How do you make a simple small lightweight pontoon boat? any plans?

Question

How do you make a simple small lightweight pontoon boat? any plans?

Answer 1

Yes, go to the link below...

click on "plans catalog"

click on "houseboats"

click on "16 to 24 small pontoon"  (Huck Finn)

I know, the link says houseboat - but you can get the plans for just the pontoons... (plans are $70 and include everything you need to know regarding steering and engine hook up).

I have purchased several plans from GlenL. (including this one as well as all the others on the "houseboat" page; and in fact built all the ones using pontoons - ie: larger Huck Finn and Mark Twain.) These people  have been around longer than me and I date back to Noah (from a long-long line of boat builders.  The GlenL staff are good people, plans and instructions are easy to follow - even if you have never built a bird house before - much less - a boat. They will help you long after the sale is made - they want you to finish the boat, and send them a picture... They have lots of customer photos of beautiful boats.

Their website is well worth a cruise through... even if you have no intention of buying or building anything... very interesting and informative.

http://www.glenl.com/

Happy & Safe Boating

PS. you can, in fact, read building progress descriptions and see the matching progressive photos of building the larger "Mark Twain" pontoons on my website.

  http://boatwrights.org/SummerWind/Summer...

By the way... building it "right the first time" is easy and inexpensive... I can help you save time and money if you buy the Glen L plans -

The other fella's idea with the two canoes - is just that... an idea - we have all had them, and some are not so good as others... problem with that idea, is underneath your pontoon deck, you have two open boat hulls - that will fill with water and sink - unless you seal them off... That alone will be as difficult and expensive as building 'em right the first time, from scratch... in fact - if you use the boat epoxy and fiberglass the GlenL hulls - what you build will out last your Great grand kids... so think about that.

Answer 2

Iv'e been thinking along these lines too as a cheap way of getting onto the water. A solution that comes to mind is to buy two fibreglass canoes to use as the pontoons (you can get these cheaply second hand), and use a wood or metal frame to join the two canoes together (with a space between them of say 0,6m) and on top of which you can fit a base and seats etc. But I'm only at the concept stage and have no plans. Good luck.

(I refer obviously to the closed type of canoe, or kayak, not the open touring type which of course could fill with water and sink....)