Six years and change ago, I headed to the Lake of the Ozarks to cover the first Cigarette Owners Rendezvous produced by Performance Boat Center of Osage Beach, Mo. I arrived in town a day early so I could hang out with Dave Scott, a longtime friend I came to know through his offshore racing and Lake of the Ozarks Shootout exploits, at his waterfront home.
A gravely-voiced guy with a dry sense of humor, Scott is something or a living legend at the lake. He’s great company.
When it came time to get me out of his hair, Scott didn’t take either of the two exotic go-fast catamarans n on the lifts behind his place. Instead, he fired up the 400-hp six-cylinder Mercury Racing outboard on the back of his 20-something-foot pontoon boat and off we went.
“I love this boat,” he said in his trademark growl. “It’s just so damn easy.”
Was I disappointed not to be heading back to the Camden On The Lake Resort in his 50-foot Mystic catamaran? Hell yes, but the man had a point. In the time it would have taken to get the big cat off the lift, we were halfway across the lake.
That was my first exposure to a pontoon boat with “big” outboard power, and I dug it. Since then, I’ve ridden in a couple of 27-foot Avalon tri-toons with even more oomph, including one outfitted with a pair of 500-hp outboard engines.
Why does anyone need a pontoon boat, which generally conjures images of sunset cruises at idle speed with cocktails for everyone but the driver, with 1,000 hp on its transom? The answer is simple.
No one does.
But then again, no one “needs” a high-performance catamaran that tops 150 mph. No one needs a 135-mph V-bottom. Need and want, as I used to tell my kids, are different words with very different meanings.
Here’s the weird thing, at least for me. The “Why?” question surrounding big-power pontoons often comes from speed on the water fans who own more traditional go-fast boats such as cats and V-bottom sportboats.
Would they want to be told what sort of power they “need” in their boats? Likely not.
Strike that. Definitely not.
Avalon and other builders have been equipping their products with potent Mercury Racing engines for years. And he power-generated “disaster just waiting to happen” remains just that, waiting to happen.
As it does with a traditional high-performance V-bottom or catamaran, safety lies with the operator. Need and want remain two different things.—Matt Trulio