Tower Placement Realization
 

A friend of mine realized and pointed something out to me about Towers and their placement and design that i never thought of before.

He has a I/O boat with an aftermarket tower that he placed on the back of the boat vs the center as is traditional. He likes it in back for a few reasons but realized last trip that this sacrifices the ability to use a longer rope. at first i did not get it, but then it really opened up my mind:

*** The longer a rope is the larger the arc you will have behind the boat to build a good edge. Also the longer the rope the less resistance to air you will have too. If his tower was mounted more forward we would have 5 to 10 additional ft. of rope, but still be riding in the same spot behind the boat. This could also be a benefit of forward swooping towers. ***

What are some other factors for tower position??
Bimini tops
aesthetics
point from which the boat will be pulled on from a hard leaned-over cut in the flats
...

well for one, when the boat is underway, the farther forward the tower is on the boat the higher up the rope attach point will be relative to the water... i see this as a major advantage