Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

If you were to buy a new tri toon, top of the line , best quality and performance out there, what would you buy. I saw a sweet Avalon but dont know the quality of them. Who makes the best , top 3 to be a little biased.

The one I like and can afford is the best

Most people think the Premier, Manitou, Bennington and Harris are the "Big 4"--not in any specific order. Tahoe/Avalon are also up there in quality. There are also a large # of other brands that would be perfectly suited for most people.

It just depends on how plush you want your boat to be. All of the Big 4 have numerous lines of boat models--according to your pocketbook.

But, there are no really best pontoons/tritoons out there. Some are better values than others, however. The quality of your dealer is very important in case any warranty work is required.

Always try to buy local if your close around dealers are willing to compete for your business with a fair price. Driving 100 miles to a dealer to leave your boat for warranty work would make it a 400 miles by the time you make a trip to take it and another trip to pick it up.

Many people are sorry they didn't equip their boat with the largest engine the hull was rated for. Nobody complains about too much horsepower, and day one is the least expensive time to power your boat.

Then, you've got to decide on which brand motor you want. Mercury, Yamaha, ETEC and Suzuki all make very good motors--with slightly different personalities. It's also a tough decision.

Good luck!

I am not sure you can go wrong with any of them. Avalon is a top quality boat builder. The Tahoe version is a step down in finish.

I own an Avalon so I may be a little biased. However I boatt in potentially rougher conditions and it was important for me to have a totally thru bolted deck as well as pontoons. Avalon and Bennington are about the only ones I know that thru bolts the deck as well. Most decks even on the leading manf are screwed not bolted.

Bennington was high on my list as well, but I liked the layout of the Avalons better. As for performance, I think the general consensus is the Manitou is best. However I think you will find all will work just fine.

BTW I just added a center toon to my pontoon, and after what I have seen, I would never own a regular pontoon again.

When we were looking two years ago, it was between Premier and Bennington. We went with Bennington because of "customer satisfaction" and good reports I saw on this forum and a great price from Midwest Marine in Harrisonville, MO.
While I'm generally happy with the boat, I am not happy with Bennington's follow up on what was a real lapse of final QA and very unhappy with the doofuses at Midwest Marine for their inability to listen to what the problem was and how to fix it.
If I could get a Premier outfitted the way the Bennington is for close to the same price, I'm pretty sure I'd pick Premier next time.

I really like the Crest Tri-toon. The 27' we have at work is very plush and workmanship is top notch, in my opinion.

http://www.crestpontoonboats.com/

What I like and what I can afford are two entirely different animals. New Tritoons start at about $35k and can go past $100K depending on how big, fast, and plush you want to go. All the ones mentioned are great Tritoons.

When I read about the original Tritoon hull by JC Manufacturing I bought it. The hull design is a winner. There are faster, more luxurious toons out there but after having my 2007 JC Tritoon 266 with the Mercruiser Magnum 300hp (350cu in) and the Bravo 3 outdrive I would buy nothing else today. I have 200 hours on it including 30 on Lake Superior. I have not driven a bunch of other high end pontoons and I am sure they are great but this hull with the 36" wide center toon that is longer than the 2 outboard toons rocks. The outboard toons are shaped to work with the center one and it planes instantly and eats whitecaps.


Here is a description of the hull. http://www.jcpontoon.com/hull.html

We have the 26' and the stern drive is awesome. The boat is 6500lb dry, add 55 gallons of fuel 5 gallons of beer and the crew and it is heavy but goes great.

Dunbar

What about Playcraft? I thought they were at the top of the performance toon list.

Home built Resto-mod triple! I know every sqaure inch is built to my specs! haven't come across another 70hp 20' toon that will tickle the 30mph mark, 21mph with 9 people and cooler.

I don't know about the best but if I had the money these two would be at the top of my list, they are really cool looking.

http://www.crestpontoonboats.com/our-boats/savannah
http://www.boattest.com/boats/boat_video.aspx?id=2615

The one I like best is the one I built. 2012, 28 foot tritoon. power assisted steering, 2 electric bimini tops. 2 electric anchors. minn kota 24v trolling motor with i-pilot. Humminbird 998 with side scan.
225 mercury outboard. 52 gal built in tank. fresh water tank and sink. LED mood lighting everywhere. Did I mention its for sale?

the brands mentioned above will all get you a good boat. the only thing i'll add is to look at how the pontoons are designed. some manufactures will just slap on a center log and add lifting strakes and call it a performance package. this will be fine for rough water and straight line speed but the handling will suffer. asymmetrical logs will give you handling more like a traditional v-hull where the boat will lean into the turn. Premier calls it the PTX, manitou calls it SHP. i can't remember what bennington calls it. their middle log is elliptical.

i dont' think sanpan has a performance package but the ones i've seen before are pretty plush.

I found this article a while back, it tells you a lot of what each manufacturer is calling their triple toon or performance packages
http://www.newboats.com/boatArticle/btg ... fast-toons

If one of the admin's could resize NH Tooners picture that would be most excellent, my web browser is showing that it is 1.6mb in size (and huge resolution of 3264 x 1840), I still haven't seen the picture because I am too impatient to wait for the download to finish, and every time I pull up this thread it has to restart to download..

-ron

Here ya go...