illusion bimini

just wondering how much shade these bimini's provide as we are not sure weather to go with the illusion tower because we dont think the bimini would work......

also if anyone has any other bimini's fitted to there bu's or know of any websites where i can find pictures of this it would be greatly appreiciated

thanks for your input & time

What boat are you looking at? We have a 23WSLSV with the Illusion bimini. The bimini is awesome! It wraps up out of the way when you are not using it plus you don't feel cramped when it's in use. You can stand up underneath it if you're under 6' tall.

That being said it does not provide very much shade when the sun is not mostly over head. We bought the Illusion bimini extension which has been great and provided another 1.5-2 feet of coverage.

The bimini does take a couple of times to get used to putting it up and down but after that it is great. The thing is rock solid and we leave it up when towing shorter distances.

(Message edited by eubanks01 on November 22, 2006)

If your worried about not having enough coverage, just have them put on the bimini from a boat that is one size up. For example, if you get a VLX, get the 23 LSV bimini. If you get the 23 LSV, get it with the 247 LSV bimini. I know people who have done this and it works great.

Here is my custom from towerbiminis.com It has a lot more coverage than the standard biminis.

I have a vlx with the stock cover and love it because you can stand up but when its the end of the day you dont get much coverage and one thing i would think about when getting a bigger cover is being able to still reach over it to put your rope on.

You don't have to reach over, they come with a zipper on the bimini, you just reach through and put your rope on. Mine has that I just don't have any pic's.

Here's another option...great idea and great for storage but pricy. Has harness straps on top. O

from my experience with the biminis for the illusion, the bimini is the exact same thing coverage wise from the vlx to the lsv to the 247. The only difference is the spacing of the front support arms that you have to insert into the tower from the vlx/lsv bimini to the 247...the 247 is slightly further apart.
VLX/LSV is the same exact bimini....

Coverage wise you will gain nothing unlike what Matthew said above. The only way you will gain coverage is going with an extended bimini, or off of the top of my head, towerbiminis.com like what duffy has, makes a bimini that has a bit more side to side coverage as well as an extended bimini that is far superior to the factory bimini with extension that malibu offers from thier canvas supplier.
The z5 cargo bimini that Joe posted has a bit more coverage as well, but like he said, it will cost an arm and a leg.

thanks for all the advice....

the boat we are considering is the vride. we really like the look of the illusion tower without the bimini but with a bimini we dont like it as much...

having said that a bimini is a must... so we were initailly going to get the titan 3 tower... but now that in 07 malibu's the illusion tower comes standard on the vride we are really not sure..

we are more conserned about the front of the bimini and the drivers seat so the extention would help out that much..

any more ideas would be greatly apprieciated.. thanks

Kdubz,

Delta wakeboard camp has done exactly what i explained in my earlier post with their VLX and 23 LSV. At least that is what was explained to me by one of their coaches who just happens to be my brother. The biminis are significantly larger than the standard VLX bimini.
Of course i could be mistaken and they could be using one of the other biminis you described.

owen, check out the towerbiminis.com illusion biminis.
They actually have a slight bit more coverage going forward as well. But they really cover more beam width of the boat.

matthew, i've met your brother before, really cool guy and good rider. I pulled him behind my boat during the demo day at Orwood when Byerly was in town.
i work with tese towers/biminis on a daily basis, so just merely posting my own experience is all. For all I know DWC might know of a bimini mfg I haven't seen yet??
We could both be right. LOL.