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Average Pontoon Boat Speeds (With 15 Examples)

By: BetterBoat.com

When buying a pontoon boat, one of the major considerations is your top speed. Since pontoon boats are generally not built for speed, skiing and tubing behind one can be difficult unless you take care to select an engine, weight, and pontoon style that will be conducive to speeds required for skiing and tubing.

How Fast Do Pontoon Boats Go?

I scoured the internet for guys who have reported their speeds on forums around the web.  All speeds recorded with GPS, and except where listed, with a light to medium load.

• G3 Suncatcher 22′ V22RF with a 115hp engine and medium load can go about 25 mph (39 kilometers)
  • 22mph (38 kilometers) with a 90hp engine and medium load
  • With 11 people in the boat (max capacity) and a 115hp engine, it gets about 22 mph (35 kilometers)
  • Under perfect, ideal conditions and only one person in the boat, it can hit 31 mph (48 kmph)
• 21′ with lifting strakes and a 90hp engine and perfect conditions gets 36 mph (58 kilometers)
• 18′ Bass Buggy with 60hp engine can go up to 18mph (29 kilometers)
• Suntracker 22′ with a 70hp engine can get 21 mph with a light load (34 kilometers)
• Gigantic 30′ Pontoon with a 115hp will only get around 15mph (24 kilometers)
• 24′ Pontoon boat with a 115hp and a medium load got around 25mph (38 kilometers)
• 18′ Party Barge with a 75hp engine can get around  24mph (38 kilometers)
• 20′ Bass Buggy with a 60hp motor only gets around 13-17 mph (18 to 27 kilometers)
• 20′ Starcraft with a 75hp engine and with no load can get 23 mph (36 kilometers)
• 26′ Crest III with a 90hp engine and medium load can get around 28mph (45 kilometers)
• 24′ 2006 Sweetwater with a 90hp engine can go around 18mph, or 20.5mph with a 115hp engine
• 26′ Tritoon with a 175hp engine and a medium/heavy load can get up to 35mph (56 kilometers)
• 21′ Tritoon with a 90hp engine and only two people on board can get up to 27mph (43 kilometers)

How Fast Do You Really Need to Go?

Your initial response is probably “the faster, the better” but in reality you likely don’t need to go as fast as you think.  While speeds certainly vary according to the tastes and abilities of your riders, consider the following as good average speeds for various water sport activities.

• Waterskiing with two skis – 15 to 26mph is pretty normal (28 to 42 kilometers)
• Tubing with very young kids – My kids really don’t want to go faster than 5 to 10 mph (16kph).  They are 4 and 6 years old.  Most of the time, they feel like idling is a wild ride, but will sometimes get brave enough to hit 11mph.
• Tubing with kids 8 – 10 years old – Depends dramatically on the kid, but most wouldn’t want to go faster than 15 or 20 mph (24 to 32 kilometers).
• Tubing with older teens and adults – Above 25 mph (40 kilometers) is dangerous unless you’re just going in a straight line.  At 20 (34 kilometers), you can get really nice air and have the ride of your life but even this speed can be dangerous with more than one rider.  21 mph is a pretty adventurous ride and will easily knock off riders if you make tight turns.
• Wakeboarding – 13mph to 18mph (30 kilometers) is a pretty average ride. Wakeboarding requires less speed than many other water sports, and going too fast increases the danger dramatically.  The large, solid board strapped to both legs makes this water sport more dangerous at high speeds than some others.
• Slalom skiing – 14mph (22.5 kilometers) is a little slow and 36mph is HAULING (and extremely dangerous)!  A good average speed is somewhere around 22mph (35 kilometers).
• Kneeboarding – Somewhere around 13 to 20 mph (22 to 32 kilometers)
• Barefoot – This blog gives a formula that is helpful for those in the U.S.  Take your weight in pounds and divide by 10.  Then add 20.  So if you’re 200 pounds, you go to 20mph, then add 20, which means 40mph.

If you are new to boating, that is probably a little eye-opening.  Before, you thought you needed as much speed as possible, but as you can see from this breakdown, the optimal speed for most watersports is only 22 mph (36 kilometers).  Just about ANY pontoon boat with a 90hp motor can do that as long as it isn’t loaded down with people.  With a 115, you should be hitting the optimal speed even if your boat is pretty well loaded down with people. For most pontoon boat captains, the real goal is to hit the golden 22 mph (36 kph) mark.  At that point, your fishing/cruising rig becomes a nice watersports rig as well.

