Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

What is the purpose of underskinning?

Is it worth it?

Is it a do it yourself project?

..

Underskinning your boat will make it ride smoother as waves and water will no longer hit your cross bracing.

And the inside of your boat is much, much quieter.

It is something that a do it yourselfer could easily do with aluminum sheeting and stainless steel screws.

My boat came from the factory with underskinning, but I can tell it rides much better than my old pontoon without underskinning.

Hey guy I'm sure that your in love with your new boat and I'll admit we like it too... But putting big ass pictures of it in your sig line is really annoying as they eat up bandwidth and make the pages slow to load up for those of us not using hi speed connections....

As to underskinning is is a thin skin of alum, plastic or fiberglass protecting the underside of your deck; it is mounted to the cross members via screws or rivets. It can extend the life of your plywood deck by keeping it drier, it can provide a smoother ride as it prevents the wave action from slapping the cross members, and it can increase the speed of your boat for the exact same reason.

I'm planning on underskinning my boat this fall with 1/8" thick sheets of HDPE plastic sheeting; many folks and factory use 1/16" thick alum....

Yep, bout like those moving Avatars some people have.

Capt Sully wrote:Yep, bout like those moving Avatars some people have.

Hadn't thought much about that; point well taken...

teecro wrote: But putting big ass pictures of it in your sig line is really annoying as they eat up bandwidth and make the pages slow to load up for those of us not using hi speed connections......

You mean they still got dial up 56k?

keep your sig as big as you want,lol,but please get some shiny rims for that trailer,we are so cal peeps and have a rep to adhere to,haha.

margaritaman wrote:

teecro wrote: But putting big ass pictures of it in your sig line is really annoying as they eat up bandwidth and make the pages slow to load up for those of us not using hi speed connections......

You mean they still got dial up 56k?

Or worse... Wireless Broadband Air Card from the middle of Lake Michigan...

mobldj wrote:keep your sig as big as you want,lol,but please get some shiny rims for that trailer,we are so cal peeps and have a rep to adhere to,haha.

Lol. Just buying time with this trailer. Going to replace it with an aluminium or galvanized as soon as the salt water has its way with it...

Just completed underskinning my toon with .063 5052 aluminum. It is NOT a one-man job if you want it to fit well and look right. I tried posting before and after pics today but since I just upgraded my iPad to IOS 8.0, none of my photo resizing apps work nor do some other apps. I'll try again tomorrow.

Search for Underskinning, underpinning or underskirting in this forum and on Google and you'll find lots of discussions about it. There is also an on-goiing discussion under my signature.

I'm taking the boat back to the marina this weekend and will find out what difference the underskinning made. It sure looks good! I hope the fish like it 'cause they're the only ones who will see it. Hopefully, the goons on the forklifts will not destroy it like they are doing to my toon logs.

We did under skin our previous pontoon, it came with it only about half way forward. We got it done at a sheet metal shop and it wasn't that expensive, beat doing it ourselves. It most certainly did make the ride smoother and quieter, and a bit faster. Money well spent for us.

The new one came with it all under skinned. But, we have storage in the center tube and, you do get a little water noise coming up from there through the slotted door. But, well worth the trade off of noise vs storage, love the locker storage.