This past winter I recently decided to purchase a tower for my 2006 Mastercraft 245. The original tower that would of come with this boat is discontinued so I researched all my options and a variety of brands. The Mastercraft ZFT-3 (2007-2010 model) tower is definitely an awesome look but it was hard to justify the price and be limited to 4 boards unless I were to install the Z-5 cargo rack. It also seemed to have a lot of mixed reviews.
I ended up calling Scott at Samson Sports and he had never built a tower for this model boat before, but he knew of an X-45 locally that he could take measurements from. I ultimately went with the Samson blade tower and am extremely happy with it. The tower is rock solid and it lowers with ease if I never needed to take it down. It has room for 4 sets of board racks. The visibility of not having front tower legs is definitely a huge plus with the two point tower. It came prewired for tower speakers as well easy installation in the future.
They sent me a variety of powder coat samples and I ended up choosing a white base with tiny blue and gold specs in it. The specs are very faint, but it gives it a slight shimmer in the sunlight. I chose a Captain Navy Sunbrella Bimini to tie everything together color wise. Samson was able to make the bimini a little bit larger for me as well.
I also found some Mastercraft clamping board racks on ebay and Samon Towers was able to retrofit it to their swivel board racks. I’d like to use the boat this summer and decide what additional type of board rack I’d be more likely to use before buying another one…whether it be 2 surf boards, 2 wakeboards, or a combo etc.
I had the tower shipped to Dockside Marine close to Lake Conroe and they installed the tower for me with no issues. The service there has always been top notch in my experience. A big thanks to Scott at Samson Sports and the service team at Dockside Marine!
I know this thread is not complete by WW standards without proper pictures of it in the water, so I will post those as soon as I can get on the lake.
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