Boat Rental Towing Safety Tips
Although it may seem simple, towing a skier, wakeboarder or tuber requires a bit of planning and safety precautions before you rent your boat. By following a few guidelines for properly towing by boat, your day on the water will be more enjoyable. Whenever towing anyone behind your rental boat, you must have at least one spotter who can keep track of the passenger and relay any necessary information to you.
KEEP YOUR DISTANCE
Whenever towing someone behind your boat rental, always remember to keep a safe distance from docks, other boats, bulkheads, and shorelines. Also, be aware of the water depth at all times avoiding shallow water. The length of the rope is the other important aspect when towing. Whether for tubers or water skiers, you want it to be around 100 feet at a minimum to keep your distance. Ski ropes are normally available at 75 feet, but it's best to have 100 feet at a bare minimum. The reason for the extra distance is that when a spill occurs, you want adequate distance for the rider or skier to tumble across the water without coming in contact with your boat rental.
THE TUBE AND THE BOAT RENTAL DON'T GO THE SAME SPEED
The speed of the boat rental and the tube will differ especially during turns. Most likely, all of us have experienced the thrill of getting whipped around the water at high speeds. During these transitions, the tube or the skier/wakeboarder will often travel much faster than the boat. If you turn the boat at 20 miles per hour, the skier will most likely be speeding along at double the speed of 40 miles per hour. Understanding this, keep your distance from any objects because it will be even harder to slow down the tube/skier/wakeboarder than what it will be the rental boat.
KEEP AWARENESS OF THE OTHER BOATS
Outside of colliding with the dock, the other grave danger comes from other boats on the water. In particular, the danger increases when the individual falls off the tube or wipes out, and are not clearly visible to other boaters. Waiting to be picked up in the water can be dangerous even when wearing a bright-colored life jacket. Many times, the other boats won't expect swimmers so far from the shoreline. While wakeboarders and water skiers should hold a ski/board above the water, tubers don't have the same option. Keep a close eye on the boats that are closest and pay attention to erratic movements from other drivers.
RETURNING THE TOW ROPE TO A DOWNED SKIER
Getting the rope back to the skier/wakeboarder may not be as straightforward as it looks at first glance. Since a skier doesn't have the ability to swim to the rope, you need to perform a tight U-turn and have the skier near the U. In addition, you don't want to turn too much because you don't want to run over the rope. Keep an eye out for other boaters while you are maneuvering your rental boat into position.
AWARENESS SAVES THE DAY
Practicing safe watersports should always be the goal of any day on the water. Some of the most common injuries that people get on the water include head injuries, sprains, strains, muscle and ligament injuries. Collisions with another tuber/skier/boarder have become one of the greatest sources of head injuries. This is even more common with children, and you should teach them the risks and dangers of the water. Awareness can save you from having a bad day on the water.
TIPS FOR TOWING A WAKEBOARDER
Once you have all your safety gear and you are out on the water, it’s time to check that your rider is ready. Start by agreeing on an easily heard verbal cue or an easily seen gesture that will mean “ready to go” while your rider is still in the rental boat. After they give you the agreed-upon signal, check the area for any other boats.
When you accelerate, try to keep it smooth without going to fast. Accelerating too quickly will make it hard for the rider to get up on their board. Once your rider is up, remember to ease back to somewhere between 15 and 19 miles per hour. In general, going slower is better for beginner riders and faster is better for experienced riders looking to perform more advanced tricks, but your cruising speed will depend on your rider and passengers.
You and your rider should have more agreed-upon hand signals for slowing down and speeding up. This will make it easier for the rider to perform their tricks, but do not forget to drive carefully at all times. As the driver, you are in charge of maintaining everyone’s safety and following boating etiquette. This means avoiding crowded areas, watching your wake, staying at least 150 feet away from shore or structures, and driving carefully. Even with experienced riders, sharper turns at high speeds equate to potentially dangerous conditions, so know your own, your rider’s, and your rental boat’s limits to avoid any preventable injuries or accidents.
PICKING UP A FALLEN RIDER
Any time you have a rider, you want to have a spotter on board the boat. A spotter’s responsibility is to keep their eyes fixed on the rider to be able to react as quickly as possible if the rider goes down. If you do not have any other passengers on board to act as spotter, the responsibility falls to you, the boat driver.
Should a rider fall into the water, your spotter should have access to quickly raise the orange flag to let you and other boat drivers in the area know. This part is critical to keeping the rider safe from harm. Once you have been alerted they are down, approach them from downwind at a slow, controlled speed. Once you have reached the downed rider, turn off the boat’s engine (do not shift into neutral) and help them get back aboard the boat. Every rider and passenger should be on board before the engine is restarted.
When towing anything behind the boat rental, it's important to take the right safety precautions to ensure that you have a positive experience on the water. You can have many good memories, but you should still always be careful and be aware of the negatives that can happen so that you can avoid those dangers. Through taking the right precautions, you can drastically lower the risk so that you will have a better experience. Follow these guidelines outlined above and you are ready to have a good time.
