Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

My wife and I purchased our first boat earlier this year – a small bow rider (19.5’ Scarab jet). I enjoy skiing and knee boarding and wanted a boat capable of towing. While we use the boat for those things, we surprisingly find that the majority of our time is spent floating, playing in the water, and listening to tunes. We have quickly found this platform does not provide the room that we want, even with only 4 on the boat. Our salesman told us that the first boat would let us know what we want and don’t want, and we consider ourselves fast learners….so…we are in the market for a pontoon.

We have narrowed the manufacturer to Harris, and are leaning towards the Cruiser 220 with 200 HP. Our usual outings are 4 adults on board, but 6 or 8 won’t be uncommon. May consider the Cruiser 200 with 150 HP, but we don’t wanna be shopping again for at least a few years!! The salesman is attending dealer meetings and when he returns we will get additional information about the 2017 models.

In the meantime I’ll continue searching the forum to learn as much as I can to make an informed decision.

I would suggest you have an in water demo of each boat--if possible. I assume you're talking about Yamaha F150 vs. F200 motors?

I'm perfectly happy with my F150 on a Bennington 24SSLX tritoon, and am seeing 40 mph @ 6000 rpms with a Yamaha Reliance 15 pitch propeller. We seldom really throw the throttle to the boat--with most time cruising @ 3500 rpms. 150 hp produces plenty of power, and it steers okay with SeaStar hydraulic steering.

If you are into a lot of water sports (skiing and tubes), 200 hp might be warranted--and you might see a 3 mph increase. My problem is that price difference is approx. $2,800 (vs. 150 hp) plus SeaStar power steering assist will be required at around $3,000. Many owners love the power steering, especially if you're doing a bunch of tight turns. (Our boat's mainly run in straight lines cruising.)

Either way you cannot lose. Many 90 and 115 hp owners are the ones I so often see trading up on engines. The 150s are substantially stronger engines than the 115 hp's.

Demos will take place over the next couple of weeks.

Motors are Mercurys, as they are "partnered" with Harris. I have not explored the Yamaha possibility, so have no real basis for preferring one over the other. It does seem that most concur 150 and 200 are much preferred over 115 and 175.

When we switched from a 26 ft Sea Ray to our Berkshire Tritoon almost 2 years ago, I spent some time looking at Yamaha's performance results for both the 150, 200 and 250 hp engines. They are on Yamaha's website. I looked at every manufacturer that they listed with actual test results.

http://yamahaoutboards.com/owner-resour ... -bulletins

For us, the Yamaha F200 LB on this 24 ft tritoon with lifting strakes offered the best power, economy, speed , etc for the buck. Most boat manufacturers will suggest that anything OVER 150 hp should have hydraulic power steering...... we have Sea Star Power steering and it's a PLEASURE to drive. Love it !!!

Check out Yamaha's performance specs for their engines on all the different pontoon boats and see what you think meets your needs. It's good data for some realistic comparisons. I looked at all the boats that most closely resembled our boat.

After 4 great years with our Sea Ray Bow Rider with the big block Mercruiser 496.......... THIS Tritoon with the Yamaha 200 is WAY more useful, economical and a much better fit for our boating interest.

Icing on the cake was AFTER we had factory ordered our boat, and engine, I saw a Yamaha promotion for an additional 3 years extended full warranty if you took delivery of your new engine by Nov 18....... we ordered the boat/engine in mid Sept.... the offer came out at the end of Sept. So I got a total of 6 full years of full warranty on the engine for no costs.... a $2300 savings. I don't know if Yamaha does this each fall, but you might want to check to see if they still do things like this.

If you're stuck on Harris, just go with the Merc. If you could swing it financially for a Verado 225 hp, a simple Simon Motorsports ECU flash can get you to 315 hp--for $650. And with that, you'd have a real performer.

I've watched my Harris dealer go from rigging Mercury 150's two years ago, to 175's last year, and when I was there last spring, showroom boats were wearing Verado 200's.

Their triple toons beg for more horsepower and are great performer in the chop. Get the PIII performance hull on the Cruiser, if it's available.

Consider that 50gallon gas tank in the 3rd toon if you run big horsepower.

Welcome to the club.