Tuna Towers

Over the years, tuna towers evolved from a simple mast and crow’s nest into incredibly useful tools and awesome works of engineering. Crews fishing the famed Tuna Alley at Cat Cay helped make tuna towers an integral part of sport-fishing boats — with intricate steering, engine control systems and complete electronics suites.

Less than a handful of crews still fish the edge at Cat Cay for the spring migration of giant bluefin tuna these days, but many boats still come rigged with a tuna tower. It’s usually pretty easy to spot which towers are ornamental and which ones actually get used — most people won’t waste a ton of energy and money to build a tower and not equip it with steering, navigation systems and controls, but it does happen.

Any good crew today seriously fishing dredges, or any that understands the advantages that fishing from the tower offers, usually has at least one crewman up in the tower to ensure greater success. Increased visibility, not only for seeing greater distances but also for spotting fish down deep behind the boat in the spread, is the greatest advantage a tower offers.

Several criteria must be met when designing a tuna tower (one that actually serves the purpose of fishing, and is not just another place to sit). First and foremost, a tower needs to be easily accessible for crew, kids and guests of all ages. If it’s too steep to climb safely and comfortably, no one will use it.

In order to avoid a death-defying climb, the angles of the ladders need to be considered prior to building the tower. When we built Brier Patch, we knew we wanted a tower that was easier to climb than what the industry standard dictated — not only for our crew, but also for our guests who like to ride up in the tower, whether fishing or running up on the Bahama Banks.

What Goes Up Must Come Down
Back in the day, the Tuna Alley towers came with a bit more forward angle on the ladders — some with a great deal more. At Cat Cay, fishing crews spent the entire day in the tower, and at least one crew member made numerous trips up and down the ladders, even while under way. The forward angle made climbing more like going up stairs. Today, many boats fishing sailfish tournaments have a tower man to watch the dredges, and his job is much easier if he’s in a tower that’s been built properly.

Many towers built today come with a steep 8-degree angle on the back ladders, and they’re not nearly as easy to climb, especially when under way. The larger-diameter, heavy-schedule 80 pipe that’s now required as a consequence of faster boat speeds doesn’t help you get a good grip, either.

Builders like Merritt’s Boat & Engine Works started using a more friendly 10-degree forward angle (the other 72s in Merritt’s line have the 10-degree angle) but we wanted to go even further. To get an even easier climb for guests and crew on Brier Patch, we met with tower builder Jack Hopewell of Marine Welding and made a simple 2-degree adjustment, setting our ladders at a 12-degree angle. This 2-degree difference put the platform floor 1½ feet farther forward than other towers at that height, so it didn’t adversely affect the hardtop placement and enclosure. But it certainly made the climb up to the tower a much safer and easier journey.

The “ring” is the band atop the tower that holds the crew securely on the perch. It’s usually outfitted with a cushioned bellyband a bit above waist height. If the ring is too large, you risk not being able to “lock” yourself into the tower in rough seas. The size of the ring also affects the height and the look of the tower. Oftentimes, folks want a large platform in order to have a bunch of people in the tower at the same time. That’s a shame, because the other 98 percent of the time when the tower is in use, it won’t be set up right, making for long days for the tower man.

I recently captained a sport-fisherman that boasted a tower equipped with split, single-lever controls on either side of the helm pod. This is all wrong for serious fishing. When running the boat from the tower, you need to be able to steer with one hand, usually the left, and make throttle adjustments with the right — especially when trying to bait fish. With split controls, you have to take your hand off the wheel to adjust speed, and to steer you have to take your hands off the gear lever, and then you can’t adjust speed.

The buggy top is the highest point of the tower, and it represents the most likely place for a failure to occur. When I say failure, I mean cracks or breaks, usually at a weld. The desire to get all the satellite and other antennas to the highest point possible — on top of the buggy top — leads to increased weight and stress, causing more problems for the builders. Now it’s common to see very robust pipe and a more inward angle to the buggy-top supports. The problem is, when that angle gets to be too great, you end up hitting your head on the support pipes. So keeping that angle reasonable and comfortable for those in the tower is important. It also helps to keep as much weight as possible off the buggy top.