Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

oK, I know the title of this post is "self serving", but since there were no other posts on this forum Saturday, I thought why not. For those of you familiar with my posts you know that I am new to boating having bought our toon back at the end of last season. You also know that I have on more than 1 occasion belly ached about my difficulties in unloading, and more specifically, putting the toon back on the trailer. Well today me and momma took the toon out to the lake.... in a nutshell:

Cons: ( let's get the bad out of the way first )
1- Hot as hell, 100 degrees, no breeze...
2- Fish not biting. between me and my wife we caught about 9 in 3 hours and 7 of those were slightly ( and I mean " slightly" larger than the night crawlers we were using

Pros:
1- Actually launched the boat without any trouble at all ( YEA ME )
2- Even more surprising, I put that sucker back on the trailer first time, almost like I actually knew what the heck I was doing. ( YEA ME AGAIN )
3- Since we plan to go back out sunday, we brought the boat back to the house instead of going back to the storage facility, that meant having to back her up a single car drive that's about 185 feet long... I must be living right this week, 'cause I got that trailer backed up the drive way almost without any issues. Had to stop and pull forward to correct once, but other than that, SUCCESS.. ( You know whats coming --- YEA ME, YEA ME, YEA ME )

Yes, it was a good day...hot, but just being out on the lake on the weekend with my bride of nearly 30 years was a nice way to spend the day. I do have a question though, we were running along at about 4800 rpm's, nice and smooth when all at once, it felt like the motor lost all power. I immediately pulled it into nuetral.. First thought was that maybe some moss or something had gotten wrapped around the prop... trimmed her up, nothing on the prop.. trimmed her back down, put her in gear and she ran just like she was supposed to... just that one time.. The rest of the time she ran fine... any thoughts? Hey guys, please don't rip me a new one too bad here for the "pros" and the Yea me section of this post. I'm not really bragging here, really more or less poking fun at myself. Hope you all are having a great weekend...

lol----come back and brag when you can put it on the trailer in the Red River Bossier side in a 5 knot current. Just kiddin--good job--it's definitely a challenge to handle a toon vs a bass boat at the ramp. Heck--Stevie Wonder can load a bass boat. Toon is another story--and backing it into a narrow drive is fun sometimes too.

Dont forget you have a height prob with a toon also--seen people who have hit overhanging tree limbs, etc. Toons take a little more planning than regular boats.

See I told you be a pro in no time, Yea and the heat is a killer, I was painting an house and it was 100 with a 106 heat index.

HandymanHerb wrote:See I told you be a pro in no time, Yea and the heat is a killer, I was painting an house and it was 100 with a 106 heat index.

Welll sure as hell not bragging today.... went back out on caddo lake this afternoon... off the trailer no problem, but putting it back on... got cock-eyed the first attempt, pulled her back off, made a second run and all's well that ends well.... Had a few boats waiting behind me but I made up my mind not to get nervous because of them... if it takes 2 or 3 trys to get it loaded, then it takes 2 or 3 tries.... It actually only took me about 2 minutes of extra time to pull off and reload... no big deal.

ROLAND wrote:

HandymanHerb wrote:See I told you be a pro in no time, Yea and the heat is a killer, I was painting an house and it was 100 with a 106 heat index.

Welll sure as hell not bragging today.... went back out on caddo lake this afternoon... off the trailer no problem, but putting it back on... got cock-eyed the first attempt, pulled her back off, made a second run and all's well that ends well.... Had a few boats waiting behind me but I made up my mind not to get nervous because of them... if it takes 2 or 3 trys to get it loaded, then it takes 2 or 3 tries.... It actually only took me about 2 minutes of extra time to pull off and reload... no big deal.

I put a piece of duct tape on top of my front fence that lines up with my toon boards--sorta acts like a gun sight I guess---works pretty good. Just put it on when you are on the trailer and get your eyeballs lined up like a gunsight.

Can't help with the trailing question. I am fortunate to live on the lake and have a nice covered slip with a lift. I modified it this past weekend to accomodate the pontoon boat that should arrive in about 3 weeks. When I last had a pontoon (several years ago), getting the thing in the slip without banging it up was always a chore if the wind kicked up. I can imagine how getting one on a trailer could be tricky in the wind.

My Ranger and Ranger Trailer combo was a breeze to load. Do they make 'drive-on' trailers for pontoons? Can you add some uprights to help center the boat as you start to drive on to the trailer?

Roland,
My only thought on the sputtering is maybe a little something passing through a fuel line??? Since it happened once, and then ran fine, that would be my guess.

The main reason for my reply is this.... I enjoy your "I'm building confidence" posts. I, too, am new to the pontoon world. Every time we load and unload the boat, we feel more comfortable with it. I've had boats in the past and "pointy-nosed", low-profile, fiberglass is a lot easier to load than square, tall, lightweight, aluminum when you have a cross breeze. No big mishaps so far, though, and loving every minute of having a pontoon.

smlranger wrote: Can you add some uprights to help center the boat as you start to drive on to the trailer?

Great minds think alike actually bought a set of 48 inch guides to go on the trailer.. just haven't gotten around to putting them on.... I don't know if they'll help, but they sure can't hurt anything...

Shorelander has inner bunk guides available for my trailer they are 16 foot long, I put them on and it makes it much easier to get it lined up perfectly.

> "it felt like the motor lost all power"

did the rpms increase or decrease?

increase... prop lost bite, try different pitch props
decrease... probably fuel delivery issue, check filters

for the heat--is your boat a 2-toon? hang a hammock or two underneath
from the cross members. suspend it so your butt & back are touching
the water... unless you live down by herb with those goddam gator things
and those frickin snakes. in that case, stay in the air conditioning!

After reading all these threads, I'm sure glad my wife can't back a trailer. I get such a kick watching my beautiful, petite wife of 30 years hit the trailer probably about 95% the first time. It can be very windy at "our" lake. Even in high winds she is able to steer into the wind and straighten out at the trailer. If she does miss, she keeps her cool ( I had to learn the same watching her).

whe n itswindy i have thewife pull the trailer so the back bunks are just in the water then when i get the toon one she slowly backs in while i slowly put her on she doesnt move much then when its on the bunks and we have a nasty current tht can pull you down stream and the ramp stcks straight out so we are realy a good team only missed onced the wife was in the boat now it doesnt matter who drive we have it down att least i hope so.