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Lining the struts between the pontoons

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fridaydc

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The cross struts between my pontoons often get struck by high waves coming at the bow and impede my forward motion. I am considering lining the space between my pontoons with aluminum flashing. This will give a smooth surface between the toons and the boat should glide over high waves instead of crashing through them. Does anyone see a safety problem with this? Or, has anyone tried it? The distance between the toons is roughly 60 inches. I figure rolling three 20 inch flashing strips from stem to stern using self-tapping aluminum screws. I am only worrying about catching a bow wave with the front end of the flashing and have it peel backward ending entangled in my prop. Am I over paranoid?
 
Flashing isn't thick enough. You need to have the boat underskinned and off the top of my head I don't know the thickness of the aluminum. Found it, .080" thick.
 
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Personally, I think .080'' is overkill and adds unnecessary weight. I did some research before skinning the Coon Toon and found .032" was a common choice so that's what I used. It's feels pretty flexable when you're working with it (which actually helped when trying to wiggle it into position) buy once it was all screwed down it's fine.

For a 20' hull I purchased three 48" x 120" sheets. Cutting two of them in half and starting four feet from the bow, I used four sections at 48" x 60" with the 60" going width-wise and the 48" span being perfect for the length since the crossbeams are 24" on center front to back. The fourth section used at the stern was cut in half again and custom fitted around the motor pod. The third full sheet was used for the bow section because it had to be cut wider than 60" at the bow because of the shape of the pontoons. You might be able to see in the picture that I loosened the bolts that hold the pontoons to the crossbeams and wedged the skin between the two for some additional bracing.

The amount of water that hits the skin is impressive, much more than I expected, but there's no indication that the material used is too thin.

IMG_0096.jpg



IMG_0096.jpg
 
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Flashing "might" work if you are on a budget, but MAKE SURE to start at the back and overlap the forward piece over rear piece, OR, slide rear under front befor screwing down if you start from front. You do not want a wave catching a loose edge if installed incorrectly and ripping it off the bottom.
 
Maynard....did you use stainless screws, I would have. The aluminum screws he suggested might twist off as they are seated. Steve
 
I see some possible warranty issues with this. Has anyone had this installed at a dealer and if so how much. Our boat is already in and we're thinking we should have added it.
 
Every toon should be underskinned, IMHO. It makes for a much better ride.
 
Was out on our first trip with new boat this weekend and an annoying vibration at idle. Looked underneath and the factory installed rear shield was vibrating bad. Anyone else have this problem. After trailering it I only found the very forward edge to be loose enough to cause contact with the support. Also the .03 thick material sounds about right. You just need something thick enough it wont "oilcan" or as someone else mentioned rip off if a wave caught a loose edge. Nice work Maynerd will most likely fully skin our boat if it doesnt void the warranty.
 
lakebum said:
Maynard....did you use stainless screws, I would have. The aluminum screws he suggested might twist off as they are seated. Steve
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Yes, they are stainless tek screws. Even though tek screws are self drilling I drilled pilot holes to ease installation. Having two electric drills came in handy for this job, one with the pilot drill in the chuck and the other with a socket bit.
 
cwag911 said:
Every toon should be underskinned, IMHO. It makes for a much better ride.
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Fully agree. just makes sense..............
 
fridaydc said:
The cross struts between my pontoons often get struck by high waves coming at the bow and impede my forward motion. I am considering lining the space between my pontoons with aluminum flashing. This will give a smooth surface between the toons and the boat should glide over high waves instead of crashing through them. Does anyone see a safety problem with this? Or, has anyone tried it? The distance between the toons is roughly 60 inches. I figure rolling three 20 inch flashing strips from stem to stern using self-tapping aluminum screws. I am only worrying about catching a bow wave with the front end of the flashing and have it peel backward ending entangled in my prop. Am I over paranoid?
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No one else mentioned this, so I will. If you honestly didn't know underskinning was an option, then your idea is pure genius! Welcome to the forum - We (at least I) can use more guys like you on this forum and looking forward to your future posts.

By the way, my S has two curved shields, one between each pair of toons (I have the tritoon express package). They don't totally cover the entire space like Maynards pic (which the upper class Benningtons do this). The S model is entry level, and to cut cost, Bennington used smaller sheets for the wave sheild. They flared each side (pontoon edge) so the water would deflect back down instead of going over the top-side of the pontoons. That's how they got around not covering 100% of the underside of the boat. Also, it starts 4 or more feet back from the bow (about where the spray would start hitting the cross beams). If I had my boat at the house I'd pic it for you. Hopefully this makes sense. I mention it because it may save you some time and cost if you end up doing this yourself. My recollection, though, is the panels on the S are quite thick, probably due to being flared down on the sides (and not screwed down on the edges).
 
