Manufacturers

Understanding Wakeboard Tower Manufacturers

As mentioned before, wakeboard towers evolved from extended ski pylons and were inspired by products like tuna fishing boat towers (first adapted by Atlantic Towers). Early in 1998 Correct Craft patented the first wakeboard specific tower on their original Air Nautique model. They were the first to offer a factory installed wakeboard tower on their water ski and wakeboard boats, but within a year every major boat manufacturer had followed suit, offering their own wakeboard towers. Since then, a factory installed wakeboard tower has been either standard or optional on almost every professional water ski and wakeboard boat manufactured.

Currently, no boat manufacturers make their own wakeboard towers. Instead they outsource to several specialized tower manufacturers, which are called Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). Many of these Original Equipment Manufacturers also sell the OEM towers, and/or universal custom alternatives, directly to boat dealerships and authorized dealers. These OEM towers are offered for boat-owners who later want to add a tower to a boat that was ordered without one or wanting special finish options and choices when it comes to choosing a wakeboard tower.

There are also several wakeboard tower manufacturers that do not have OEM contracts with boat manufacturers and market towers only to the “aftermarket”. In order to keep this article manageable, we have limited many of our examples to the OEM wakeboard tower manufacturers since they make up the lion share of the market. The limited coverage of aftermarket tower manufacturers is not meant to imply that they build inferior towers or accessories.

Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)
Most wakeboard boat manufacturers use one or more Original Equipment Manufacturers to build their wakeboard towers and wakeboard tower accessories that are installed at the factory. In fact, more than 80% of the components in a wakeboard boat are manufactured by various OEM companies. This is true of the engine, transmission, V-drive, running gear, steering, propeller, gauges, electrical system, windshields, wakeboard tower, sound system, bimini, etc. It is more cost effective for a boat manufacturer to outsource the production of wakeboard towers to a specialized OEM manufacturer. Below is a table of the major boat manufacturers showing the OEM wakeboard tower and wakeboard rack manufacturers they utilize?

Professional Tow Boat OEM Towers (partial listing)

Recreational Boat OEM Towers (partial listing)

OEM Tower Availability
Since boat manufacturers have only been offering boats with wakeboard towers since late 1998, many boats manufactured before that time do not have an OEM tower available. Some of the OEM wakeboard towers are available for earlier models from either boat dealerships or Wakeside.com. Manufacturers offering OEM towers for earlier model boats include Skylon, Titan, and Xtreme Towers. We hope that some of the older Supra and Moomba towers will eventually become available from Xtreme Towers since they have made the OEM Mastercraft towers available.

The following OEM companies are currently offering towers and/or tower accessories to the aftermarket:

• Roswell
• Skylon
• Titan
• Xtreme Towers

Wakeside.com has specialized in these OEM brands due to the high quality product and customer service they must offer in order to earn an OEM contact.

Aftermarket Manufacturers
Most aftermarket tower manufacturers are small companies that do not have the resources to become an Original Equipment Manufacturer to the boat builders. Another reason that some of these companies stay in the aftermarket is that they sell directly to the end consumer, and therefore do not have a boat dealership network. Boat dealerships do not want to compete with their boat manufacturer’s own OEM tower supplier, which means they often only carry one line of towers and accessories. Below is a partial list of some of the leading “aftermarket only” tower manufacturers:

• 13th Floor
• Air Boom
• Atlantic
• Barewest
• Big Air Pylons
• Element
• Joystick
• Monster Tower
• Phat Budde
• Samson Sports
• Sky Jac
• Tower Works Fabrication
• Wake Air

Most of these companies sell retail directly to consumers and only offer universal adjustable towers.

Local Metal Fabricator
There are local metal fabricators all around the country that have experience with bending and welding aluminum tubing. Since designing and manufacturing a wakeboard tower correctly the first time is tough no matter how skillful the metal fabricator, we do not recommend this option. The OEM and aftermarket tower manufacturers often make many prototypes and evolve their design until they reach a design that has the structural integrity and aesthetic quality they are looking for. Since this is a serious and permanent modification, the diligence that goes into correctly designing a wakeboard tower is very important.
It is highly unlikely that a small metal fabricator can build a tower perfect the first time and still be competitive with a company that builds wakeboard towers as their primary business. If a small fabricator builds enough towers, then the quality will continue to go up, the cost will go down, and the look will improve over time. At that point they become a new aftermarket tower manufacturer.

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