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Originally Posted by JG1222
I think the best advice so far has been to look for a used, larger bowrider. But of course it depends on your type of usage. I'd say that if you spend most of your time up at Lee's Mills area, a pontoon boat may be just the thing for you. However, I'd still take the 19' bowrider (and the tylenol required to ride in it on a weekend) over a 24' pontoon.
Get a few people on a pontoon boat, and if they're not sitting in exactly the right place, you get the tidal wave rushing down the length of the boat from bow to stern, and I don't find them nearly as controllable/maneuverable in rougher conditions. My parents have a place on Lake Ossipee - now that's the perfect lake for a pontoon. However, on the big lake I'd opt for a boat with a hull over a floating swim raft with a steering wheel any day.
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You've about said it there, but left out the part about dock spiders loving pontoons!
My Florida neighbor's smaller pontoon boat launched a lady guest (a non-swimmer) into the lake due to a shift of passenger weight. Fortunately, the lake was only five feet deep there, and had a firm bottom. (The lake did). Pontoons are a great lake boat in Florida, but you don't see any on the immense (and the very changeable) Lake Okeechobee!
I appreciate pontoons in my neighborhood because they produce a self-canceling, negligible, wake. The action of the water between the hulls may not be pretty, though. Raves of "smooth ride" might be different if pontoon boats had a window in the deck.
You see very few boats (mainly pontoons) on Lake Winnipesaukee with correct trim on their outboards. Too many pontoons are over-trimmed—perhaps for ride/ignorance—and likely to take a "stuff", like WD describes here.
With a bow-rider, you'll remember to replace the drainplug at the dock. It wasn't so fortunate for the pontoon boat pictured below, who managed to get into the middle of the lake before sinking!
I've always had small boats. If a mechanical problem and weather drive me against the shore, I can always hold the boat in waist-deep water and wait out the storm. (And have).
Buy the boat you can afford and know the weather. Yes, bigger is usually better, but when visibility gets down to 12-feet, it doesn't really matter.