Question For You Show Drivers Out There

My step daughter is joining the ski team. Yesterday they had pyramid practice. They run twin rigs. On all their hulls they have a huge eye bolt bolted through the base of the transoms. I thought that they would use it to pull their large acts. Little to my amasement they use the eye bolt, but not for that particular purpose. They actually feed the leaders through the eye bolt, then run the leader to the stock pylon.

They were practicing a four high with 2 3s on the sides. I think that is a lot of people to be pulled of the stock pylon. The eye let on the rear keeps the boat from cantalevering the boat into the air upon take off from the pier, which obviously is a good thing. But I am worried that the stock pylon will rip right through the fiberglass if they continue to pull the final pyramid this way. Do you guys agree???????

I think 24 people off the stock Hydrodyne 20 pylon is too much. I don't know why they don't just hook the ropes directly to the eye bolt. Since we are still new to the team I don't feel it is in my place to say something to the driver. What is your opinion about this?

Greg

 

I've seen this done as well and I don't like it either. Not sure if it has ever cause a problem or not, but I would not do it. Our limit is 12 people on the pylon, above that we pull down low and most of the time we pull 12 down low as well.

 

Same here. The pylon can handle more load when it is hooked up the way you describe, due to the angle that the load is applied. But it is still putting excessive load on the pylon that doesn't need to be done. Plus, it's a pain in the rear to feed through the eye then back up to the pylon.

We have a 6 foot x 3" tow strap that is attached to the tow eye, and a chunk of 1/2" rope that we hook to the end of the strap, and loop over the pylon so it is easier to retrieve the ropes from the tow eye without crawling into the transom well. It works well, and the 6' straps are fairly cheap to replace when one gets too close to a prop, or just starts wearing from rubbing on things.

 

I guess this kind of answers my own question, huh? I was looking at the ads for sale on this web site, and I noticed the pylon on the 1989 twin ripped through their deck also. They have a huge plate on the top of the pylon now.

The boat that pulls this pyramid was a previous hull from a major show team. The previous team fabricated a special cuff that slid over the stock pylon and then was braced on either sides and mounted to the deck in the stock cleat areas. I think this was also for widening the mounts for a backfoot line, but I am sure it helped strengthen the stock pylon for this type of pull.

For whatever reason this ski season they removed this cuff/brace and left the stock pylon as it comes from Hydrodyne. I asked a couple of skiers why it was removed, and nobody had a answer. I just don't want them to destroy a nice twin by over capacitating the pylon.

Greg

 

we generally use the strap method that river rat described. Last year though i did separate our barefoot line 4-5 guys to a leader through the eyes up to a quick release. The only reason I did this was to dump the ropes quickly to pick up my next act.

 

Also watch for cracks where pylon goes through fiberglass. Several years ago our team ignored the cracks for about two years. Then two days before state I nearly tore the pylon out. I came up with a bandaid type fix for it that got us through the summer.

 

We generally just run two leaders on the pylon for our gang lines. It's very rare that we have over 10 guys for gang line, especially this year.

Jeremy

 

This year will probably be a rebuilding year for us. So far I think I have a 6person foot line. Is Sturmy still skiing with you guys?

 

Our gangline last night was 4 guys (1 had never attempted a step off before, and one other has never made one before). So we had two dancing ropes and two footers behind triple 175's. Our biggest pyramid was 12 people. Great use of horsepower! I had to share driving duties with one of our other skiers just so we could have two tow boats (we switched at intermission).

You could say we are in a rebuilding year as well...

Unfortunately, Sturm thinks he has better things to do, and hasn't skied with us for the last couple of years. He still shows up occasionally so we can have a good laugh though.

 

Has anyone else had a pylon break the fiberglass on their Dyne by pulling big acts? If not do you know of any other team that DEFINATELY has broken their pylon by doing so?

I want to recommend to them to change the set up, but it is always good to have some "ammunition" to back my concern up. I will take a picture of the eyelet they have on the transom now and post it. It is definately more than adequate for any big pull.

Greg