Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

One of my friends convinced me to join the boating world and I need some recommendations on what is a good starting boat? My friend said go with a Suncatcher X324 RS.

What are your thoughts?

You are going to get a whole lot of different answers to that question. I'm assuming most people are going to ask a few questions prior to answering yours.

1: What do you want to do with the boat? Fish, Water Sports (ski, tube), entertain?

2: What kind of price point you thinking of?

3: What size of water will you be boating on? Big/Small/Salt

4: What dealers do you have local? You'll want to make sure you get something that can me maintained close to home if you have to take it into the shop.

All of these will help us provide good options for you. I myself, bought a 24' Crest Caliber tritoon with a 150 Merc 4-Stroke with their performance toons for skiiing and such as my first toon. We love it so far, only had it a week. I could have went smaller, but since my family wants to be able to ski, tube and wake board I decided to go all in on a sportier model. Could've went with a bigger engine, but you know what, skiing at 30 mph is fast enough for my kids (11, 7)

Hope that helps.

I agree with above. I suggest trying to buy whatever boats are represented by dealers in your immediate retail market.

Shop carefully, because pontoon boats are not all created equal. They may look the same from the outside, however construction techniques and quality of the welding is very important.

Don't overlook one of the luxury toon makers. They often will have 3-4 different price points that just have different fencing and seating. I bought the least expensive Bennington and it's as nice a boat as I require. And it was substantially less than Suntracker's comparable model/horsepower on their national one price plan.

Good luck in your boat search.

[quote="allanmusk"]One of my friends convinced me to join the boating world and I need some recommendations on what is a good starting boat? My friend said go with a Suncatcher X324 RS.

What are your thoughts?[/quote]

This looks like a really nice boat. Here is a review of it, if you haven't seen it yet:

https://youtu.be/5x-onqn8j80

G3 is owned by Yamaha, and This looks like a well appointed boat capable of both entertaining, and watersports. Max hp of 225, so I would suggest outfitting it with the 225 SHO and let'er rip!

Don't ask my opinion.... I'll always say DO -It!

Find what you like and my only advice is to get the most horsepower you can afford.

Whatever you do..buy the largest motor you can afford!

I would suggest a tritoon with a minimum of 115hp motor. Personally I have a 150 hp Verado and wish I had 200-300hp. A lot of people will buy a lower cost boat and regret the fact that they bought a motor that doesn't get the job done and simply plows a toon through the water.

Best advice I got from a salesmen when I bought my tritoon...

"You are buying a motor...the boat comes with it"

Good luck and make the hunt fun!

[quote="brocja01"]You are going to get a whole lot of different answers to that question. I'm assuming most people are going to ask a few questions prior to answering yours.

1: What do you want to do with the boat? Fish, Water Sports (ski, tube), entertain?

2: What kind of price point you thinking of?

3: What size of water will you be boating on? Big/Small/Salt

4: What dealers do you have local? You'll want to make sure you get something that can me maintained close to home if you have to take it into the shop.

All of these will help us provide good options for you. I myself, bought a 24' Crest Caliber tritoon with a 150 Merc 4-Stroke with their performance toons for skiiing and such as my first toon. We love it so far, only had it a week. I could have went smaller, but since my family wants to be able to ski, tube and wake board I decided to go all in on a sportier model. Could've went with a bigger engine, but you know what, skiing at 30 mph is fast enough for my kids (11, 7)

Hope that helps.[/quote]

In response to your question:
1. I want the boat to fish

2. I am pretty financially set so money is no issue for me. Quality and durability matters the most to me

3. I would say it is a large open body of water in Florida

4. Still making a list of trusted local dealers based on online reviews

If you''re gonna fish in the open waters around Florida...isnt a center console the popular choice?

And yes...get as large as a motor that you can afford/the boat will allow...

