Pontoon boats

[marcucci]

Originally Posted by Hillcountry

Got an impromptu chance to try a tritoon today...it was a Berkshire 23 with a 150 merc fro Irwin. It was our first time on a tritoon or any pontoon for that matter.

Seemed like a nice boat and was visually, pleasing.

They fork lifted it into the water and the salesman took us out into paugus Bay.



First impressions were it was very quiet and smooth and as we got past the NWZ the salesguy opened it up a bit. I have to say the area was literally, inundated with boats of every kind going seemingly every which way, causing quite a chop. He slowed down and offered me the helm whereupon I throttled up to a slow cruising speed (didn't think to look at the tach or speedo) but we were probably doing 10 mph. Heading towards the channel he said "we don't go past that little island over there" so i made a sweeping turn back in the southerly direction.

The chop was getting quite heavy and I decided to test the toon by throttling up a bit but not full throttle. A huge wake appeared in front of me and as I approached it at a diagonal headway. As we hit the wake waves the boat rose up and slammed down a few times (didn't expect this from a tritoon)

I guess that's called porpoising? I guess I expected the toon to cut through without slamming. It was probably my fault for not operating correctly as I was somewhat timid with it and unfamiliar with the trim and whatnot.

I headed back to the docks and handed the helm back to the salesguy thinking about what we had just experienced.

No doubt it was a nice platform and VERY different from our 19 ft bowrider.

Bottom line was the salesguy wanted to know our thoughts and we went inside to see what kind of deal was possible but that ended quite when Mr Irwin (in another room) that all they could do on this boat was about $250 off of the $45k price tag. we looked at a bottom line Premier (Palm Beach) and weren't too impressed by that.

We have another demo on Wed. morning to try a Sweetwater at Meredith.

Quite a process ahead of us!

I just bought a Premier 220 Sunsation with a 150 4 stroke Merc at Irwin this month. PM me and I'll share all the details. What I learned, tritoons are the way to go and if you have lifting strikes you get the pounding but you get a faster (maybe more efficient) toon. Without them you get a strictly displacement hull that cuts through the waves very nicely but tops out at a lower speed. I've already taken it across the broads and in all kinds of waves and we are very happy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk