Poll: Has your 2015+ AR240 or 2016+ AR 19' boat tower fail or bolts back out?

[haknslash]

Self explanatory poll. It's not anonymous for anti-trolling reasons. If you do vote yes, please give the forum a brief explanation about the circumstances or events that you feel lead up to the accident. Also to help others that may be affected, please post any tips you may have come up with to help to handle your tower situation.

Thank you for participating. This data should hopefully be used to gauge whether we have a legitimate safety concern to address with Yamaha or not.

 

[swatski]

Would be nice to have some participatory management strategy/idea incorporated here, or at least a surrogate.
For example, I wonder what the results would be of similar poll on Timing Chain failures in 1.8 engines (as a reference to a "known" issue).
(Well, is it a known issue? How many timing chains broke, exactly - in 1.8 N/A engines? Do we know? I'm sure Yamaha does!)

EDIT: Are you asking about all towers? Or is it specific to, for example, 2015+ AR towers?
If the latter, there is already a thread or two on it, lol.

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[haknslash]

Any and all folding forward swept towers that use the rear locking bolt design that is in question. Older 24', 21' and 19' AR and X towers were rear folding. Older 24' Limited S forward swept towers did not fold.

This poll is specifically for:

2015+ Yamaha 24' AR's
2016+ Yamaha 19' AR's

If a newer X or Limited S owner with the forward swept tower also had issue with their tower, I'd like to keep that seperate in its own thread. Different design and locking mechanism so would rather not dirty the poll results.

I have also created a TC poll for those interested in participating. Honestly a poll should have been added to Bruce's TC thread. If he wants to do that I'm fine with it and he can close my TC poll thread. Let's keep future TC discussion in those threads.

 

[robert843]

I have had to tighten my bolts multiple times and had them come out on the water. Something I have noticed though is it typically happens after a long tow. I'm wondering anymore if it isn't from the vibrations from the shorelander trailer backing my bolts out.

 

[swatski]

I have had to tighten my bolts multiple times and had them come out on the water. Something I have noticed though is it typically happens after a long tow. I'm wondering anymore if it isn't from the vibrations from the shorelander trailer backing my bolts out.

Wow. That makes it even worse than I thought!

@swatski even with the smooth crossing today about 12 miles outside bimini @Ramblin Wreck wife said she heard a funny noise coming from the tower no BS my passenger side tower bolt backed completely out during the crossing. We screwed it back in but that was crazy for a smooth crossing.

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[mdchachi]

Sounds like we need Cobra to come up with a locking device. In the meantime wrap duct tape around the tower & knob to keep it from spinning loose.

 

[haknslash]

Added more poll options and allowed to vote in 3 places. Edited the title to be more descriptive as well. If there is more info you would like asked in the poll please let me know and I will add it.

 

[malibu Dan]

I’ll have to admit after viewing concerns about this awhile ago I find myself checking how tight the knobs are frequently and too date they have not moved...

 

[McMark]

Mine have not moved. Voted accordingly. I’ve only had the tower down 3 times. Knobs have never worked loose.

 

[dcrittzer]

One of mine(2022 AR 195) was starting to cross-thread/difficult to engage. I bought a tap and dye set and it seems better. it helps to push on the tower a bit to engage the difficult side.