As many of you may have
guessed, leaving things alone is
not the way I do it here in my
“pontoonland.” And as I said before,
it’s not because I don’t like the original
way, but I just can’t seem to leave stuff
alone. In fact, when I bought the current
’toon I thought I was just about set up
the way I wanted it. But as you have
been able to read, that didn’t last.
While I was growing up my dad
designed and sold a complete line of
bench mounts that would hold the lower
units and assorted components of stern
drives and outboards so they could be
repaired. It was a clever design that
allowed you to rotate and access all
sides of the lower unit.
He also designed numerous other
things that we either used for work or
to sell, many because he wasn’t happy
with what were available and wanted
to have something better or different.
Oops...that might be where I got it.
Anyway, as I have shopped new
pontoons at shows around the country,
what I noticed is how much more “stuff”
you can get. The options never end.
And the one thing that has intrigued me
was changing the color of the pontoons.
You can pick out the panel’s colors,
the floor, the interior and even the
Bimini colors, but the actual pontoons
are just aluminum and that’s all there is.
But in the marine world colored hulls
have been around for quite a while. Not
just gelcoat but aluminum boats too. I
really do like “bass boat” metal flakecolors, and yeah, I still like candy apple
red paint jobs too!
When I was growing up my dad
bought a burned-out aluminum Naden
boat to build a custom ski boat for us
to use. We installed a couple of custom
swivel seats, a high horsepower (at the
time) inboard with a “performance”
stern drive unit. It had hide-away ropes,
a custom ski bar, transom steps, etc, all
pretty much hand-made.
It was supposed to be a red hull, but
when the paint arrived from the paint
supply company they had mixed it
wrong and it was more of a pastel pink.
From a marketing view I never gave my
dad credit for this, but he decided to go
ahead and paint the boat pink and then
named it the Pink Panther. This was
back in the ’70s which I guess meant
psychedelic or unusual colors were not
uncommon.
The boat was a standout at the local
lake. If you saw this pink customized
boat towing skiers you knew where it
was from. And did it tow...somewhere
in a box of old photographs is a picture
of eight people all being towed at once
by a customized pink Naden boat.
Thinking back, that was pretty cool and
at the time a great guerrilla marketing
plan.
Back to my current pontoons. Like
every other new boat at the time, my
pontoons started out bright shiny
aluminum. But over the past couple
years, six months of floating in a slip
has etched and stained from fresh
green lake water. I wrote about etchingand polishing the ’toons each season,
which is a lot of work. As I also have
mentioned, I decided to invest in a lift.
As another modification I added the
VANTAGE bumper strip on the side of
the pontoons. Partly to protect them if
we tie up to anything, but also to hide
the water lines and it changes the look
of the ’toon.
Well, this year, instead of polishing
the top half, I am opting for the
VANTAGE pontoon wrap. This is a
product that is offered and installed
through boat dealers, but it shouldn’t
be a surprise to anyone that I wanted
to do it myself. VANTAGE makes a few
different colors and styles to choose
from and if my boat was new, I think
I would go for the clear, but since my
’toons are not the clean, never-used
aluminum, I opted for the black carbon
fiber look.
The carbon fiber look has always
been a favorite of mine even if it’s
probably passé now. For my Hot Tuner
Car look I added carbon fiber to the
dash of the Honda Civic tuner car and
even had a carbon fiber wing on the
trunk. And many tuner cars had carbon
fiber hoods which I really wanted.
But now I have the top half of my
pontoons covered in black carbon
fiber wrap to go with the black and tan
playpen panels. Plus I have the black
Mercury Big Foot outboard. How cool
is that?
Talking cool, I wonder how the
carbon fiber look would be on my
Harley Sportster quarter fairing?All Wrapped
Up
By Sky Smith
Staying In ’Toon Boating tips and observations with Sky Smith
54 Pontoon^ & Deck Boat July^2017 http://www.pdbmagazine.com