Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Grabbed the toon for one last ride only to jump in the boat while off loading of the trailer on the ramp to realize someone left the accessory switch on and my battery was dead. This was Hint number 1. I should have just went home. but i was determined especially after taking some ribbing from my Nephew About it. Now this battery is the original from 2007 so it was due for a new one anyway but after 45 mins of trying to jump start it with my truck and a very helpful fellow boater to no avail I pulled it back onto the trailer and out of the water. Got a new battery dropped it in and went on my way with my Nephews.

Cruising along at a nice pace noticing how the nice the trees were looking I couldn't help but think that we seem to be leaning to one side which made me panic and think maybe I poked a hole in my left side log as I was trying to get the boat close enough to shore to reach it with jumper cables from the truck. During the process we rubbed on some concrete in real shallow water near the boat ramp. So I am completely too pre-occupied with that thought to notice the the water getting shallow, now in my lake you can see shallow water coming a mile away because of the change in color from the red clay under the water showing through, there was no such change in color here because what was beneath the water surface was not clay but huge boulders. Which of course we hit with the prop and skeg. Bent the prop to death and the skeg now has a slight C shaped curve in it. Super!!! The lake is down about 8 feet, so this is probably an area I have driven over 100 times with out any incident but of course not this time.

I'll post a pic of the skeg but do you think it will have any adverse affect on the ride or motor with the bend in it?

Should've just stayed home!!!

Those days are never fun. Did you find out why you were listing?

Skeg is probably fine. I ALWAYS fire the toon up before I leave our place, just to make sure it'll start and run!

From my last trip out. The water at the launch was super shallow, probably down 1.5ft from its high during the summer. As my wife backed it off the trailer the pile of rocks from people power loading did a number on my prop and skeg. I planned on looking for a shop locally to straighten it out (or I'd hit it with a hammer back into shape). One of my coworkers said that a repair facility will often just cut them off and weld them back on straight.

darn rocks..
-ron

Stainless steel skegs are also available. They're easily installed.

Bamaman wrote:Stainless steel skegs are also available. They're easily installed.

But don't you have to drill through the aluminum to bolt them into place thereby weakening the stock skeg?

ronb wrote:

Bamaman wrote:Stainless steel skegs are also available. They're easily installed.

But don't you have to drill through the aluminum to bolt them into place thereby weakening the stock skeg?

The one's that I've seen, Yes. But I don't know how much it reallly weakens the skeg. Hell, that's some pretty thick aluminum / steel, and if you hit something hard enough to snap it off, even after putting 2-3 holes in it, you just might have bigger problems anyway, with lower unit innards.

I'd just cut the bend off and grind what's left smooth. It's not like it'll affect the high performance aspects of a 75HP pontoon boat.

Bamaman wrote:Stainless steel skegs are also available. They're easily installed.

Nice to know... Mine on my new to me boat is broke.

I don't mind looking like an older Orca as long as I can steer straight to the cows.

I trailer with the motor down but trim it to about the bottom to the logs before backing down the ramp. Guess cause when I was looking to buy my first boat many years ago, about half it seemed to have broken skegs.

doc

BoatCop wrote:I'd just cut the bend off and grind what's left smooth. It's not like it'll affect the high performance aspects of a 75HP pontoon boat.

X2. I did that years ago on my old pontoon and it was a bigger piece of skeg than that . No change in performance.

curtiscapk wrote:Skeg is probably fine. I ALWAYS fire the toon up before I leave our place, just to make sure it'll start and run!

Me too !

BoatCop wrote:I'd just cut the bend off and grind what's left smooth. It's not like it'll affect the high performance aspects of a 75HP pontoon boat.

90HP! quit trying to deny the awesome power of my OptiMax!

I am going to try to hammer mine as straight as I can get it, I figured worse case scenerio, I'll trim the dorsal fin or have a new peice of alum welded on in its place. FWIW, I also hit the key on the toon before I leave the yard on the way to the lake. And every time I get yelled at by my wife for scaring the kids with the wide open exhaust. I tell her it is good for them to be afraid of Daddy making loud noises..

-ron

ronb wrote: And every time I get yelled at by my wife for scaring the kids with the wide open exhaust. I tell her it is good for them to be afraid of Daddy making loud noises..

-ron

Especially daddy's wide open exhaust

BoatCop wrote:I'd just cut the bend off and grind what's left smooth. It's not like it'll affect the high performance aspects of a 75HP pontoon boat.

X2,,,,,,,,,,,,,reduce the drag