Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Hey all,

Here are photos of my 1986 Sun Tracker, 28' Party Barge, before and afters. I am new to the pontoon boat world and have questions about different aspects of the boat. I will not address all questions in the post alone but here is the first one.

I noticed in the "after" photo that my boat sits really low. I have a 1996 Mercury 100hp motor and a 12gal gas tank on each side of the motor. I also have a "house" battery and "Start" Battery in the same area. This boat is rated for 19 people or 3200lbs but I am pretty sure the tubes shouldn't submerge more than half way down?? Correct? The tubes are 21.5" diameter which is also weird to me because the only thing I can find about Sun Tracker pontoons is that they use nothing less than 24' diameter tubes. However, they are a true sealed 3 chamber tubes that Sun Tracker uses and it has the "M" brackets that are also Sun Tracker.

I have been trying to figure out how to get this beast to float higher with adding a third tube but have seen so many do's and dont's and my head is spinning. I will look for a photo of the Stern to add to these. Thanks for any and all advice!!

Regards, Travis

21" tubes are not large enough to support the weight , back in the 80's a lot of mfg's used 21" tubes then in the 90's early 2000's they went to 23" now the standard for most is 25" toons, I bet when the boat was new it came with a 50HP because of the weight issue on the smaller toons
Good Luck
Don

Welcome from Broken Arrow. Where you located and also what lake do you tend to gravitate to?

Welcome from the State of Jefferson
You are pretty low in the water there,,,, my first thought is a third toon,,, or just put helium in the tubes,,,,,