Pontoon boat

landlocked68845 · Newbie Joined: 23 May 2005 Posts: 8 City: Kearney

I moved to the Midwest from the East Coast this fall and am looking for some fun in the water this summer -- possibilities include wakeboarding, wakesurfing, waterskiing, and windsurfing.

My brother-in-law bought a pontoon boat and wants us to buy in. Anyone have experience wakeboarding behind a pontoon boat? We went for a ride yesterday with 7 people on board and the wake looked okay, but small. The boat would seem to be able to take a lot more weight.

How about wakesurfing behind a pontoon boat? I know you aren't supposed to do it with outboard motors; however, the boat is pretty wide and the wake seems kinda far away.

89 skier · Addict Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 729 City: Dallas

A friend of mine has wakeboarded behind one, but I can guarantee you...you're probably going to want another boat before the end of the year.

Pontoons are great for holding a ton of people, but not for wakeboarding, unless you're just working on technique, surface tricks, etc.

And I don't have any experience weighting down a pontoon...but physics would tell me that adding weight to a pontoon isn't going to do much. The water displacement change would be minimal when adding more weight since there isn't a solid hull similar to most other boats.

matt1808 · Wakeboarder.Commie Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Posts: 1981

landlocked68845, you aren't going to be able to wakesurf, because you wont have a wake to surf really. Also wakeboarding wouldn't be fun for very long. Wakeskating would be fine behind it though, because you don't really need a wake.

As far as weighting it goes 89 skier is right it would be a big waste of money to try to. You will see almost no change and I am guessing it would kill the handeling of the boat.

Durangopprboy · Newbie Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 6 City: Durango

I bought a 24' pontoon with a pylon last year and I can speak from experience. You don’t get a usable wake behind a pontoon. We also have an older 15' ski boat and the big fight is which boat we are going to take. The wife wants all the comfort of the toon and my son and I want to wakeboard. Flat-water tricks are great for a while but you can get bored pretty quick. Also the more people weight you put on a toon the slower it is. You didn’t say what kind of speed you were getting with 7 people on board? Most toons are way under powered. My advise is if you are wanting to have a party, buy into the toon, if you really want to do the water sports get a ski boat, What we are planning on doing this year is use the toon for carrying people and gear and the ski boat for the sports, Should be a blast when we get friends out with us.

nickdakoolkat · Posted: May 25, 2005 11:06 am Post subject:

yeah, pretty much stuck to surface tricks , and ollies behind a pontoon. Nad you definately won't be doing any wake surfing behind one, the wake just isn't big enough.

thrasher · Newbie Joined: 24 Jun 2003 Posts: 34 City: northern MN

If you're looking to advance at all in wakeboarding, I'd look for something other than the pontoon. If you just want to cruise around and carve a little, then the pontoon will work.