Pulling tubers and skiers with tiller motor

Anyone out there have opinion on using tiller boats for family fun?

Wondering how they work for tubing and maybe water ski purposes.

Looking at my next boat options and wanted some feedback.

My brothers old Lund 1800 with a 90 Merc tiller pulled tubes great. If you really struggle getting up to speed with a tube behind the boat, you can always swap props for more hole-shot but I doubt it would be needed.

I’m sure it would work fine. Ideal? Probably not, but it would work better than me putting a trolling motor on my Nautique.

I do it all the time for the kids. I’m running an Alumacraft 205 with 150 Merc and there isn’t a single issue. I bought the boat for fishing in mind and love the wide open space a tiller provides. Now that the kids are older and do more water activities it’s been fine for that too. Not a single regret on a tiller boat!

I did it with my 17ft6 tiller all the time, never had a issue

Only thing I can think of that might be an issue, on a busy lake, when starting out, if the nose is way up, not being able to see in front of you for a bit. As a kid, I learned to ski behind a 14′ Aluminum fishing boat with a 9.9 Johnson.

I’ve pulled tubers and skiers behind 25hp and 60hp tillers. It worked just fine.

Bet you could corner a little tighter than a console steer, too!

big_g wrote:

As a kid, I learned to ski behind a 14′ Aluminum fishing boat with a 9.9 Johnson.

My kids learned behind a 14′ with a 15 Evinrude and still like skiing behind that despite us owning a Nautique.

Tillers work great for tubing and skiing. If all I did was recreation I would get a council about. But I fish way more than I ski or tube so I got a tiller boat. In my opinion get a boat that matches whatever you do most of the time.

What’s the difference, besides how the boat is steered?

HP rating is lower for tiller, usually a factor for the tubers/skiers part.

Thanks everyone for good information. Now I just need to finish up saving haha.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

As a kid, I learned to ski behind a 14′ Aluminum fishing boat with a 9.9 Johnson.

My kids learned behind a 14′ with a 15 Evinrude

Nice thing for the skier behind the small tillers is once they get big enough they can steer the boat!