Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

We currently have a 25 ft Bennington and I am considering down sizing to a 22 or 23 ft toon. Most people I see on here tend to upgrade to a longer boat. Has anyone ever downsized and been happy? We usually have no more than 5 or 6 people MAX on the boat at one time and a smaller boat just seems like the more logical choice here. I bought a new 115 Yamaha last year and plan to just put that motor on the boat since it hasn't even reached 20 hrs. yet.

I like our 22' SunCatcher with a 90hp Yamaha.

Does great, and is roomy for two and fine for 8.

My first boat was 24'. Second was 21' Sun Tracker with no front porch. It felt as big as the 24 footer inside the playpen, but I missed the front porch. Current boat is 22' with about a 2' front porch. Just right size for us.

It's doubtful that swapping motors to another lesser boat would be cost efficient.

The dealer's going to hit you up heavily on depreciation--simply put. And he's going to have to put a new engine on your larger boat. He cannot buy a new engine from Mercury/Yamaha as cheap as bulk prices for motors by Bennington would be.

Unless you are also considering downsizing for storage reasons, garage, cheaper storage facility or what-ever personally if you're honest with yourself I don't think you will realize any gains. In the real world there isn't enough difference between the two to really matter IMHO excepting storage.

Here I'm an exception that I'm all but completely content with an 18 foot boat. Absolutely no issue with 2 souls on board, cozy happy with 4 souls and just slightly over crowded with 7 on board....

I only "downsized" once. Went from the 27' Baja to the 24' Manitou. But I gained so much more space! The Premier is 25' and this new Manny will be 25'. I guess I'm stuck here for a while.