Tow inflatable tube from Tower?

[Dinsdale]

Flipped forward. A tight rope cuts like a scalpel.

[Chexi]

Wow. I never would have envisioned that.

[swc5150]

I enjoy a nice tube ride once in a while; guilty pleasure. A good/safe driver can keep the tube from doing wally type things. I would tow from the chin up bar, if I had one, I'd just keep a close eye on the equipment after use. Same as I keep the pylon secure.

[LR3w8kbrdr]

Anybody want to talk about the 600 stitches my daughter got in her leg from a tubing incident or the kid in emerg at the same time with a brain injury from tubing?

Wow...thats serious stuff! Hope shes doing better and u took a knife to the tube

[Chexi]

I stopped riding the tube several years ago after it made me too sore to wakeboard. Looks like I'll go the bore to death route for the tube with my family.

[Dinsdale]

Nice assumption on the "Wally" thing. We were going in a straight line, saw big boat waves coming and throttled right down. Probably weren't doing 5 mph when the waves hit us. She bounced straight in the air but held on with her hands. This caused her to flip forward. If I'd been 15 mph she would probably have bounced off backwards and would have been fine. Don't think I haven't second guessed my decision a thousand times. Still think I did the right thing, just a fluke outcome.
She deals just fine with the scar. Worst day of my life. Needless to say I would never have anything to do with tubes again.

[wake_fun]

WOW, I'm sorry to hear about that. I can't imagine how that must of been for you guys. How many years ago was that and how old was she?

It really doesn't matter what sport your doing behind a boat, there are tons of wakeboard and skiing injuries as well........

Let me ask everyone here..........if something like this happened to your kid on a wakeboard, would you stop wakeboarding?

[brananders]

To answer your question, no I would not stop wakeboarding, or downhill skiing or playing hockey or whatever else I did as a kid and my kid does or will do now. But it sure does make you worry.

I was thinking about this exact thing this weekend. My little guy is 4.5 and loves the water and is a good swimmer with a life jacket on, he takes lots of lessons, and loves speed. I've had him up on an EZ Ski Trainer (http://www.ezski.net/) since last summer. He likes it, tries to make it jump and wants to keep going faster, but he's getting bored and has jumped off it just for fun. What he really likes is riding in the middle of my Connelly Mega Wing tube and getting whipped around. I hate wasting time and good water with the tube and I do see it as dangerous and potentially scary for him if he spilled out, which he hasn't yet.

So how did you guys deal with this and at what age did you get your kids up on a wakeboard or a set of real water skis? Remember he isn't 5 yet and on the EZ SKi you don't actually hold a rope attached to the boat.

[DanielC]

I have worked many summer camps, teaching youth to wakrboard and waterski. By far, most of the injuries to youth doing water sports involved inflatables. Cuts, scrapes, bruises, minor concussions, trips to the hospital, just to be checked out.
I was even at a camp when one youth got ran over by a boat, by another boat, and both pulling tubes. The drivers in both boats were watching their own tuber, who had both fallen off pretty much at the same time. After careful investigation my the Lake Shasta marine patrol, no fault was assigned.
I was in the same area, pulling tubes, also, and it just looked too busy for my comfort, and I went due west of the area everybody else was in, at about 25 MPH, for about five minutes, and played there. At the end of the session, I came back to camp, and a huge prayer circle was forming, fast.
Tubing is dangerous. Even the most careful boat driver, doing the safest thing, can have one freak wave do something tragic.

You have a boat. I am assuming if you are on this forum, you wake board, or water ski. This is not the Bayliner forum.
I am also guessing you remember the first time you got up on skis. You remember the great feeling you got, finally getting up, and doing it. Share that with somebody new.

There are safer, cheaper ways to give give kids an adrenalin rush.

[Dinsdale]

WOW, I'm sorry to hear about that. I can't imagine how that must of been for you guys. How many years ago was that and how old was she?

It really doesn't matter what sport your doing behind a boat, there are tons of wakeboard and skiing injuries as well........

Let me ask everyone here..........if something like this happened to your kid on a wakeboard, would you stop wakeboarding?

Thanks. She was 14 at the time and is 21 now.
You are very right about the dangers involved with all these boating activities. I also back country ski which isn't a risk free sport. All I'm trying to say is that tubing isn't as safe as a lot of people think it is. I always thought we were the most careful people on the water and look what happened.
Good news is she still loves boating, skiing, wakeboarding and surfing. No tubing. If you look at one of the last posts under "Sport 200" you'll see a picture of her surfing.

[DanielC]

brananders,
Give your son a kneeboard. Let him play with it on the beach. Let him balance on it, stand on it, whatever.
When he is playing on the beach, take a ski rope, not attached to the boat, and give him the handle. Drag him around, by you running along the beach, holding the other end of the rope.
Once he does that, use the boat.

[brananders]

DanielC - The kneeboard! Great idea and the one piece of equipment that didn't occur to me and I don't yet own. I have done the handle thing with the Ski-Trainer on the beach to get him to holding it and being pulled.

One more question then since you've done some teaching. Are helmets for water sports helpful? Obviously wakeboarders use them for rails but do they do any good for generally riding?

[DanielC]

I am really not an expert on helmets. I have heard that wearing a proper water sports helmet can help with wake boarding, even when solid ramps are not involved, because the helmet brakes the impact of those toeside edge faceplants.
One concern with helmets is that is does not 'bucket" or catch water in the event of a fall.

Based on my experience with tubing, a helmet would not be a bad idea, except that the driver of the boat may think that wearing a helmet makes it safer, therefore I do not need to drive as carefully.

[SkiTower]

DanielC - The kneeboard! Great idea and the one piece of equipment that didn't occur to me and I don't yet own. I have done the handle thing with the Ski-Trainer on the beach to get him to holding it and being pulled.

And in case you haven't been around them for a while, hydroslide has a hook on the front that recesses when the rope isn't on it. GREAT for starting out. For the little ones, I'll be on the platform, have someone start going and slowly feed them out while we slowly speed up. I can get anybody small up doing this. And if they stay on, I'll quickly pull them in after we stop.

As for the tube on the tower, I do it too because it keeps the rope out of the water. I don't like doing it but it's the best of a bad situation. But make sure it's a single person tube. The bigger tubes put a tremendous amount of pressure on the attachment points.

[AirTool]

Start with an obrien fun board.

I have several pics on this site.