PHOTOS: (FROM TOP) COURTESY MERCURY MARINE (2), COURTESY WEST MARINE; (OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) COURTESY PLAYCRAFT BOATS, COURTESY SOUTH BAY PONTOON, COURTESY GENERAL MOTORS
at Mercury’s Lake X
with twin Merc 300x
outboards. In 2010,
PlayCraft was the fi rst
to break 100 mph with a
pontoon boat.
Dorris and PlayCraft
may have been the fi rst
to the pontoon speed
party, but today the
fi eld has become packed
with power players. No-
tables include South
Bay and Manitou Pon-
toons; both companies
routinely outfi t their
highly engineered craft
with dual and triple
outboards, capable of
speeds well into the 60s,
70s and beyond.’TOONING UP
While 100 mph sure is
a sexy number, it’s way
beyond the capability
of 99 percent of the rigs
out there. It takes an ex-
tremely dedicated e ort
(not to mention piles of
money) to break 100
mph, let alone hit the
world-record 114. How-
ever, it’s not uncommon
to idle up to the sandbar
today and see single-
engine pontoons capable
of 50-plus-mph speeds,
and twin-engine rigs
capable of 60-plus mph.
So, what does it take
to build a pontoon ca-
pable of achieving these
speeds, all the while re-
maining a factory-war-
rantable boat that’s easy
to operate and doesn’t
fall apart after a year or
two? To fi nd out, we cor-
ralled Dorris, as well asSouth Bay (Forest Riv-
er) marketing director
John Sweeney and his
chief applications engi-
neer, Greg Barsoda. We
also spent some time
with Manitou’s Greg
Van Wagenen, who
heads up its marketing
and communications
department.
South Bay was the
fi rst to o er triple-log
pontoon confi gurations
on every package, back
in 2005. For 2018, the
company’s new thing is
the V-Lite honeycomb-
core decking, which
combines light weight
and torsional strength.
South Bay boats all
use 25-inch-diameter
tubes with full-length
radiused underdeck
(“belly”) skinning. This
feature cleans up the
air traveling under the
decks, adding stream-
lining to an otherwise
“dirty” surface. Ex-
truded, radiused lifting
strakes are applied to
the center tube (on 2.5
series models) and also
on the outer tubes, both
on the inside (3.0 mod-
els) and outside as sprayrails (3.0+ models). The
inner strakes work to-
gether to form a “pad”
running surface, much
like a performance
pleasure V-hull. The
strake placement and
shape is patterned after
racing-tunnel hull and
offshore-catamaran
designs, so the hulls lift
clean from the water
with less power, and
turn sharply without
bobbling or excessive
banking. The strakes
on the outside also keep
spray out and away
from the hull. South
Bay’s pontoons are
pressurized at the fac-
tory at 3.5 psi, to keep
them from “oil can-
ning ” and deforming
under extreme loads.
Of course, perform-
ance rigging in the form
of jack plates and high-
performance propel-
lers and gear cases is
available on single- and
twin-engine pontoons.
High-performance as-
sisted hydraulic steer-
ing is also a must to
keep the larger engines’
torque in check at
high speeds.IT TAKES AN
EXTREMELY
DEDICATED EFFORT
(NOT TO MENTION
PILES OF MONEY)
TO BREAK 100 MPH,
LET ALONE HIT THE
WORLDRECORD 114.
BOATINGMAG.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2018 | 83