Suncatcher , or G3 by Yamaha makes a DAMN FINE BOAT. Period. Very well built , nicely appointed and a very good value as you aren't paying for the name as some others.
Be very wary of falling into the marketing trap of some manufacturers who would have you believing that if you don't have their brand , you aren't part of the cool kids club. just like Harley Davidson, there are a few makers out there that have successfully built a brand image that has catapulted them to the top of mind positions in the boating world. you pay for that marketing. While these makers do produce a nice quality boat, there a DOZENS of manufacturers out rhere that make as good or in some cases, a better boat for a price point that brings more value for the investment made. Suncatcher is one of those brands. Do your homework, compare build quality, needs vs wants, determine what you want the boat to do and how you will use the MAJORITY of the time.

Best of luck and welcome !!!

Buy rated horsepower for the boat. Get the performance tritoon pkg with the lifting strakes. Good luck....

Read everything you can here.

Bennington, Manitou, Premier are normally considered your top tier boats. Bennington seems to have the most market share. Manitou turns best, Premier (or Playcraft IIRC) are the fastest. There's a handful of other companies that could be put in these ranks also, I just don't remember them at the moment.

If you read you will find that almost everyone considers their boat the best.

Figure out everything you want the boat to do and power it to do that (get the biggest motor you can afford. Even is you never use all those horses, it's good to be able to get off the lake in a sudden thunderstorm!)

Get all the goodies you think you may want.

A local retailer is important HOWEVER, the one thing that will need to be worked on the most will be your motor. So figure out what brand of motor you want and see if there is a warranty service center nearby.

The nearest Manitou dealer to me is about 100 miles away. But he would not negotiate on price at all. So I sent requests for quotes to every Manitou dealer within 500 miles. I wanted a Mercury motor and there's a mercury authorized service center about 20 miles from here.

I ended up getting the boat I wanted but with a Yamaha motor (There was a Yamaha 5 star certified service center within 20 miles of here also!!).

By buying up north (about 230 miles away) I saved about $5K over the local dealer and was able to get a bunch of goodies that I wanted too. $5K buys an awful lot of gas!

My boat is now 11 years old (and paid for) and still running great. I'm unfortunately no longer the fastest pontoon on my lake (my slip neighbor just bought a 25' excursion with a 300HP on it) nor am I the best maneuvering (There is a newer Manitou on the next dock over) but the boat still does everything I want it to do.

I bought my second boat first and I'm still pretty happy with it.

(The only other thing I want that I don't have is the floor locker. They didn't make them back then. Bummer.)

Having lived in FL for 17 years ( long ago) and spent considerable time offshore fishing, scuba diving, cruising, getting caught by pop up storms, etc........ IF you will be off shore I would NOT buy a Tri toon or Pontoon. I'd buy a center console boat. If affordable, I'd have a twin engine outboard set up on a center console.

IF you are in the bays, even sizable ones, then a Tri Toon would be another great choice to look at.

Been there, done that ! ......... miss that too

We bought our first boat last year. Here is what I would suggest.

1. Buy a good used boat with low hours on the motor. The newest boat with the lowest hours, IMHO. For first timers, we chose to buy from a dealer with some warranty assurance ( at least a 30-day shake down period). The loss of value on a new boat is huge as soon as it leaves the dealership--worse than for cars. I understand if money is no object, but since this is your first time, you may want to soften the blow if it turns out boating isn't for you after a year or so.

2. Based on our research on this board and elsewhere, we bought a tritoon with a 150 hp four stroke engine. Both seemed to be well worth the extra cost. We tried out a 115, and frankly found it lacking if we ever wanted to tow tubers, skiers, etc... I primarily use the boat for fishing, and it is nice to get where I need to get a little faster.

3. Keep your boat in a slip if possible. You will use your boat a lot more. You can change after a year or so to storage. But keeping our boat at a marina has made a world if difference to us.

Have fun and congrats!!!

I wouldn't argue about buying a used boat, But Tri-tons a year or 2 old hold there value phenomenally, If you look on other sites everyone is trying to do what you suggest and can't find any. If you don't pay MSRP then you can sell them for close to what you paid. I've put 300 hours on mine in 2 years and have been offered 7% less that I paid. All depends if you get raped on the sale.