Yamaha Tower Heights - Options to Lower?

[jfabes]

Hi all. New member, first post. Been doing some reading on here as I'm in the market for a 2023 Yamaha and have some questions regarding the wake tower heights. I want to store the boat at home, I have a big 4 car unobstructed garage, but I'm limited to 8 ft high, and raising the header isn't an option. I read many posts online about ways around the height but seems it was with older Yamaha's where the tower mount and articulation was different than the newer boats. I looked at several diff models the last few weeks and took some measurements, but wanted to see if anyone here struggled with some of the same issues and has any ideas for options. Please see below and let me know your thoughts.

1) The 195S is the easy choice because it fits with the tower, but would prefer the 22'. And I don't want the SX220 because I don't want the 1.3L engines

2) My "choice" would be the 222S or 222SE, but the towers only fold down to 113" according to Yamaha. Measuring this in person though, I measured 105" which is a huge variance. I still need at least 9" though. Is there a way to get the tower to fold lower? It looks as if the restriction is it hitting the side windows whereas on the older models it appears to be just inside the windows so one could modify the mount to get it to fold lower towards the steering wheel (I watched vids for this). I don't see a way to do this with the current design unless I'm missing something

3) I considered the SX250 but to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the one color white/green exterior option (and the boat is very light on options, even the head compartment isn't "finished"). That said, I do like the AR250 because the aesthetics are much better to my eye, but again, the tower is too high folded.

4) I prefer a new boat. I'd consider a few years older if the condition, hours and price were right and it were local - but even the older Limited 24's for example, seems to have a complicated tower/bimini so not sure I could get the height.

I'm in SE Florida and this is my first boat. It will be almost exclusively in salt (or brackish) water for our family (sand bars, light fishing near shore, hanging out, etc), and while outboards are the "go to" here, I much prefer the jets due to style of the back of the boat. The Scarabs are beautiful, but have an issue spending $70k+ on a 19' boat the way I would configure it. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any ideas on how I can move forward.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[anmut]

If your main concern is fitting it into your garage, I think you already answered your own questions on which boat to get. There are some guys that will air down the tires and/or use different hitches to sneak the boat, but that's when we're talking an inch or so.

Here's a question for you - if you're willing to take a brand new boat and modify it to fit your garage, why wouldn't you just modify the garage to fit the boat, and get the boat your really want? Because if you modify a boat, you're taking value away from it. If you modify your garage, you'll be adding value.

 

[jfabes]

Thanks, appreciate the reply. Regarding the garage, the deed restrictions for my neighborhood prohibit any garage headers higher than 8ft. I confirmed with the architectural committee as well - it's a no-go.

The tower mod I was referring to was simply removing the "stops" under the tower so it folds farther, nothing permanent that would decrease its value. But as I mentioned, I don't see that mod working on on the newer boats since the tower hits the side windows when bottomed out. At least that's what I saw.

 

[adrianp89]

Sounds like money isn't a concern here.

Go with a SX250, it is by far the best boat of your options, especially considering the Atlantic. Get it wrapped in any color you want ($5k) then get some custom sea-dek ($2k), add a stereo and a MFD for navigation and have a pretty damn sick boat.

 

[anmut]

So you can't go higher on the header... can you go lower on the floor?

 

[kgower]

Thanks, appreciate the reply. Regarding the garage, the deed restrictions for my neighborhood prohibit any garage headers higher than 8ft. I confirmed with the architectural committee as well - it's a no-go.

The tower mod I was referring to was simply removing the "stops" under the tower so it folds farther, nothing permanent that would decrease its value. But as I mentioned, I don't see that mod working on on the newer boats since the tower hits the side windows when bottomed out. At least that's what I saw.

We are 195s owners and did enjoy storing our boat in the garage. We were unable to continue that 18 months ago when we moved as the garage of the new house is too short. We currently rent a storage unit at a marina (12 X 12 X 30), which works well but isn't as convenient as having at the house.
I don't won't people grabbing and hanging on to a Bimini for balance et cetera, just not that strong IMHO. So, for me no tower no boat, at least in the Yamaha line of boats.

 

[jfabes]

Thanks to all for the comments, nice to hear different points of view. Def some things for me to think about. I did plan to redo the stereo regardless of which Yamaha I went with, so that's a given. I do like the speakers on the swim platform on the larger boats, but at least on the 195S I can add some to the wake tower and not worry about it fitting with the garage height.

I'd love to have something now, but who knows, the 2024 Yamaha line may have some welcome changes that I can wait for. And I can boat all year here so it's not like if I don't have something by end of summer, I won't be able to use it.

On a side note, I was on Scarab's site last night and it appears they lowered the prices of their boats $5-$7k, plus offering $1200 savings on certain models. Has anyone seen this big price reduction? I built both the 195 and 215 ID's and they were both MUCH less than a week ago with the same options.