Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I have a new 2019 Harris Sunliner 220 with a 150 hp Mercury. Today was only my second time out on the boat and I had a couple of friends with me. One of them was looking all around the boat and made his way to the engine. He had the other guy drive while I went back to see something that concerned him. He pointed out water flowing in large quantities over the fuel tank which sits just in front of the motor. The water was flowing over the tank then exiting thru the drain holes in the transom. Is that normal? Also, the fuel pump electrical cable was sitting in the middle of all the water flow with a connection exposed to the water. Just want to be sure that is ok as well.

The salesman said that was normal, but there was no service guy there today.

Les

That doesn’t sound right to me...

I found this stock photo online. It appears to show what you're talking about, but I can't be sure.

I am going to guess that the exposed wire is for the fuel level sending unit, not the fuel pump.

Many pontoons have that same transom mounted fuel tank. It's convenient and saves room. As long as the gaskets are good, no water will enter the tank. As for the exposed electrical connection, maybe use liquid electric tape to seal it.

Thanks for the replies. I have sent a message to Harris via their website, don’t expect a reply until tomorrow (Tuesday), so I will post their answer here. That picture looks like what I saw, but it does seem like a strange design.

Lesau

I just purchased almost the same boat, full middle pontoon with a 200, Guess I need to go out and look at mine, but I see lots of pontoon boats with the same picture as above, water just pouring out the back of the boat.

Its normal for a ton of water to flow out between the pontoons, it has to go somewhere. I think the OP was worried about the gas tank get splashed with water. I certainly can see that being a concern, but if the gaskets are fine all is good.

We took the boat out today. I am attaching a video that we made. We drove at 20 mph and 30 mph. Almost no water flowing over the gas tank at 20 mph, some flowing over at 30, but nowhere near what we saw 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago the water was flowing over the caps on the tank, and lots of water. Lots of water was flowing at all speeds 2 weeks ago.

2 weeks ago the conditions were different, wind was blowing causing the water to whitecap and there were lots of boats, so water was rough. Had 4 adults in the boat and a cooler. Today, water was fairly calm and almost no boats, only 2 adults and no cooler. No idea if conditions made any difference or not.

I told the guys at the marina 2 weeks ago about the issue, but I don’t know if they did anything or not to correct. They did fix the depth finder between trips because it had been an issue also.

Well, it wouldn’t let me add the video, so I cant show you what it was like today.