2014 Sylvan Mirage 8522, twin 25 inch tubes, Yamaha 90 four stroke on the back. bought it in 2019 and it has been fine for what we did with it, which was ride around at 18 mph and swim off the back.
the grandkids are 9 and 12 now and they want to be dragged around on a tube behind it. with four people and a cooler on board the 90 gets us on plane eventually and about 21 mph, and pulling a kid it just does not want to come up. and Gull Lake on a saturday after about two in the afternoon is a washing machine, every boat on the lake is throwing wake at every other boat, and mine slaps hard enough that my wife stopped coming.
so i am shopping. every used boat i look at that would fix the ride is a tritoon and costs seven to nine grand more than the same size twin tube with the same hours. what am i actually buying with that third tube. is it just a place to hang more horsepower, or does it change the ride the way people say it does. i do not want to spend nine grand on a badge.
the third tube by itself buys you buoyancy and a higher horsepower rating on the capacity plate. that is all it buys you. the ride change people are describing comes from what the builder puts on the tubes when they build a performance package, and you can buy a third tube without any of it.
the parts that matter, in the order they matter at the counter here:
lifting strakes. those are the fins welded along the tube. they lift the tube out of the water at speed instead of letting it plow. no strakes, no speed, third tube or not.
full length sheeting under the deck between the tubes. keeps water from coming up between the tubes and beating on the plywood, and it is why some boats sound like a drum in chop and some do not.
tube diameter. going 25 to 27 raises the whole boat and gives you more reserve when four adults stand on one corner.
where the center tube sits. some builders drop it lower than the outer two, some hang it level. a dropped center tube is what makes the boat corner like it is on rails, and a level one mostly just holds it up.
numbers off boats i have run: a 22 foot twin 25 with a 90, four people and gear, about 22 to 24 on a flat morning. a 23 foot tritoon on 27s with strakes and a 150, same load, 38 to 42. the corner is the bigger difference. a tritoon leans into the turn because the outside tube has something to bite. a twin tube skids flat and the people on the bench slide sideways.
for pulling a tube behind you, the horsepower rating is the whole question. your 8522 plate is probably 115 max. you cannot fix that with a prop.
nobody warns you about the part that costs money after the boat. a tritoon is 700 to 1,000 pounds heavier dry than the same length twin tube, and the outer tubes sit wider apart. so your bunks do not line up anymore, on the trailer or on the lift.
my neighbor went from a 20 foot twin to a 24 tritoon two summers ago and his 3,000 pound cable lift was suddenly not enough boat lift. dry weight 2,850, motor 480, full fuel, three batteries, cooler, and he was over. he ended up buying a 4,500 and moving the guide posts, which was another 3,900 on top of the boat.
so when you price the nine grand difference stan, price the lift with it. and go measure the distance between your lift bunks before you fall in love with anything.
going to be the one who says keep the two tubes. i have a 20 foot Crestliner on twin 25s with a 60 and a bow mount trolling motor, and it is the best fishing platform i have ever owned. i troll leeches at 1.1 mph, i anchor on a bar, i eat lunch at a table. it does 19 wide open and i have never once wished it did 40.
the question is not two or three. the question is what the boat is for. yours is now a ski boat that happens to have a fence around it, so yes, buy the tritoon. but half the people reading this are being told they need a third tube for a lake where they never go faster than a no wake zone, and they do not.
forty one summers on West Okoboji and i have owned both. the two things i would add.
fuel. my old twin tube with a 115 burned about 5 gallons an hour cruising. the tritoon with the 200 burns 9 to 10 doing the same speed and 14 if i am dragging kids all afternoon. that is a real number over a season, mine is about 260 gallons a year now against 150 before.
and rough water. a tritoon is better in chop, it is not good in chop. it is a flat deck bolted to three cylinders. when the wind comes up out here and you have two miles of open water to get home, you are still slowing down to 12 mph and taking it on the corner of the bow, same as everybody. anyone who tells you a third tube makes it a deep vee has not run one across a big lake with a north wind.
bill_at_the_marina wroteyour 8522 plate is probably 115 max. you cannot fix that with a prop.
went and looked. 115 max, 1,400 pounds persons and gear. so that settles the tube pulling question, the boat i have is not the boat for it no matter what i hang on the transom.
rode in two tritoons before the water got cold. one had strakes and a 200 and it was a different animal, it hooked up in a corner and stayed flat when a wake crossed it. the other one was a bare three tube with a 115 and honestly it felt like my boat with extra weight. bill was right, the tube count is not the thing, the package is the thing. i would have paid for the wrong one if i had shopped by the word tritoon.
for anybody else reading this later, the capacity plate rules and the registration side are on the DNR site at dnr.state.mn.us, and the plate on the boat beats anything a salesman tells you.
shopping over the winter. jo, i measured the lift, 96 inches between bunks and 3,500 pound rating, so that is a conversation with my wife i have not had yet.
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