Haulover Inlet is a tough place to navigate with any boat. The waves can be huge, the currents strong, and the rocks treacherous. Not to mention that the conditions can change within minutes, you take your boat out when its calm and then on the way back in the waves are built up and the tide has turned. Even in a boat designed to handle these conditions you have to take care when navigating Haulover Inlet. A pontoon boat is not designed for Haulover Inlet, especially a top heavy example like the one featured here with its water slide, top deck, and other accessories. (plus a full crew!)
Testing the pontoon at Haulover Inlet
The Premier 240 Sunsation with a 250hp Evinrude E-tec is not a cheap machine, it retails for $70-80,000 and used examples can be over $50,000! This particular example is decked out (no pun intended) with an Upper Deck and Slide to maximize the fun! These fun add-ons negatively impact the handling of a Pontoon boat that already is not set up for these conditions. Pontoon boats may be unsinkable, but they can easily be washed over by large waves, there are tons of videos of Pontoon doors being knocked open and flooded by waves. The boat may not sink, but you sure don’t want your loved ones falling into the strong currents and large waves!
Click here to skip to the exact time the pontoon arrives
The Pontoon captain here has his whole family on board and enters the inlet on a choppy day. As he nears the mouth of the inlet he repeatedly stuffs his Pontoon boat. The dad at the helm appears unfazed and keeps the throttle pinned! His kids, seated in the bow, are pummeled by the seas again and again! You can hear them cry out “dad” and “dad stop” repeatedly. Unable to resist their pleas any longer he turns the pontoon back and looks motionless on the standing waves. The pontoon boat’s clumsy navigational tendencies make it difficult to get the right angle on the following seas. He stuffs the bow again. More water rushes over the bow and he motors on back to the bay with his soaked family on board.
There is a reason we don’t see many pontoon boats in Haulover Inlet. The pontoon in today’s video would be an absolute blast on the sandbar with its coolers, water slide, upper deck, and party inducing set up. The trip out there is the challenging part.
See more pontoon shenanigans here:
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