with the rudder straight.

Unless, of course, you have a stiff cable, then you'd be OK

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You don't need to tie the wheel. Just turn the rudder straight and the momentum will keep it going forward

Not an inboard! - that thing will be all over the lake. Maybe a V-drive is ok, but an inboard will shift back and forth continually, even if you started with the rudder straight.

Unless, of course, you have a stiff cable, then you'd be OK

I hate to call you out, but you are not correct, I tow boats behind my houseboat almost weekly and they track just fine. I was towing my boat just last weekend folllowing about 750 yards behind three houseboats rafted together towing various inboards of all styles all were tracking fine. We towed J-Ro's direct drive and my V- drive at Powell 2 years ago and neither tracked differently.

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I will add something else,

I have a mooring system on my houseboat to tie my bu off the side while we are on our mooring ball it keeps the malibu from touching the houseboat if a rogue roller comes through the houseboats (not that anyone would ever disobey the no wake laws) I built it strong enough to tow the bu along side the houseboat but if you get into chop the waves splash between the bu and the houseboat making my houseboat decks slippery and getting the inside of the bu wet, so take that into consideration. when towing alongside.

A short funny story (like I always say funny cause no one was hurt)

I pulled into the marina a couple of weeks ago on an ice run and I was sitting outside the marina for a moment BS'n with the marina manager he just driven a rental houseboat outside of the marina and cut the renters loose with it. At that point they were way out of shouting distance but were talking and both kinda watching them at the same time.

They proceeded to tie there I/O to the side of the houseboat BACKWORDS and take off in the houseboat.

Well he jumped on a jet ski and hauled a$$ out and stopped them before tragedy occured but that could have ruined someone's vacation about twenty minutes into it.

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I hate to call you out, but you are not correct, I tow boats behind my houseboat almost weekly and they track just fine. I was towing my boat just last weekend folllowing about 750 yards behind three houseboats rafted together towing various inboards of all styles all were tracking fine. We towed J-Ro's direct drive and my V- drive at Powell 2 years ago and neither tracked differently.

I can only go off my experience of about 6 HB trips on Powell. The I/O's tracked just fine, but both my Echelon and my buddies MC 190 were all over the place.

Maybe it's a speed thing, I dont know how fast you tow, but the HB we generally go in, we had between 12 and 15 mph, slowing down when we had to deal with BIG rollers.

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i had a house boat for 2 years. never had any problem towing any kind of boat or wave runner behind it. the waves coming straight on in front, the house boat breaks up pretty good before they get to the towed boat. waves from the side just make the towed boat rock back and forth. never had a wet boat inside after towing. never tied the steering wheel at all. no problems at all. just let it ride. mike.

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Here's a link to a horrific story from Lake Powell, but at the bottom it gives a bunch of pointers on how to tow from a HB (click on the "Boat sinking story" link at the top):

http://www.riverlakes.com/antelope_narrows...%20July,%202004

my reaction to stories like these (and there have been several) is that I will drive the boat if I ever get on powell....maybe waste of gas, but these are scary...

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It makes me wonder if having a full cover on like the Rankin would prevent that from happening. I do remember reading that the percentage of open bows to closed bows that this kind of thing happened to was really skewed to the open bow type, & that if there was even a bow cover available that it seemed to help as a preventative measure. I've only ever been on 2 houseboats, & they were close enough & on small enough lakes that driving the Bu didn't matter, so I have zero experience to speak of here.

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