Prop for Homemade Pontoon

[WhatsUpDoc]

I believe back in 2006-09 this man where I live actually build this pontoon from the ground up. He was a retired engineer and to be honest this is the heaviest pontoons I've ever sat in.
Attach is a photo of the pontoon boat. As you can see it as these square/rectangle logs (if you can call them logs). I know the largest pontoon boat in the word I see on youtube as these types of logs. What he did was stuff the logs with white styrofoam. The boat was so heavy I actually had to add drain plugs on the back of each log because I wanted to see if they were leaking and no they are not. At least I have drain plugs like they should but it means he did a great job. The floor is aluminum and well its sits excellent in the water.

The problem I am having is he originally installed a 2002 Yamaha 50hp four stroke on this pontoon. I am telling you with 4 grown men it wouldn't get past 8mph topped out. So, I took off the 50hp and installed my Evinrude 150 HP. I set the motor on the very top hole and realized after taking it out to test I had to adjust it because it sat way too low in the water. Then I decided to try some things and moved it up to the very bottom hole on the motor, that was too high. I believe I have it properly set.

I cannot tell you what prop is on the motor as it was on my old bass boat and there are no numbers whatsoever anywhere on the prop. Its a stainless steel prop and I don't know why there isn't any numbers on the prop anywhere to show the size and pitch.

My question is, do pontoons normally use a different type of prop such as a high thrust prop? This pontoon is 18 feet long and just heavy as all get out.

What do you guys recommend for a prop for my 1995 Evinrude 150 HP and this pontoon? I am not looking to go 40 MPH but hopefully get up to at least 25-30mph. Going too slow well I believe that takes away my fishing time and if there is an emergency I don't want to be going 8 mph back to the boat ramp. Just something for 4 large men to be able to get from point A to Point B in a lot quicker time than 8 mph.

Thank you in Advance.

 

[Scott Danforth]

here is an anology. a houseboat with twin 454 big blocks moves at 8mph. the same houseboat with a 50hp motor moves at 8mph. that is the displacement speed of the hull

even with the 150hp motor, I do not see that pontoon getting to 25-30 on the water.

at a minimum, you would need lifting strakes, etc to get the boat from displacing water to sitting on top the water.

yes, pontoons normally use a different gear ratio and a high-thrust prop.

 

[flashback]

You need to know what the rpm is with the current prop in order to determine the size of the new one. Most likely will need less pitch.

 

[WhatsUpDoc]

here is an anology. a houseboat with twin 454 big blocks moves at 8mph. the same houseboat with a 50hp motor moves at 8mph. that is the displacement speed of the hull

even with the 150hp motor, I do not see that pontoon getting to 25-30 on the water.

at a minimum, you would need lifting strakes, etc to get the boat from displacing water to sitting on top the water.

yes, pontoons normally use a different gear ratio and a high-thrust prop.

I was thinking about those lifting strakes, I guess they can weld them on these rectangle logs/block or whatever they are called. Thanks you for reply will do a little more research.

 

[airshot]

Back in my younger days, working at a marina next to our cottage, they had a pontoon with rectangle logs. The idea was to carry weight. You see the marina had a derrick/ winch on the front to do dock maintenence and stack up large concrete rectangles to make a breakwall. The nearby town replaced their sidewalks and was kooking for a olace to dump the old slabs. The marina took all of them that were in rectangle form. You woukd be surprised how much weight that derick could pickup with those square logs !! A round log would have went under with half the weight. They didn't allow you to go fast whether we had the 25 hp or the 10 hp motor on it, 10 mph was it, top speed no matter if we had two people or six people. Not a smooth ride in any type of waves either !! Used that old barge for ten years then sold it after all those sidewalk slabs were installed.

 

[WhatsUpDoc]

Back in my younger days, working at a marina next to our cottage, they had a pontoon with rectangle logs. The idea was to carry weight. You see the marina had a derrick/ winch on the front to do dock maintenence and stack up large concrete rectangles to make a breakwall. The nearby town replaced their sidewalks and was kooking for a olace to dump the old slabs. The marina took all of them that were in rectangle form. You woukd be surprised how much weight that derick could pickup with those square logs !! A round log would have went under with half the weight. They didn't allow you to go fast whether we had the 25 hp or the 10 hp motor on it, 10 mph was it, top speed no matter if we had two people or six people. Not a smooth ride in any type of waves either !! Used that old barge for ten years then sold it after all those sidewalk slabs were installed.

