Review of “The Pontoon and Deckboat Handbook”

[Bamby]

Well maybe not a complete review yet. But after reading just the first few pages of this book, I found so much “bad outdated and just blandly outright wrong information” in this so-called guide I felt it deserved a warning here.

I realize there are a lot of folks who review this site seeking good source information to help them make a good informed intelligent choice on purchasing their pontoon boat. Many may choose not to become active posting members here but are still attempting to glean useful information. Maybe it’s going to be their first pontoon boat or maybe even their first boat period.

Well if you’ve already read or purchased “The Pontoon and Deckboat Handbook” you’ve actually already done yourself a disservice through no real fault of your own. But please keep this in mind as you’re reviewing the many useful threads here posted by pontoon boat owners and users, and try to disregard some if not all the so called expert knowledge exemplified in this book.

I’d suggest to any newbie reading this to save their money on this book and consider “signing aboard”, there are a lot of members here more than eager help you along in making wise choice in “purchasing your pontoon boat”.

[HandymanHerb]

Was in published by anybody we know???

But yes you can get more here, straight from the horses mouth,by people who been there and done that many times over.

[Bamby]

Was in published by anybody we know???

I purchased the book through Amazon thinking it would be good reference material and maybe even useful. There just doesn’t seem to be any reliable printed format readily available concerning pontoon boats, and this is one of the few. As such there is a good chance that many uninformed potential buyers may or would purchase this book thinking they are getting a reliable guide to pontoon boats thus this posting.

The Book is published by “McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.” by David G. Brown in near as I can tell in 2008 so it’s really not that old, maybe the author was or is obsolete, but this book is not a good reflection of the capabilities of modern pontoon boats.

[RonKMiller]

I think your website/blog is the best source of information I've read - and I read it all.

Time for a NEW book! Heck, you've already written it...

[mike]

lets start our own!

[curtiscapk]

It's your site Mike go ahead

[Ron Burgundy]

I think it's a great idea. I was looking for Christmas present ideas, and there are NO books on pontoon boats except for the one mentioned here...and apparently it sucks donky

[Bamby]

I think your website/blog is the best source of information I've read - and I read it all.
Time for a NEW book! Heck, you've already written it...

Ron,
It was a pleasant surprise to read such an overall vote of confidence you’ve stated about our site. We hope (we meaning me and the wife) to consistently over time improve upon our subject matter to include more material that will hopefully be of interest to all boat owners regardless of boating experience. And it’s the occasional complement such as yours that actually inspires us to continue working on it. Unlike the author of the book in question, websites well at least ours, don’t really pay anything in any real revenue. So acknowledgments such as yours are what actually make all the effort worthwhile to us.

Below is an Excerpt taken from the book

Midsize Day Cruisers
This category of pontoon boats range between 21 and 30 feet in length. Because they’re longer the pontoons need to be larger in diameter thus increasing the overall width beyond highway limits. This means most midsize pontoon boats stay in the water all season. Some manufactures, however, offer both a trailerable and non-trailerable versions of models in the 21 to 25 foot range. The difference is that the trailerable version will be narrower with smaller-diameter pontoons. The wider, non-trailerable version is a more satisfactory boat, so you should only choose the trailerable version if portability is an absolute necessity.

I’m not going to expand on his expertise here, and this is just one example of many and I was only into the book four pages deep. There is almost enough horsepucky in this one paragraph alone to satisfy an entire book.

[HandymanHerb]

It hasn't been all that long ago, or so it seems, came to this group and asked hey I bought a pontoon, now what, but over the years the new guys became the advice givers, that's what makes it a great site, we always gaining great new people.

And thanks to great example of John 6x6 Larson, someone will always welcome all new members and be ready to answer questions, never a dumb question, we have all asked them once, not so long ago.

[OldePharte]

I think your website/blog is the best source of information I've read - and I read it all.
Time for a NEW book! Heck, you've already written it...

Ron,
It was a pleasant surprise to read such an overall vote of confidence you’ve stated about our site. We hope (we meaning me and the wife) to consistently over time improve upon our subject matter to include more material that will hopefully be of interest to all boat owners regardless of boating experience. And it’s the occasional complement such as yours that actually inspires us to continue working on it. Unlike the author of the book in question, websites well at least ours, don’t really pay anything in any real revenue. So acknowledgments such as yours are what actually make all the effort worthwhile to us.

Below is an Excerpt taken from the book

Midsize Day Cruisers
This category of pontoon boats range between 21 and 30 feet in length. Because they’re longer the pontoons need to be larger in diameter thus increasing the overall width beyond highway limits. This means most midsize pontoon boats stay in the water all season. Some manufactures, however, offer both a trailerable and non-trailerable versions of models in the 21 to 25 foot range. The difference is that the trailerable version will be narrower with smaller-diameter pontoons. The wider, non-trailerable version is a more satisfactory boat, so you should only choose the trailerable version if portability is an absolute necessity.

I’m not going to expand on his expertise here, and this is just one example of many and I was only into the book four pages deep. There is almost enough horsepucky in this one paragraph alone to satisfy an entire book.

Huh? Does the author actually own a pontoon? Geezus louise!

[HandymanHerb]

Sounds like he been on some house boats, I know there some 10 foot wide pontoons, but not that many.

[ROLAND]

Well I'd like to say that before I bought my boat I found this forum to be the best source of information out there. a little over a year ago I had never even owned a row boat and then there I was thinking about investing thousands of dollars into a "hobby" that I knew absolutely nothing about.. Most of my friends have bass boats so while they could give me some "general" boating information, they couldn't help me at all about pontoon boats. I'll admit that I probably read the posts on this forum for 2 or 3 months before I actually stepped up and bought a boat. And alot of what went into my decision on what boat to buy came directly from what I had read here. At first my inclination was to rush out and buy a 40 to 45K boat loaded out, but the truth was we really only wanted something comfortable and something we could fish from. Learned alot here and when I ended up buying my benny, I bought a much less expensive boat but one that serves our needs just fine... yeah, I would go to the boating dealerships and get all excited listening to their sales pitch as to why I needed this or that... than I would come home, sign on to the forum and get my feet grounded as to what is applicable in a "real world" situation... This forum is a virtual book of knowledge for newbies like me and I thank everyone that has helped me for the past year. This is a great site.

[Friar]

I am with "Roland" and others - this website is an outstanding source of useful information. The board index is very well organized and users are always providing interesting and timely comments and insights. Thanks!

[RonKMiller]

Midsize Day Cruisers
This category of pontoon boats range between 21 and 30 feet in length. Because they’re longer the pontoons need to be larger in diameter thus increasing the overall width beyond highway limits. This means most midsize pontoon boats stay in the water all season. Some manufactures, however, offer both a trailerable and non-trailerable versions of models in the 21 to 25 foot range. The difference is that the trailerable version will be narrower with smaller-diameter pontoons. The wider, non-trailerable version is a more satisfactory boat, so you should only choose the trailerable version if portability is an absolute necessity.

Wow, I don't think I could have written something that bad if I tried! I love starting a sentence with "Because".

It seems to me that it was cut and pasted from a paragraph specifically intended for a search engine.

"Trailerable" is an awkward word at best - and yet the author manages to use it no less than 5 times in three sentences!

There is no excuse for giving out grossly inaccurate information, or a book that looks like it was written by a 10 year old.

[HandymanHerb]

Hey if we write a book we can get OPDB parent company to print the books