Tower or Pole ??

Do you think a boat can lose value if you put a tower on it?
Does the pole work better for breakdown proposes?
just curious, i have seen some boats that would look better without a tower and seen some boats that a tower needs to be on it.

I've heard of people selling prostar 190s where buyers asked if the tower could come off. So to die hard skiers, I guess it could.

IMO the pole looks good on those old school boats. kinda lets the riding speak for itself, not the rig you're in with 19 speakers hanging off the tower.

Originally Posted by denverd1

I've heard of people selling prostar 190s where buyers asked if the tower could come off. So to die hard skiers, I guess it could.

IMO the pole looks good on those old school boats. kinda lets the riding speak for itself, not the rig you're in with 19 speakers hanging off the tower.

Agree.

Ken, Don't think I would throw a tower on any of those older direct drive ski boats unless it was a Sunsport. What do you have right now? You sold the Marlin or whatever it was didn't you?

Brett
yeah, now i have this:::: just thinking this boat would be better off without a tower.. hate to put a tower on it and when i sell it, people shy away from it cause of the tower, at this point hard to say if it would help it or not...

Be careful of the poles. I had one on my prostar 190. It puts a lot of stress on the ski pylon so you have to be careful to hook up the brace cable to the front properly every time. Also, after only a couple of years of using the pole, my ski pylon was corroded and cracked. A new one from MC was only $300 but I ended up selling w/out one. While I was selling my boat I didn't have anyone ask if the tower was removable (I had the samson edge tower which I thought looked great on the boat), but if you read the MC forums a ton of skiers there complain about towers on ski boats. Not sure how that really affects sales because practically everyone looking at my boat was a wakeboarder looking for their first inboard. Or a family with some skiers who were interested in learning how to wakeboard.

yeah, I wouldn't do a tower. Just get a board rack for the pole to get the boards out of the way. You don't lose anything in the front because the strap is over the closed bow. It actually makes it easier to jump to the bow with the pole anyways. It might be nice to be able to put tower speakers and racks on a tower but you will never see the return when selling the boat.

Great looking Brendella by the way. I love it.

its great ski boat, not so much a big wake for boarding, but everyone has fun boarding behind it, the next one im looking at is a 01 Ski Centurion for 9k, but im sure it will be gone faster than i can get to it

Originally Posted by kenteck

its great ski boat, not so much a big wake for boarding, but everyone has fun boarding behind it, the next one im looking at is a 01 Ski Centurion for 9k, but im sure it will be gone faster than i can get to it

Is that the sport bowrider that has been on CL for a while?

I've always thought the poles looked pretty ghetto.

You'll never get your money back out of the tower, but IMO it is a good selling point. Most people buying 80's and 90's direct drives are doing so because their budget only allows them that selection - having a nice tower is just a big perk.

Brett
its in CA

brett i was way way wrong, its a 98 for 12k,

I think those boats look better with a pole! Towers are too narrow!

I don't like the look of towers on older boats. Poles look more cool but are not as practical so far as storage and such. I hate having boards all over the floor. Definitely get that strap up front real tight. I don't think a tower can reduce the value of the boat, unless it's Monster Tower or similar cheap generic tower that doesn't fit the lines and style of the boat very well. For some hardcore slalom boats like a PS190 or other small closed bow boats it might hurt value a little since the people looking at those boats are mostly gonna be hardcore slalom people and not so much into wake sports. Anything larger or with an open bow it couldn't hurt value as long as the tower is tasteful and suits the boat.

I use a pole because after buying my boat, doing the few things it needed, adding Perfect Pass, etc. I had burned through a lot of money. Really it came down to PP or a tower, and PP was more important to me. Eventually my boat will get a New Dimensions tower, but until then I'll rock my old school pole!

I'll add to there is practicality vs. looks. I had a snap cover made for my boat, since it spends 2-4 weeks every summer in the water on a lake, moored like you see in the picture. The boat only came with a cover that worked on the trailer so I needed something that was easy to use in the water. I've had snap covers before and though I hate the snaps, they work and are easy to use in the water. Some folks won't buy a boat that has snaps on it, or will only pay significantly less than they would pay for the same boat without snaps. Just a judgement call and I did the snap cover because I don't let resale affect my decisions. I generally keep my vehicles for a long time and don't see myself getting another boat any time soon unless someone throws a real good offer at me for this one.

For every person that doesn't like snap covers there will be another that likes them. Same idea with towers, except there will generally be more that want a tower than don't, since the trend is for wakeboarding these days. The only exception, as I said, might be small slalom specific boats that don't throw a decent wake or have much room or freeboard for weight.

On a nautique 2001 which is what Im shopping for at the moment...the New Dimensions tower or FCT2 i think look great compared to other towers. I want to have HLCD tower speakers and of course board racks which I know I could have with the flyhigh pole. It might hurt resale when I sell it in 2 yrs if a skier is looking for one but may help when someones looking for a budget wake boat w/ auto ballast & tower.

I have a 03 malibu response lx with a skylon pole, I actually had the bimini customized so the pole would go through it, I also added the skylon skyrack to get boards out of the way and even attached a 4 ft pipe horizontally and installed 2 kmt6 on it with 4 lights. Theres pics on here somewhere. Ive gotten a lot of compliments on how it looks and how it was all done. You CAN do it with just a pylon!

IMO it completely depends on the boat. That Ski Brendella is a true slalom boat, fairly low profile, very flat bottom and much better at making a small slalom wake than a midsize wakeboard wake. I have a 1996 MB Boss 200 that rides on an almost identical running surface (both modeled roughly after an early 90's Mastercraft). I would not consider adding a tower to my MB. My previous boat was a 95 Ski Nautique. It did a decent job of acting like a wakeboard boat when I loaded it with about 1k of extra weight. I did add a Monster Tower to the boat which was great from a functional standpoint. In black to match all of the trim of that boat it even looked pretty good. The guy who bought the boat talked about removing the tower and repairing the holes. I told him to try it both ways then decide. I would bet money the boat still has that tower today.

Heres a Ski brendella with a tower made by Trick Towers

IMO - wakeboarding is bigger than skiing and a tower will help with resale value. I think you will not break even on the tower at resale but if you are using it, it makes you happy, why not? I added a tower to an older boat to use it and when it was time the tower helped get it sold. My preference would be more about usage then resale unless you are only going to add a tower purely for resale? You have to look at who would be in the market for that boat w/ or w/o a tower. No tower or pole= an older hard core skier-I only know of one in my area of hundreds Tower=any you guy or couple just getting started and can afford this boat as opposed to a brand 50k+ boat.

To answer OP questions:
I do not think it will lose value-if anything may help it a bit.
The RIGHT tower can break down as easily as a pole. No need to crawl over the bow to fetch the bow strap for the pole. The RIGHT tower can also make your boat look good just do some research and it looks like you are starting in the right place.

Yesterday I was sitting at Keywadin and pretty little MC 190 close bow rolls in. Bright red with a black bimni and a pole with two boards on a pole rack. This boat looked gorgeous. In this particular instance i think a tower would look out of place.

I had a Malibu response which put out a great wake for wake boarding when I went to sell I had 5 slalom skiers looking at it, no wake boarders. Tower would not help to sell.