Hi Everybody!

[lazyriver]

Hi Everybody,

Im Bill from sw ont. I just recently purchased my first boat. it is a 24' riviera cruiser pontoon boat with a 35hp merc. it is nowhere near as nice and fancy as the majority of the boats on this forum but i thought it would make a good entry level boat for the Mrs and Myself.

I have been lurking this forum almost a month now and have gotten some great info from it so far!

And before it becomes THAT obvious.... i know absolutely NOTHING about boats.. Fortunately i bought the boat from my neighbour who has been pretty good for showing me a few things in regards to upkeep and such.

I got one good weekend of use from it before the weather started getting bad around here so we decided to pull it out of the water till spring... its going to be a LONG winter now! Im in love with this boat and am very glad my wife talked me into buying it!

aside from cleaning up a few things on the boat, i also need to build myself a dock. (and get boat licenses for the wife and myself)


thanks for having me as a member!
Billy.

[Texoma Toon]

Welcome Bill!
I see two things on your toon that standout. A bar-b-que and a cooler! Oh yeah and it floats....
What more do you need.

[HandymanHerb]

Welcome Bill, Glad to have you with us, nice looking toon !!!

[dockholiday]

Welcome Bill guess the best advice to give is make sure your motor is reliable and runs fairly good. Nothing like getting stranded constantly to turn the wife an you guest sour on pontoons an boating. The other stuff can be taken care of later....

Congrats and enjoy
doc

[Heatman]

Welcome to the forum! You need a boat license where you live?

[lazyriver]

Welcome to the forum! You need a boat license where you live?

yep. im told its not too big of a fuss. not a bad idea for newbies like myself who could use a crash course.

[lakerunner]

Howdey

[ROLAND]

Hi Bill, welcome to the group.... glad you joined... any questions, fire away.... there's a lot of knowledge on this forum... good bet whatever you ask about someone on here has been there and done that....I was a newbie 2 years ago and these guys have been instrumental in teaching me the ropes.... again, welcome

[wwind3]

welcome tothe group

[tuned]

Welcome Billy (and wife)!
I spend a lot of time in NW Ontario, so I guess we are almost neighbors.
You will meet a lot of great people here that are very happy to help with any questions that you have. There are no 'pontoon snobs' on this forum.
People will not laugh at and tease you if you ask a rookie question....that comes later for other reasons Just kidding, mate.

[redbeard]

Welcome to the forum, nice toon and don't forget to have FUN that's what its all about. These guys will be alot of help just ask.

[Capt Sully]

Welcome aboard, nich BBQ, got to enjoy that.

[lazyriver]

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome!

I have already ditched the bbq as i would prefer something smaller that doesn't take up so much real estate. i would prefer to pick up something that i can mount to the railing (or is it called fence??) or to a pedestal.

about the only other thing i have planned for the winter besides a bbq, and dock is maybe to replace the sheet metal. ive read that it can be a little tricky but i will try a couple small areas as a test and see where things take me from there. if the existing metal wasn't textured, i would just paint, but in this case i think the best plan would be to replace .

i still have much reading to do on here before i set any plans in motion, but i feel that it is going to be a loooooooong winter now that this boat is all i can think of right now...lol.

[RobRoy]

Welcome to the forum! You need a boat license where you live?

yep. im told its not too big of a fuss. not a bad idea for newbies like myself who could use a crash course.

I thought 'CRASH COURSES' were how you actually learned how to drive one ?

Nice lookin' floating BBQ you got there ! Did wheels come as an option ? LOL

[Bamaman]

Welcome Bill! Everybody's got to start somewhere. Your boat looks really good.

My suggestions on any used boat purchase:

1. Ask when the water pump impeller was changed--since you know the previous owner. They're usually changed every 3 years.
2. Change the lower unit grease--looking to see if there's any milkiness to the grease after it drains (looking for water contamination.) This is an every Fall maintenance.
3. If the boat has a trailer, have the wheel hubs repacked with new grease--whether it is needed or not. You don't want any trailer surprises.