School me on boats.

We pulled a couple 4 year olds on the tube (big tube with their dad on board) last weekend. One cried and came in, but the other absolutely loved it. 10 minutes in the driver gave it some gas and got the boat on plane at around 18 MPH and she was as happy as she could be back there.

A modern pontoon is great and most would have plenty of power to pull tubes and teach the kids to ski/wakeboard, but as soon as they start to get a little air they're going to be bugging you for something with a little more performance.
 
Buy the widest boat that you can find.

Stay away from the 1999-2005 Johnson/Evinrude motors. I have an 2007 Evinrude E-TEC on love it.

No boat is going to everything well.

A fishing boat will pull a tube and a skier. Also doubles as a good chilling platform.

A ski boat is terrible to fish out of.

I like the McKee Craft Pulse DC. Dual console front deck plenty of seating. 18ft boat would be plenty.
Would fit in your garage.

http://eastnc.craigslist.org/boa/3052972661.html

Some like this but with a Mercury/Yamaha/E-TEC/Suzuki motor


This style boat is my good all around boat recommendation.
 
If I had my choice for a Lake Norman boat I'd go with one of the bigger runabouts from Chaparral or Stingray. Something like these in 22'-26':
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/boa/3056856597.html
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/bod/3002386477.html
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/boa/3039494470.html

Norman is a busy lake. If you don't go the pontoon route you're going to want a hull that can soak up some serious chop or else you'll beat yourself to death running on the weekends out there. Stingray boats with the Z-Plane hull will get the best fuel economy of the boats in that category from what I've seen/read. Any of them would be extremely comfy compared to a center console or saltwater type boat.

The downside is that a 24-26' boat can be a tough one to handle if things go awry when it comes time to drop anchor, dock, load on the trailer, etc. Something a little smaller is a heck of a lot easier to muscle around by hand if you find yourself in a jam and it does take some time and practice to get those things down. Nobody is born knowing how to dock a boat in heavy wind.

Pontoons with outboard engines are pretty easy to work with in general. You can beach them without fear if you don't want to deal with anchoring and they're generally capable of standing up to a lot of abuse. They're definitely the kings of comfort with huge tops for shade, comfy captain's chairs, and sofas/chaise lounges built in. I'm seeing a lot of them that will run 30-40 MPH these days; especially the tri-toon designs. Still, they're not going to be anywhere near as fun as running across the lake in a trimmed out runabout!
 
Back
Top