It really sat good in the water but I decided to buy two used 6 foot (diameter) toons and just recently replaced those homemade square toons. If the person who built this pontoon had only created a V shape on those toons it may have done better. Today I went to test it out and of course my shift cable shielding broke which I expected. I switched from Yamaha 50HP to Evinrude 150HP and had to get a used control box on ebay as I didn't want to pay $250 a piece of metal like that...The person on Ebay sent me 4 cables with the box and two were too short and the other two barely fix and I believe it was actualy too short, no room to turn left without stretching the cables so I ordered 2 new cables earlier and made sure these were at least 2 feet longer.

Talk about a job switching out those toons, luckily I have a lot of Live Oaks and huge limbs, worked well hanging the pontoon top deck. I just had to install 2 4x4 the length of the 20' pontoon becuase of bending as like most pontoons they only have side to side cross members. So now my wife tells me "what's next with the B.O.A.T or Break Out Another Thousand"...LOL

Luckily my flood is aluminum so I don't have to worry about rot. The man who built this thing OVERBUILT IT, I never seen so many screws in my life like this! But hey they are stainless steele. One great thing about this is I will get to either SALE the Aluminum toons to recycle place and use some of the pieces in my camper trailer my dad gave me. Hurricane Ian blew off the sun protector on top and it rained inside so the back is soft. I believe these aluminum pieces will work great and thick styrofoam he put in these toons.

Thanks for the help everybody.

 

[Chris1956]

Gee, I would have thought that with enough power, the 'toon would have planed better with the flat bottom pontoons, than with round bottom pontoons.

 

[cyclops222]

Lifting Strakes HELP a pontoon lift up faster. If the boat can rise up to begin with. They will do nothing in a displacement 8 mph hull.

 

[Chris1956]

Those pontoons look to be flat bottomed. Flat bottomed hulls plane all the time. Think air boats and Jon boats. When I was a kid we had a flat-bottomed wooden rowboat that planed with a 9.8 merc.

Round bottom hulls are displacement hulls. Lifting strakes help a bit, but do not make them planning hulls.

 

[WhatsUpDoc]

Those pontoons look to be flat bottomed. Flat bottomed hulls plane all the time. Think air boats and Jon boats. When I was a kid we had a flat-bottomed wooden rowboat that planed with a 9.8 merc.

Round bottom hulls are displacement hulls. Lifting strakes help a bit, but do not make them planning hulls.

Yea not these. I was able to find some very large toons and replace them. Nothing I did helped to even able to get on plane. After removing them I wanted to see how the man I bought the pontoon from put together the toons, he used thick stryofoam, the type they use on floors on camper trailers and he used compartments. Well on one of the toons the front compartment was flooded and all the styrofoam was very wet. I believe it had about 3 inches of water inside. That was the very front compartment. The 2nd compartment behind it wasn't flooded.

Good thing is my dad gave me a camper trailer but the rear of the camper floor flooded during Hurricane Ian so I am going to use the dry Styrofoam to repair it. It runs better but I need a better prop for this Evinrude 150 HP as it is sucking a lot of gasoline. Any suggestions for a prop on a 20 foot pontoon with Evinrude 150 HP? The whole Pontoon actually LIGHT because the floor is aluminum, I can literally lift up the front of the trailer with the pontoon on there. Yes I know that also means the pontoon sits center on tandem wheels which is good on gas mileage but its literally a light pontoon. The current prop does not have any writings on it, I don't know what it pitch it is but I believe I need a high speed pontoon prop. I filled up the gas tank to go fishing, we left the dock, go out about 2 miles (maybe) and come back in to find that it sucked down 3/4 of the gasoline. That is telling me thats NOT the right prop on that thing for the pontoon. The motor is an 1996 Evinrude 150HP GLEOM that was on a bass boat. I gave the bass boat away (needed too much work on it) and kept the motor to install on this pontoon.

Any help on prop choice would be appreciated. I want a simple aluminum prop.

Also, I decided I am going to use ONE of the homemade square toons as an under floor compartment storage. I will take out the compartment walls and styrofoam of course and seal it really well. I need an underfloor compartment to store all my rods, life jackets. Right now we have one of those pool storage boxes that was in the boat in the back but it takes up too much room. This pontoon is only used for Crappie Fishing at night!