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Maynard G. Krebs said:
Personally, I think .080'' is overkill and adds unnecessary weight. I did some research before skinning the Coon Toon and found .032" was a common choice so that's what I used. It's feels pretty flexable when you're working with it (which actually helped when trying to wiggle it into position) buy once it was all screwed down it's fine.

For a 20' hull I purchased three 48" x 120" sheets. Cutting two of them in half and starting four feet from the bow, I used four sections at 48" x 60" with the 60" going width-wise and the 48" span being perfect for the length since the crossbeams are 24" on center front to back. The fourth section used at the stern was cut in half again and custom fitted around the motor pod. The third full sheet was used for the bow section because it had to be cut wider than 60" at the bow because of the shape of the pontoons. You might be able to see in the picture that I loosened the bolts that hold the pontoons to the crossbeams and wedged the skin between the two for some additional bracing.

The amount of water that hits the skin is impressive, much more than I expected, but there's no indication that the material used is too thin.

IMG_0096.jpg
Click to expand...
Maynard, my trailer has a big piece of PVC pipe (4-inch?) over each vertical guide to protect the pontoons. I assume you'd do something like that, but just in case...
 
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Yeah, those uprights would open up the pontoons like a can opener. I had removed the guides to polish the inboard side of the 'toons when that pic was taken.
 
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Is it possible to run some conduit from the stern battery area to the helm prior to the skinning job. I'm just thinking ahead to when someone might want to power and amp or addl lights or something that requires wires run. Also, what If existing wires need to be accessed? Do the panels have to be removed? There questions I think about regardless of factory or owner-installed under skinning.

Thanks for a great photo and write up!
 
Maynard G. Krebs said:
Yeah, those uprights would open up the pontoons like a can opener. I had removed the guides to polish the inboard side of the 'toons when that pic was taken.
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Do your guides run horizontally, bolted to each upright? Mine just have PVC pipe covers on them, and a strake from my center tube (short tube from the express package) caught on one and bent the guide back a little. Don't know when that happened, but I just noticed it when I went to check on the boat this weekend. There was a nice imprint of the corner of my strake gouged into the PVC. So, I am questioning my setup now.
 
Padre said:
Maynard, how much was the metal?
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$159.00 + 7.25 tax = 170.53 Figure another 15-20 bucks for stainless screws, I don't know the exact amount because the cashier didn't know they were stainless and I was suddenly mute and unable to correct her. B)
goldnrod24 said:
Is it possible to run some conduit from the stern battery area to the helm prior to the skinning job. I'm just thinking ahead to when someone might want to power and amp or addl lights or something that requires wires run. Also, what If existing wires need to be accessed? Do the panels have to be removed? There questions I think about regardless of factory or owner-installed under skinning.
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I added an amp after this was done which required running a new power lead from the stern-mounted battery to the helm and it was a piece of cake. I tucked the new wire into the factory loom which on my boat runs along the inside of the starboard rub rail so the underskin wasn't a big issue, just a little extra reaching in the motor pod area. Some of the control cables cross over the skin at one point but access would only be a few screws and two bolts to drop a single panel... 10 minutes tops.
kaydano said:
Do your guides run horizontally, bolted to each upright?
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IMG_0007.jpg
 
I'm pretty sure you were more thinking of saving her the embarrassment of NOT knowing they were stainless, so being the nice guy that you are you kept your mouth shut so she could save face amongst her co-workers and peers. You sure are nice. :rolleyes:
 
Looks good! Have you considered adding more screws? It looks like you're around 10-12" O.C., 6" O.C. Might be the difference of the sheeting shearing off?
 
Even though I have completed several outings and crawl through the tunnel with a drying towel each time, your comment made me go out and double check my work. The pictures are a little deceiving, the screws are 9" o.c. and if you're physically under the hull they look a lot closer together than in the pics. Each panel has 21 screws plus the six pontoon support brackets and seems solid, I tried getting my fingernails into a seam and pulling down but the skin doesn't budge. Nothing wrong with a tighter screw pattern if you find your bow wake is hitting directly on a seam, but the rest of the skin just gets some minor splashing and is in no danger of being peeled back.
 
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