Pontoon with inside only strakes.. worth doing?

[Bamaman]

Ron: You mentioned something about a i/o engine, and I was wondering if you're going to repower your boat with a larger motor if you add a third toon?

My new Bennington has the 3/4 toon, and it's perfect for the Yamaha 150 hp. The center tube has the strakes, and it easily lifts three nosecones out of the water. There have been some complaints about the nose riding high at a medium cruise, but I'm very satsified with performance (40 mph.) 3/4 middle toons are a cost/performance compromise, and mine was a good buy for $1842 MSRP. Underskinning makes the boat so much quieter and smoother running than my old 24' twin toon boat.

Unless you're repowering, a 90 hp may not be worth spending the money for hull upgrades. You have a very nice boat, however many on this website have said strakes work better with 115 hp motor or more.

[ronb]

The though of repowering with a 115 Opti is always on the back of my mind, but without doing some hull performance upgrades, I don't think the benefits of additional HP alone would net much performance. FWIW, the only differences between my 90 Opti and a 115 Opti is, ECM (tune), an airflow restricter, and a different gear ratio in the lower unit (less reduction in the 115). I have been thinking about talking with the Marine mechanic that did the power head replacement on my pontoon earlier this year to see if he has any trade-in deals to move to a 115.

The only reason the I/O factor ever gets mentioned is that my wife is a sucker for loud v8's.. and as they say..."Happy wife = happy life". But a 115 Opti would be the max HP that I plan on putting on this pontoon, otherwise I start getting into a weird territory where I have to redo a lot of wiring, power steering, fuel managment and storage, cables and controls and I don't think I want to do that.

I do think it would be fun to pick up one of the $500 I/O boats I keep seeing on my local craigslist (quite a few actually) with either a 120hp (chev 250 i6) or 188 (Ford 302) and put on a 'junker' pontoon to use as a fishing platform when I start learning how to fish next year rather than making a mess on the South Bay. I personally like the idea of the i6 motor (less vibrations from the side to side firing of cylinders)

Yes it is true, I do not fish now, and I haven't been fishing for greater than 20 years, but I am hopefully changing that next year. My wife said to go ahead and fish from the South Bay, but I don't think she realizes what a mess digging worms out of dirt can make or what type of stains fish eggs can leave in carpet, I am positive my 2yr old (will be 3 by then) would grind that sort of thing into the carpets and upholstry, plus she'd probably be unhappy with having live fish on the boat.

-ron

[ToonGuy]

Pics would be nice, but how about an opinion, do you think it would be of any great benefit being that it does not provide any additional flotation at the stern of the craft? FWIW, your triple toon package that you sold to tuned is starting to look more and more like a hell of a deal...
-ron

Ouch...I just sold the one I told you about via PM last night. Yesterday I was actually going to suggest that you buy my chassis, get the motor/drive squared away then transfer all your rails/seating over. Any way on to the relivant subject...it will benefit you, for sure. I had a buddy that took an old 28' Landau with a 140 I/O, put a straked 23" shorty tube in the center, left the old crappy U tubes outside. I couldn't believe the difference in ride. Yes, the stern sat low. But the funny thing is it looked bad because of the "rake" even though the stern acutally GAINED 5" of floatation at rest. The big difference was the ride. It was amazing how much smoother it was, and no more water over the front or sides. I can take a pic and show you what the water line looks like. I'm also going to shoot you a PM with some other details.

[ToonGuy]

Water line on a Berkshire 223SLX with the BP1 option and a 150

[ToonGuy]

Detail pics