Opinions wanted: High Speed Fiberglass pontoon Boats

Working for a Fiberglass pontoon boat manufacturer on the west coast of Fl ,we have been building more and more ,What I call Hi performance Fiberglass pontoon boats(50+ mph single power),most of our boats range from 20'X8' to 30' X 10' some having 2 pontoons and others having 3,Our pontoons have a 10 degree V bottom ,no pad ,strakes or chines,they run good and will plane easy.Now we have built a HP bottom that we install over the bottom of our exsisting pontoons ,we added 5" wide chines that angle down 20 degree's ,this has increased our speeds as much as 12 mph on the same hull,we are considering building a new 35' pontoon mold that will incorporate a sharper V entry ,with a step to a Pad bottom with our already proven downward chines.My question to all is ,is there enough people out there that want or can use such a versatile boat ??? Please give me your input !! john

 

hello John,
my company is currently looking for a fiberglass pontoon boat in the 30ft range to be used for dive and snorkeling tours here in the Caribbean.
we don't need all the speed as a work boat. Does the company you work for make such a boat?

 

CATAMARAN COACHES INC. Can build to fit your needs

Just give us a call 941-685-9374 we can build from 16' to 70' at any beam with twin or tri-toon for shallow draft or rough seas,let us know more details and we can get you a price john look at our web site CATAMARANCOACHES.COM

 

Stodgy old dude that I am, I never understood why a pontoon boat needs to go fast. If that is what the market demands, then that is what you should build. It is pleasing to learn that you are building these boats with a design concept different from the woefully inefficient round aluminum tubes. I believe that caution is in order because of the current state of the economy. B uilding boats on spec is chancy business these days.

 

Market Differentiation...

What you have is called market differentiation. You have a product that will perform better than the others in the market and the market will reward you if you are priced similarily, or you can make more money per boat if you can offer more value.

Value in the mind of the customer is how much it costs him to cruise to where he wants to go. Even if you don't go faster, if you have a more efficient hull, you can go the same speed on less power, which takes less fuel to do it. For instance, if your boat can go 30 kts with a 50 hp engine, and the others in the same price class need 60 hp, then you have a better fuel economy and that is a salable feature.

I have always thought that there was a market for a better, more efficient pontoon boat, and if you can produce your hull for somewhere near the price of the aluminum tube ones, you should be able to sell it.

 

Thanks for your input !

We have just lately been able to compare apples to apples on our pontoon boats compared to others AL one's,we just built a 20' X 8',we took a 40hp Etec off a 20' al pontoon and installed ,we had several extra's on our boat,biggest being a 12' hard to to there 8' al bimmini,not sure of the weight different but Im sure we were 1.5 times heavier at least,we ended up with a 3 mph better top end and only had a 5" draft compared to 11" on the AL boat

our second apple to apple comparison was on a 24' X 8 AL to our 24' X 8.5 with a 90 hp,we were 6.4 mph faster top end ,and drafted 7" to the AL boats 14"

These were done both with our standard bottom not our HP bottom,Hope to compare some of our tri-toons soon john

 

Not sure about Florida, but there's definitely a market for a faster pontoon boat up in Ontario cottage country. The round-tube aluminum ones are breeding like crazy up here as the 'baby boomers' are beginning to appreciate the virtues of a boat that you walk onto, from dock level, rather than clambering down into. The downsides: 12 mph instead of the 30 mph that sportboat types are used to, and most pontoon boats are next to useless in waves more than a foot or two high. If your boat addresses either of these issues, your marketing guys may as well be shooting fish in a barrel.

It would be interesting to see a boat such as you describe up here. I think if it could be brought in at a price point similar to the more luxurious aluminum pontoons, it could be a strong seller.

One other note. A tri-hull with V-bottom hulls at 50 mph is not what most people think of when they talk about a pontoon boat. It sounds like it might be behaving something like a twin tunnel surface-effect ship at these speeds.

 

Thanks Matt

Our boat will handle 1-3' pretty well,one of our good customers just took his boat from Sarasota to key west,he ran the coast to naples and refueled and shoot across fl bay,it was a 32X 10 tritoon with a 225 merc,he said he cruised at 32 mph,said he was out to the light house every day diving ,he's planning another trip to key west with a trip from key west to fort jefferson in tortougas!

 

last post picks of a 28.5 X 10 cat

heres the tritoon

 

John,

Is the prop of the outboard behind the central hull of the tritoon, or below it? Because it looks like you could get more performance with better flow to the prop. Maybe by shortening /tapering the central hull, offsetting the loss in bouyency by extending the outer hulls.

I'm no expert, but your hull form has similarities with a boat I'm designing:

 

We run all outboards

either mounted to our center pontoon or our wedge motor bracket,we have just started lowering our middle pontoon and getting great speed resluts,we are able to carry the outside pontoons much higher ,resulting in less drag and more speed,our current pontoon is 29"s deep and 24" wide at chine ,our new larger pontoon will be 30" wide at chine and 34"s tall ,we will try putting our new pontoon between two of our smaller ones and see what we get,we are also adding Rocker to our new pontoon to try to carry our bow higher for better rough water capabilitys,we have many 50 Mph pontoons now but looking to make them fast with less HP ,to lower costs,were finding most people only need speeds up to 40 mph,only our fishermen that run 10-40 miles offshore seem to want more speed !

 

dog likes the boat too
higher speed at wot or better economy or smaller ob it are all pro's

 

Heres one of our Latest FAST Boats

This is a 26/22 X 10 with 250 suzuki mid 50's

 

now heres the pics

Pics of blue 26/22X10 and yellow 34/28.5 X 10

 

Coppy Cat Boats

It is sad that in my many years of boating we have seen many copy "splash" boats and many from the infamous Lightning Boats that has splashed almost every good boat over the years. Now these people have copied a very hard working gentleman that started and continues to make the best fiberglass pontoons in the US ...... he is modest and a hard worker and is not on Forums
as he is much too busy. Look him up on on A&M Manufacturing or A&M Pontoons ....his name is Glen Davis. You WILL see why everyone copies him.
He is the original and has forgotten more than these "NEW" copy cats will
ever know. Please do your homework and beware of the West Coast Boys.