Pontoon tows extremely hard 7.5 MPG

[crawler]

Newbie Toonie Here.
I have been boating and towing all my life. I towed my (new to me) 24' Kayot over the wekend and it pulled extremely hard. I had to work at keeping my foot into the throttle. It is on a trailer with 14" tires (4) that roll easily. No brake drag either. I just installed new disc brakes. I stopped and made sure each caliper wasn't hung up.

I had a 32' HouseBoat made by Myacht that weighed in at $11,000lbs including the goose neck trailer and this 24' Kayot pulled harder on the flat.

I guess it is the wind. (I had a wind deflecter on the house boat goose neck)

Has anyone else experianced this hard pulling???

I am thinking that maybe I need to put on a play pen cover.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Happy boating
Crawler at Raystown lake

[HandymanHerb]

Welcome glad to have you with us and yes pulling a pontoon is like pulling a parachute hooked to your truck.

I use to pull my race car behind my Dakota and could do any speed I wanted too, I got the pontoon and it topped out at 70 mph with my 318 engine, so your in the norm

[mikeherb]

It was probably wind drag. I added a sun deck to my toon and it dramatically altered how the boat towed. When I took the boat up to have the top put on I pulled it with a cover and the bimini top laying flat. My suburban pulled it along at 70 mph no problem.

I pulled it home at 55 mph and got a whopping 7.5 miles to the gallon. Here is a pic so you can see the top and imagine the wind drag it created:



A cover would probably help with aerodynamics just make certain it is a well fitting top for towing so you don't ruin it in the process.

Welcome to the forum!!

[badmoonrising]

Welcome ! Yeah it is most likely wind drag. It's pretty bad towing the Party Cruiser, luckily we only do it twice: once into the slip and then out in November.. How do you like the MyYacht ? Any problems ? I was looking at them a few months ago....

[crawler]

I will respond to two of you. Wow that is a nice looking upper deck. Is it a factory or did you design and build it your self?

I had a 1994 32' MYACHT house boat. It was great. It had aluminum skin. tracker bought them out about two years later. I built a goose neck trailer for it and it towed so easily I canceled my slip at the lake, bought a piece of property and trailered it back and forth to the lake. We stayed in it on land and sea so to speak. We out grew it.

Now I bought a 24 Kayot and plan on using the begeesus out of it this summer. I still have a ski boat as well. Oh, I had to put an RV on our lot to handle sleeping.

Thanks for all of your responses.

If you get near Raystown Lake Pa give me a hollar.

[mikeherb]

I designed it, so to speak, by requesting the additional ladder in the rear that folds down into the water. It allows folks to go from the lake to the top without entering the boat. The work was done by Fire and Marine fabricators in Springfield, OH. They do awesome work and we couldn't be happier with the results.

[WoodenPontoon]

If you get near Raystown Lake Pa give me a hollar.

We'll be at Raystown Lake the weekend after Labor Day.