Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Experienced boater, have been boatless for a number of years and it's time to fix that. Been looking at various brands including Bennington and South Bay.. Looks like i'll be in the Sun Tracker club due to budget. They seem "ok" I dont's plan on beating one to death.
Me and the lady like to fish so I think an 18 bass buggy with a 60 will suite us just fine. Any body with real world experience with a 60 on an 18? I don't think slalom skiing is in our plan.

Hey and welcome! Havent heard any negatives against the 18 with the 60---should do well.. What bodies of water will you be on?

Central Texas stuff, Canyon, Highland lakes, Maybe even Livingston, my sisinlaw lives in Oakhurst. Would love to do Caddo, Sam Rayburn and Toledo.

I have a 22' Party Barge w/ a 60 and have been very happy with it.
We like to cruise, so we aren't looking for speed.
With me and wife and a full gas tank, I get 16 mph on GPS.

ok, thnks,, I suppose that's wot?

boocat wrote:Experienced boater, have been boatless for a number of years and it's time to fix that. Been looking at various brands including Bennington and South Bay.. Looks like i'll be in the Sun Tracker club due to budget. They seem "ok" I dont's plan on beating one to death.
Me and the lady like to fish so I think an 18 bass buggy with a 60 will suite us just fine. Any body with real world experience with a 60 on an 18? I don't think slalom skiing is in our plan.

Looking for real world experience? We bought our 18' Party Barge with the 60CT and while adequate with 2 people on board it really struggles when your loaded with more than 4 and/or want to keep the kids awake while you pull them on the tube... Best we ever really saw was about 18 MPH with the little motor. Swapped it for a max HP 75 HP motor and absolutely love the new found power and yet still wish it had more but with just me and the wife it will do an honest 25 MPH and with 4 adults I can still pull the grands on a big ass tube and not loose too much speed while doing tight 360's.... The one thing I can say is that a big motor can always be slowed down to go slow whereas a small motor can never be speed up! Fuel economy is great on the 75 while pulled back to the 14/16 MPH cruising speed too better than the 60 ever did...

ok, thanks

Now don't get me wrong the 60CT is indeed a great little motor with a strong heart, but it is a little motor in that it is a 1-Liter displacement whereas the 75 is a beast of a motor at 2.1-Liter displacement. Double the displacement enables this motor to make a huge amount of low end torque. It is also very quite at reduced RPM as you can pretty much have a normal volume level conversation a mere few feet away from the motor while running at 4 to 4.5 K...

boocat wrote:... Looks like i'll be in the Sun Tracker club due to budget. They seem "ok" I dont's plan on beating one to death...

Also there is not a thing dam wrong with being in the Sun Tracker Club either.... They are reasonably priced and reasonably built too, I very much like that they are built with plastic roto-molded seat bases as you will then not be worried about the upholstery getting torn along the floorline or soaking up water etc. I've had my boat now for better than 2 full years and it not only gets used a lot with close to 200 hours of use it also sits wet 24/7 (under roof and cover) and it is showing very little wear, nothing has broke or required any type of repairs at all... Many high-end boats can not make this claim!

My apologies, no disrespect intended. I agree , reasonably priced and built.

boocat wrote:My apologies, no disrespect intended. I agree , reasonably priced and built.

None perceived or taken...

boocat wrote:Experienced boater, have been boatless for a number of years and it's time to fix that. Been looking at various brands including Bennington and South Bay.. Looks like i'll be in the Sun Tracker club due to budget. They seem "ok" I dont's plan on beating one to death.
Me and the lady like to fish so I think an 18 bass buggy with a 60 will suite us just fine. Any body with real world experience with a 60 on an 18? I don't think slalom skiing is in our plan.

Last year we purchased an 18' Bennington fishing model pontoon with a 60 Yamaha. I love it.

Nice,,,