Pulling the kids on a tube behind an 18 foot fish and ski: speed, rope length, and the observer rule
Started by bowrider_or_not on Jun 10, 2025 in On the water. 7 posts.
2018 Lund 1875 Crossover XS, Merc 150 FourStroke, Taylorsville Lake most weekends. three kids, 13, 10 and 7. we bought a two-rider tube at Dick's last week and i realized i have no idea what i'm doing. the 13 year old wants to go fast. the 7 year old wants to go but also cried the last time a wave hit her in the face at the beach.
what speed do you run for little ones, how long a rope, and do i really need somebody besides me watching? my wife says she can drive and watch at the same time. i don't think that's how it works.
we did this for years behind a Tracker before we went to the wake boat. for the little one, 8 to 12 mph and straight lines. turns are what fling them. older kids 15 to 20, and nobody under high school gets a whip at 25 no matter how much they beg.
rope 50 to 60 feet. shorter puts the tube in the prop wash where it bucks, longer lets it swing wide in the turns.
and your wife is wrong, sorry. the driver watches where the boat goes. somebody else watches the tube and calls it when a kid comes off. on our boat that's whoever is next up, they have to sit backwards and hold the flag.
from the guy fishing the bank you're about to wake out. stay off the shoreline before 10 if you can, that's when the rest of us are throwing jigs at the stumps. after lunch the lake's all yours.
on the kid that cried, put her in the middle of the tube with the big one and go slow down a flat cove. let her decide when to go faster. my granddaughter went from crying to begging in one afternoon that way.
look at the rope tag before you hook up. tube ropes are rated by how many riders, and the two-rider ones are around 2,375 lb breaking strength, a three rider about 3,250. the cheap single rider rope that came in the box with some tubes is about 1,500 and people put two teenagers on it all the time. that's how ropes snap back at the boat.
also on the Lund, use the tow eyes on the transom with a harness or the ski pylon if you have it. not a cleat. down here on Lake of the Ozarks i watch a cleat pull out of somebody's gunwale about once a summer.
ok, homework done. the Kentucky boating handbook on fw.ky.gov says you need an observer on board besides the operator when somebody's being towed, everybody being towed wears a life jacket, and no towing between sunset and sunrise. so my wife can drive, or watch, not both. she took it well. sort of.
the rope that came with our tube says 1,500 on the tag. jim, you called it. ordered a 2,375 one.
one more, since i've got the name. do not let anybody wake surf behind an outboard. no rope, kid ten feet off the transom, right next to a spinning prop. people try it behind fish and skis every summer because they saw it on a wake boat. it's a tube and skis boat. that's plenty.
report from the 4th. Taylorsville was a washing machine by 11 so we ran the tube up at the north end just short of the no-wake buoys, flat water. 7 year old went three times. 10 mph, straight lines, the 13 year old rode with her and held on to her life jacket strap the whole time. she wants to go "the fast speed" next weekend.
the 13 year old got 18 mph and a couple of gentle turns and i got yelled at for being boring. my oldest's buddy was observer and took it more seriously than any adult i know. new rope worked fine.
