Anyone own or owned a Pontoon Boat

[Tony T.]

Been thinking about getting one, but have never even set foot on one,on the water that is. Looking at one for around six people. Are they hard to load in windy conditions, an what is considered a good brand if I happen to come up on a good deal. I have had several boats over the years, but where all bass rigs.





Thanks for any info.



Tony

 

[BigPapa]

Tony,



What's not hard to load in the wind? Actually, the one my father had was a lot easier to load than his fishing rig. The trailer has two large "guides" that go between the pontoons. As long as you were even close it practically loaded itself. It was great fun. Plenty of room to have lots of fun and carry gear, great for families with kids(we put a little 4' wading pool on the deck INSIDE the rails for my toddler!), with a big enough motor they'll pull skiers(his had a 150 Merc), bimini top offers an area of shade for the fair complected, and they really liked it to fish from. It had a trolling motor up front and two pedestal seats on the front. A fella at church has had several and he now has one with 3 pontoons. He says it's the only way to go.



Scott

 

[MFalkinham]

We had one at our cabin on a lake while I was growing up. It had steel pontoons that had to be scraped and repainted every year (pain in the arse). All of the newer ones use aluminum pontoons. If you buy used, make sure the plywood decking is not rotted out. You can replace it with some marine grade and new carpet, but it's a pain to remove all of the sidewalls and trim.



I didn't think it was any harder to load than any other type of boat in the wind. If anything, they are more stable than a v-hull due to the pontoons down either side. I've never seen one with three pontoons on it.



I saw a lot of pontoon boats on our lake, but always thought the Sylvan brand boats were the nicest (www.sylvanmarine.com). Although some people do use pontoon boats for high-speed fun, from my experience they are best suited for no-wake slow cruising on smaller lakes. We had a 20HP Mercury outboard on ours, and it was more than enough power for our needs, and still had some acceleration to get you home fast when the rain started!



- Mike

 

[outlawram]

Bennington is a very nice brand to look into.

 

[Tony T.]

More questions about the Pontoons.

I talked to a co-worker yesterday at work that bought a new pontoon boat, a couple of years ago. He was saying there were two different kinds of pontoons injected (foam) an chambered (baffled). Now I had a little two man boat one time that was foam injected an that was a big mistake, if an when it develops a leak. First two man I'd ever owned an it would take on water. Point is the injection foam soaked the water up like a sponge an made it very heavy an you could not get rid of the water (very bad engineering on companys part IMO). Has any one experienced this on a injected pontoon if it was damaged. Like I have stated in upper post I know nothing about them.





Thanks for any info



Tony

 

[BigPapa]

Here ya go! A TRIPLE!



These folks even have on with stern drive!



http://www.jcpontoon.com/models/trident.html