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Do you use your Tether when boating?

Do you use your tether while boating

  • Engines up to 115hp - Always

    Votes: 12 34.3%

  • Engines up to 115hp - Sometimes

    Votes: 6 17.1%

  • Engines up to 115hp - Never

    Votes: 17 48.6%

  • Engines greater than 115hp - Always

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Engines greater than 115hp - Sometimes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Engines greater than 115hp - Never

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    35
Straws for wine? Someone's pulling at my leg here... :)
 
When we are anchored around all those girls in bikinis, my wife always has me tethered :rolleyes:
 
Jill is a bus driver. No seat belts are a good thing. The seats are designed to protect all sizes of children. Also she doesn't want Link beating on Lake living with the seat belt buckle while she is trying to watch the road.
 
I wear a bathing suit. No tether. My top speed is 19MPH  Moped speed. Now there's a place to wear a helmet.
 
Was with my co-owner buddy last weekend who invested with us, trusting my experience from a previous test drive on a similar ESP/motor setup that this new, huge pontoon would corner as good or better than his previous runabout at speed. Initially, when putting around for a couple hours at the lower RPMs, we got a chuckle out of a huge safety decal next to the front port side captains chairs that said they are not to be used when the boat is in motion.

After the initial 2 hour sessions, we finally got to open it up to see what it would do and at one point (since it was just 3 adult guys onboard) cut it hard at WOT to check for prop ventilation, turning capability, handling, etc. As expected, it banked and turned great but it did have a point where it kind of 'snapped' around nothing major (like what I've seen in some Mantou V-toon videos which looked somewhat dangerous to the unsuspecting) but enough to be felt. I mention it as depending on your setup with the performance models, don't take anything for granted that your pontoon may be more 'capable' than you think!  
 
Interesting on the co-owner thing. I wouldn't trust anyone to care for/use the boat as I would. I wouldn't want the hassle and risk. Interesting.
 
Close friends and relatives and have shared 'toys' for over 20 years now. Lets us get much nicer stuff and especially since we boat together, it's a group thing. That includes maintenance and repairs which are more fun and much less costly together too. Granted, obviously not for everyone though. We're all family or like family.

Funny, people think we have the most awesome stuff and we do I guess but couldn't afford or justify any of it by ourselves.

Weird, I know...
 
I think it's a great idea if you actually have people you know and trust well enough to do it with. 
 
We have several friends that share boats and jet skis. As nobody uses them a lot it saves everybody money. Nobody here lives on a lake so boating is done a couple times a year.
 
There's one thing that seems to come out of partnership. Some one has to be the "LEADER". This does cause problems when something goes wrong and the "LEADER" decides to get it corrected. It will cost $ and others in the pact aren't prepared. It leads to conflict. Own what you can, be able to make your own decisions.  
 
Million dollar idea: an NFC chip keyfob like he newer cars have. Only instead of allowing the starting of the boat when it's in the area, it kills the boat if it is not near it. Keep it in your pocket or on your wrist, and boom! If you fall out, it senses that the fob isn't in proximity and it shuts your boat off. Way lower dork factor than the tether and allows for unimpeded beverage consumption.

You're welcome.
 
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PDX Hosedragger said:
Million dollar idea: an NFC chip keyfob like he newer cars have. Only instead of allowing the starting of the boat when it's in the area, it kills the boat if it is not near it. Keep it in your pocket or on your wrist, and boom! If you fall out, it senses that the fob isn't in proximity and it shuts your boat off. Way lower dork factor than the tether and allows for unimpeded beverage consumption.

You're welcome.
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Something like this? http://www.sourceinnovations.ca/product/cordless-teth-air-system/

They've been around for a few years.  Starting to catch on in the snowmobiling community, but it has been slow.  I personally just run a corded tether while riding. 

I've been thinking through it for a boat and seems like it would be inconvenient and over kill.   They would have to waterproof it as well.
 
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PDX Hosedragger said:
It would be less inconvenient than hooking up a cord whenever you got behind the wheel. And waterproofing is easy.
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PDX delete this post and call mercury. That is one good idea"...

I snapped my 25 footer many times doing some sport driving. Hence why I stated that I'm not ashamed to click it on when the kds are with me.

I do use a larger carabiner style clip as it's easy to get on and off.

Something in the pocket or on the vest, I would assume people would use more, especially the bass fishers. Still shocks me that it hasn't been thought of till you mentioned it.
 
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Willb said:
PDX delete this post and call mercury. That is one good idea"...

I snapped my 25 footer many times doing some sport driving. Hence why I stated that I'm not ashamed to click it on when the kds are with me.

I do use a larger carabiner style clip as it's easy to get on and off.

Something in the pocket or on the vest, I would assume people would use more, especially the bass fishers. Still shocks me that it hasn't been thought of till you mentioned it.
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The problem is that you are not guaranteed to get thrown from the boat.  We've all seen the "7 person" boat crash on youtube where the driver was thrown to the port side of the boat.  Fortunately he had powered down or it would have been much worse.  I didn't see that he had a tether attached, but if he had, that would have killed the motor. 

I wouldn't use the "Teth-Air" device I mentioned above in a boat because of the false trips (too short of range) or not working when I needed it (too much range).   If you believe you need/want a tether, use the one the boat comes with.   it is not easy to forget the lanyard and get false trips.  It will also kill motor if you are throw out of the captain's seat but not out of boat.  It is likely these reasons that it has not been "though of yet"  My .02
 
There is a photo buried on the interwebs of a certain Brunswick exec's flip of a tri-toon on a local lake here, smacked into a dock with a pricey Fountain attached. It can and does happen.
 
The technology can be improved upon I'm sure. In the meantime, if you're not thrown from the boat then you'll be able to throttle down manually. If you can't do that because you're alone and had a medical issue, you're screwed anyways.
 
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