Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Underskinning or underpinning what you want to call it. Man what a deal. I grew up on my dads 24 barge with a 50 on it and never realized what was going on till I got mine with a 150.

The speed at which we like to cruz at, I could see water shooting out the side (hitting the crossmembers), over the toon, right in front of the helm causing it to lunge when I'd cross a wake. As I speed up, the boat comes up, and water ceases to exit the side of the boat,and all is well but... a little too fast. So, I bought a 2x8 piece of aluminum and put four foot under both sides and it helped a bunch at said cruz speed. That took all of twenty minutes, BUT with All 5 kids up front (which is rare) I still had the same problem with them holding the nose down. So I'm gonna put the skin 4 more feet on both sides just for the heck of it. It really helps stop that lunging feeling while off plane.

Where did you get your aluminum?

lakerunner wrote:Where did you get your aluminum?

yeah, spill it that shitz expensive

I had my parts man get a price for me and I'd bet he either called Ryerson which I think is in Fort Smith or Wheeler in Muskogee but either way the going price per sheet is within a few bucks. Don't quote me but I think it was around 85 bucks a 4x8 sheet of 1/16". So far I'm only in it for 40 since I just used a 22" wide piece long enough to cover two crossmembers on each side, but I'm puttin the other 2x4 on since I've seen the results and see if it gets any better.

Have you seen this product? Man I read about this in PDB and I thought it was pretty cool, but a little pricy. It is kind of like adding a 3rd log to a boat like yours, but it is supposed to really help boats with smaller HP motors like yours.

Pontoon Water Glide Inc. Want Gas Savings? Want speed increase?...
Bend, OR 888.311.8313
http://www.pontoonwaterglide.com/pdb

texaspontoon wrote:Have you seen this product? Man I read about this in PDB and I thought it was pretty cool, but a little pricy. It is kind of like adding a 3rd log to a boat like yours, but it is supposed to really help boats with smaller HP motors like yours.

Pontoon Water Glide Inc. Want Gas Savings? Want speed increase?...
Bend, OR 888.311.8313
http://www.pontoonwaterglide.com/pdb

Cheaper to add a third toon and you get more flotation

Boat like mine??....check out my signature.

I called the good folks at Water Glide and ask about benefits for my toon. They told me it would not provide any benefit for my 50hp, if I remember right I was told for a 20 foot toon I would need at least a 60-75 hp to see benefit. I found them to be a very honest company.

I would love to know if the underskin would do anything for me,

Did you use rivets to attach the under skinning????

If so what size???

I just got my aluminum cut to size today, hopefully I can skin it This weekend.

Check your local scrap yard or recycler. I got enough to do my 25' Crest for $80. They were not 4’ X 8’ sheets. They were 4’ X 6’ sheets and I installed them with the 6' edge going across. These sheets were not good enough to use for body work, but they did not have any dents or cuts in them.

I used 1/2" long self tapping screws with a 5/16 hex head, and a cordless. That made it easy with the help of one of my boys holding the other end. The hard part was when I had to belly crawl under the trailer and sit sideways on the trailer between the center toon and the outside one...lol Man I couldn't way to get outa there. There's about 22 1/4 inches between the toon mounts and the crossmembers are on 2' centers. I put three screws in each member and overlapped the back edge because the original skin was flush with the front edge of the beam. When I add another 4' I'll be about 3/4's the way to the front and that should be good enough. I mean it's pretty dang good now for just a few people in the back but when they move forward I can feel water hitting the beams. Right now the floor is a little over half covered. So I figure if I can get two more beams covered it'll be sweet.
Before I put anything on, the boat had like the back 1/3 covered. Guess I'm kinda weird about stuff like that. But with all that water gushing out the sides and that whole surging feeling just made me want to get past it and go faster. So after covering a couple of beams I can definitely say it was worth it and will cover a couple more just to see if it get's any better when loaded more to the front.

My goal for this winter is to underskin the rest of the PC...going to be fun...lol.

So would underskinning a 2 logger help much? DO you try to "seal" it with caulk & everything to keep as much water out, or just install aluminum to the bottom? Thanks,

Tom

My two logger is underskinned from the factory. No caulking around the edges. You just want a flat surface on the underside of the deck so that the water doesn't hit the flooring crossmembers and slow you down. It doesn't need to be water tight.

On a side note, I've never seen water come even close to my floor on the underside of our boat, and I've seen it going about 20mph in a descent chop.

so does anybody have any before & after test results with the underskin?


Tom