BURNSMAZZ

PREMIER, hands down!

Harper220

We have a Playcraft with a 496 HO that runs nearly 60 mph...

ktron

I love checking out the pontoons at the boat shows, they really have some nice ones. They are serious party vessels!

NetGain

My house came with a 21 Party Barge with a 40hp Force. Way underpowered. My favorite time was at the ice cream stand next to The World Famous Red Eyes Dock Bar during the Bikini Contest. Guy walks buy and says "What a piece of #$it" I thought my daughter was going to smack him.

Tell your friend he's going to need HP to pull the tubes. make sure it's a planing pontoon. And fiberglass and pontoons, well, they don't mix

I will say, when you have a bunch of people 8-12, and you are looking for a floating raft, or you have other boats pulling people and you need a dock in the middle of nowhere, the pontoon rocks.

My other advice is don't let your heavy friends sit in the front when there are white caps. Stick the tips in, and the back comes up and out quick, really quick.

Say what you want, i wouldn't make it my only boat, but I would buy another one.

hammer01

a friend just bought one to leave at loto at his condo for guests to use and shopped everywhere. he bought the biggest bennington tri-toon with the 496 i/o. said it runs great in rough water and very low maintenance. i bought one for leaving at the loto as well but chose the playcraft powertoon with 200 hp 2 stroke optimax in 2001. i ran great, 3-4 mpg, pulled the kids on skis, tube, wakeboard, etc. best of all, you pull it out of water, wipe seats, put full cockpit cover on, and it is done. i think both of these from what my friend said are over 35k new now, though, so good shopping. i used marty's marine out of osage beach mo john is salesman, nice guy.

cherrycobalt262

Friend of mine just bought a 22 ft Bennington loaded with 150 4 stroke Honda and he loves it?..... Hard to believe, but true.. I just can't imagine going 35 mph all damned day!!

PokerFace

Odyssey makes a very good Pontoon, and actually holds the World Record for Pontoons at nearly 85 mph. They make three different models in every price range so you can really find what you like and keep in budget. Check out www.lanierharborboatsales.com

GOODT

platcraft, worked on one that set the pontoon boat speed record at lake of the ozarks nice boat handles better then most v hulls ***** to work on the motor though

rbtnt

Crest is the best I've seen. Look for one with bottom skin to reduce drag of water hitting the cross members.

As Ms PatriYachtI said, "if you raft off with a lot of boats, doors are important. I like two center doors as well as a front exit with some floor space in front of it. We tie 15 or 20 boats together at a time so moving from boat to boat is important."

I have one for boating at night and in Nov, Dec, Mar & Apr. We actually got out on 1/1/06 in Ohio this year.

lakeluvr

There are pontoon boats and then there are performance pontoon boats. Playcraft has set the standard for performance pontoons. The first time I saw them at a boat show thought the sales guy was full of chit when he said it would run 50MPH. I had owned several pontoons before and was tired of taking all day to make a trip, so was intrigued at the thought. Well after testing a couple of other makes made an appointment to test a Playcraft. The dealer told me to make sure I came down on a weekend to appreciate the ride. So we did, boy what a ride. Incredible, and fast. And a real 50MPH on my GPS. Mine is a 1998 26 ft. with a 200 EFI Merc. The newer 4 strokes are somewhat quieter and more fuel efficient, but not as fast. I've lost count of the number of people that have ridden on mine then went out and bought one.