Low Hours Boat - Tower Crack!

[maristardd]

On the reverse side of the pole, does the crack continue through the wire hole?

[ntidsl]

And what was up with the parts missing on your tower in 2010? Could that have caused the issue? The crack doesn't look new!

[madcityskier]

Originally Posted by Overdraft

You are absolutely correct. I am not happy in the least. That boat has 102 hours on it and it is 5 years old...looks like the day it was delivered. To think that my family and friends were sitting under that thing on a sunny day while we are touring around on the lake - and potentially coming down on their head - is beyond frightening. I don't typically (if ever actually) tie my tube to the tower...maybe once or twice to be honest...but I have NEVER been told not to and given the severity of this crack, MC better start posting blatent warning on the tower if this is indeed the case. I don't remember ever reading it anywhere in the manual or posted on the boat - only here on this board this past Monday....but what I do remember about reading the sub-standard manual was all the RED PRINT warnings about various things causing serious injury....it was funny actually looked like it had been written by their lawyers...but I don't remember that one. If these towers are engineered that finely, there better be one heck of a warning sticker pasted to that blasted thing warning folks about having their kids sitting under them - against the use of towers with tubes...??? I would think the rope would fail before the tower but I am learning about this.

I researched the heck out of the brands..MC, Nautique and Malibu...and chose MC thinking it represented the best quality and value for my money. Overall the boat has been pretty good moreso considering this was the first year of the X14. I have had one other tower incident (it came apart on me when an ankle fastener fell out!)...but that was a minor incident compared to this. My boat stays on a lift all the time and trailered to and from storage - sorry no low bridges or structures to run into all you black thinkers. This is, by my thinking, a life threatning defect which should be taken very seriously by MasterCraft and their supplier(s). I have brought my servicing dealer into the discussion who has contacted MasterCraft for their action. We'll see what they say.

Sorry to hear of your troubles. When it "came apart", what exactly happened, and what were you doing at the time? I wonder if this incident could have placed an unpedicted stress on your tower at an unintended angle. Particularly if you were towing someone when this happened. I'm no type of expert, just curious if this might have been the beginning of the current problem.

[petermegan]

Not a metalurgist (CLOAKED is your man their) but wonder you whether live on a corrugated gravel road or have been on any trips with wavy bitumen? I would have thought it possible for this sort of damage to be a result of lots of minor stresses put on the tower as much as pulling a tube. Which I don't see a problem with by the way. I am not making any excuses for Mastercraft just looking for possible reasons. I have seen towers shaking badly when following on horrible roads. Hope this isn't a repeat from a previous post. Good Luck.

[sp00ky]

Originally Posted by CantRepeat

And I'm pretty sure the rope will break long before you can damage the tower.

Lets take a guess on which is stronger, the aluminum tubing or the rope.

It's also interesting that you can't google broken or failed tower photos. If numerous posters know of towers "failing all the time" WHERE ARE the pics? You can find photos for anything else.

[DemolitionMan]

What's New!!!!

[Overdraft]

UPDATE.....

Got my invoice for the repair on Friday. The dealer passed on the parts "at cost" and apparantly reduced the hours on the repair from 11 to 5 - rate at $ 110.00/ hr ...total $ 2,400.00 to repair the tower for what in my opinion was a complete and utter defect. MC did not step in and make this right to which I am dissapointed.

So much for brand loyalty. Unhappy

[broncotw]

I am confused.... There is no way anyone is going to convenience me that a wake boarder has less drag than a tube being pulled in the water.... The wake boarder is skimming across the top of the water and the only real drag would be the initial start.... The drag coefficient of the bottom surface of the wakeboard would be substantially less than that of a tube being pulled in the water... Simple physics.....

[AZDave]

There is one thing I have seen that could cause this. It happened to me once towing a tuber behind a Sea Ray that had a center pylon( after market). Rider fell out of tube and tube flipped grabbing the water just right (or wrong) as I was whipping around to pick up the tuber. It was like hitting a wall, almost. Rope didn't break but it was a hell of a hit. OK, I know pretty Wally-like but hey, that was back in my Sea Ray days!

[O2BESOHUGE]

Can You Post Up A Pic Of The Boat And Tower From Farther Away? Thanks!