How Weight (Load) Affects Speed

Prepare yourself for a horrible generalization.  This depends dramatically on the specific boat and the setup, but just as a guestimation aid, for every thousand pounds you add to your boat, you’ll lose about 15% of your speed.  So a 22′ boat with no load may get up to 29mph, but will likely slow down to 24.5mph with 1,000 pounds of people in the boat (5 or 6 adults).

How the bimini Affects Speed

• One pontoon boat captain reported that folding down the bimini took  his speed from 32mph all the way up to 36mph (51kilometers to 58 kilometers).  In my experience, it’s usually much less of a difference than that unless it is an incredibly windy day.  I usually only see a 1 mph difference with top up vs down.

How the Prop Affects Speed

• When you first get your boat, it will likely come with a “safe” prop that is meant to make the motor operate under nice and easy conditions.  Almost everyone will switch out that prop and go with something a little smaller (usually) to get the speed up and push up the RPMs to around 5000 or 6000 depending on your recommended range for your particular motor.

How Dirty Pontoons Affect Speed

• It is not surprising to see a pontoon boat slow down 2 to 6mph if you have algae, barnacles, or other crud on your pontoons.  For those pontoon boat captains who don’t trailer but leave their boat in the water most of the season, this is an important consideration.

For all your accessories and/or vinyl flooring visit Pontoon Depot's shop site.

Let The MADNESS Sales Begin | Pontoon-Depot

Cyber Monday is around the corner and we are having an amazing sale. You get 10% off your entire purchase. Now how's that for awesome?!

As you may know, MariDeck is the industry leader when it comes to flooring for boats. Pontoon-Depot has many different types of MariDeck, for all the various types of applications that you may need for your project. We also have many cool boating accessories, so look around and make sure you take full advantage of this great deal. 

The 10% off your purchase is only good on 11/26/2018 [Cyber Monday]. 

Promo Code: CyberMondaySale

Be on the lookout for more great deals from Pontoon-Depot, so we can help make your time on the water even more enjoyable. 

We appreciate your business, as well as your support on social media. Thank you! 

Safe Boating My Friends!
Pontoon-Depot

Bargain Pontoon Boat Wraps Not Always A Bargain

Does taking shortcuts for winter storage pay off?

By: Dan Armitage

As many of my fellow pontoon boat club members readied their craft for the off-season, I grew intrigued by the DIY, alternative and after-market solutions some came up with for protecting their boats and related gear. Some of these non-traditional apps are put into use by my resourceful fellow boaters during the boating season as well, and are of value for those lucky pontoon boaters south of the Mason-Dixon Line who don’t know the meaning of “off” season and may enjoy their craft year-round.

For example, you will find covers intended for back yard use on chaise lounges and Adirondack chairs protecting the furniture of some members’ boats. The patio furniture covers are less expensive than semi-custom covers designed for the job, wear well under typical conditions, and the fact that the generic one-size-fits-all covers don’t fit all that tight allows air to circulate and the upholstery to breathe a bit, which can help prevent mildew in the damp environs the boats are subject to. And when conditions aren’t typical, and a loose-fitting captain’s (aka: Adirondack) chair cover goes gone with the wind, it’s less expensive to replace.

If you’ve run across any non-traditional uses for items aboard a pontoon —or any other watercraft – we’d like to see ‘em. Meanwhile, here are a few I stumbled across during a recent late-season walk around the local pontoon boat club – and one photo I snapped last winter that reminded me that going with cost cutting alternatives may not be the bargain you, well, bargained on…

Hot Springs Expanding Pontoon Boat Production

Pic By: Xpress Boats

JONES MILL, Ark. (KATV) — There's an abandon plant of highway 270 in the small community of Jones Mill.

But it was announced early Monday, that that's about to change.

"When I moved out here a long time ago, there was all kinds of stuff," Throne said.

Like the General Cable plant, which shut down production a few years ago.

"I was hoping we'd see something go in there," said Throne.

Well, Monday morning, it was announced that Xpress Boat Company will be bringing roughly one hundred new jobs back to this plant and jones mill, to help with production of their Veranda Luxury Pontoon Boats.

"It's an exciting opportunity for our company, it's an exciting opportunity for the community," Rory Herndon, president of Xpress Boat Company, said.

"Any time you have the expansion of a local business, it's a great day," Pat McCabe, mayor of Hot Springs, said.

Mayor McCabe says the Garland County based company will drive more revenue for the area, after investing nearly $10 million in the General Cable Plant.

"We're going to have people coming from Hot Springs, Malvern are going to have people employed," McCabe said.

Something Throne says will put the abandon plant back into good use.

"I think they'll do really good right there," she said.

General Cable had left Jones Mill in 2015.

The plant itself in over 375,000 square feet.

For all your accessories and/or vinyl flooring visit Pontoon Depot's shop site.