Pontoon Boat Average Weight With Examples
Most of the people imagine that a boat, in order to float, has to be astonishingly light. However, any boat owner knows so well the pain of finding a truck with enough torque to tow their pontoon boat without getting its engine blown. As such, weight is a thing you need to take into account when buying a trailer and a truck for towing.
The average pontoon boat weighs around 2200 pounds (~1 metric ton) including the engine and it can hold around 2000 pounds (~900kg) of passengers, furniture, and whatever else you put on it. The trailer itself weighs around 1200 pounds (~550kg), so you need to take that into account as well.
If you want to buy a truck that can pull a pontoon boat with relative ease and generally with no danger for either vehicle, you should consider finding something with a towing capacity of 2500 pounds or so (~1200kg) more than the weight of the tow, i.e. the boat, the gear, and the trailer combined. Considering that these three items weigh together some 3600 pounds (~1600 kg) with an empty tank and an extra 185 pounds (~83kg) for 30 gallons of fuel, it would be advisable for you to get a truck that can tow 5500-6000 pounds (~2500-2700kg) in order to get maximum traction. Of course, pontoon boats do come in very different shapes and sizes, and you will have to find the best truck to fit your personal boat, but this is a good rule of thumb.
Here is a couple of examples of pontoon boats and how much they weigh, heaviest to lightest:
- Suntracker Regency 254XP3 27’ takes the cake, with 3300 pounds dry hull (no trailer, no gear, no gas) and a ginormous 5600 pounds with trailer and motor
- G3 Suncatcher 22′ X22RF, an extremely popular model, hits the 3500 pounds mark with trailer and motor
- Avalon Catalina DRL 24’ falls just barely short, with some 3300 pounds for the same full package
- Lowe SS210 20’ weighs 1860 pounds dry hull, with an 112hp engine
- Sweetwater SW2086 22’ weighs 1770 pounds dry hull or 2450 pounds with trailer and all
- Avalon Eagle 16’ weighs 1360 pounds dry hull