04/29/2026
Before anyone gets overly critical about this, it wasn’t my idea. Although I don’t think it’s a horrible idea. This pontoon got a serious engine upgrade last year. I was kind of skeptical about the overall strength of the transom.
Well, the transom held the engine just fine however, the third pontoon was a very short one and the mounting of it did not hold up well. We found that a hole had appeared and had filled it up with over 400 lbs of water and was ripping itself off of the framing for the deck.
This is a much larger 22 foot pontoon with an even stronger transom. The previous owner of the pontoon had cut out part of the forward portion of it and modified the walls to keep water out and it actually worked pretty well.
My job was to install the third pontoon on this vessel and create a hatch to access the storage space. I was able to create a perfect fitting hatch door from 23/32” plywood that I coated in fiberglass resin.
After the hatch was done, we bolted it up and I don’t see much water finding its way into that storage area being how this was previously modified. Overall the boat should not only handle the engine upgrade from last year, but also support the overall weight this vessel carries and float much better.
It’s not completely done yet, but I am getting the engine back on and we are taking some of the weight off of the boat. So try not to kill me in the comments please. In this business we have to work with what we have and think outside of the box.
🤘😎🤘
