We should have done this 10 years ago

foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] welcome back to purple color life we bought a boat now if you're wondering Chad you already have watercraft why did you buy a pontoon boat I'm going to explain to you why this is the summer of the pontoon boat so yes this has become the summer of the pontoon boat and you might be thinking it's because we're getting older and that's probably part of the case we do also have a sport nautique and I keep that thing way out in the water when it's Mooring and that means every single time we want to take the boat out I'm up to my neck or over my head swimming out to get the boat out of the water so that the rest of the family can board and we can come out here on the lake so it's pretty nice we all get wet we all get wet some of us more wet than others it's pretty nice immediately having a pontoon boat that the most wet I've gotten so far putting the boat in and out from Shore is about I don't know mid calf and how wet have you been zero not even my feet aren't even wet not even her feet have been wet and as you saw in the intro Olive can jump right up into the boat and that kind of brings us to the main reason we got a pontoon boat this summer although 15 years ago when we were looking at boats pontoon boat was kind of what I had in mind from the very beginning and I mean I've loved the the nautique and skiing and teaching so many people to ski but really this is the boat I've been looking for yeah but the main reason we bought it this year is because our great dane Olive who were not exactly sure how old she is We rescued her when she was somewhere between two and four we've had her for seven years seven years so she's somewhere between nine and eleven and she has been a great pal and companion and super healthy really I mean other than some strict dietary restrictions she's been super healthy all this time until this year we noticed she wasn't really acting herself she was pretty lethargic um so we took her to the vet and they said that her platelets are really low they're not sure what's causing it but that you know she's she's probably just getting older in age and her health is starting to decline so we really wanted her to be able to enjoy the summer with us she can't ride on the ski boat with us she can't swim at all she's not a swimming dog she won't stay in the camper by herself she won't stay in the camper by herself and she really just wants to be with us all the time so pontoon boat was a great answer to all the things we needed in order for her to enjoy the summer of camping and boating with us this year 2023 and I know I take some some Flack for saying that you can't buy this and you can't buy that although if I didn't do those things I I feel like he would come home with a lot more stuff but really all it took was one comment that you know we have all these weeks of boating playing this summer we're right on the lake we're just steps you know walk out our camper door and we're right at the lake and I just kind of mentioned that I wasn't sure how this was going to work with olive and that maybe he should start looking for a pontoon boat and I think you came home with one two days later yeah once you get that green light you gotta hurry before mines are changed so when she said it was okay to start shopping I looked and I'll tell you what it is not easy to find a decent pontoon boat for a decent price things just like have been the story for the last three years things are really holding their value so when I saw this boat posted in the morning it was up near Lake Erie it looked in the pictures like it was in pretty good shape and I thought well it's in the price range we wanted to be at it's got a 60 horsepower motor so bigger than a nine nine you know that's always what you think about when you think about a pontoon boat is they're just barely putting along the lake there but when I saw this come up on Facebook I saved that I messaged the lady right away she was super kind and she had a stack of people waiting to come look at this boat I made sure that I was the first one on the list longer story to that but it ended up I was able to get up there and buy the boat brought it home the next day so so far we've had maybe six to ten hours on it roughly and it has been exactly what it's also been it's been raining almost the entire time at Camp so we've been at camp for a week it's been raining almost the entire time we brought it up here last weekend to test it out you know you always want to test it before you're going to be needing it for a week so I thought if it needed something we could always take it to the boat shop during the week hopefully they'd get it in for us but all week here when we when we've had an opportunity to take it out we have and it has been exactly what the doctor ordered for this summer she Olive loves it she just lays on the boat yeah we had no idea we had no no idea if she would get on it what she'd think about it if she'd get motion sick but she just jumps right on and yep away we go and she sleeps I think I said swims but she gets on the boat and sleeps oh yeah she doesn't swim she doesn't swim she does have this life jacket I'll put an Amazon affiliate link too and I'm super I was really worried about her being Barrel chested and having something that would fit her and I did do some reading online and read some blogs about people who had Great Danes and reviewed um life jackets and I mean I know that we haven't had the test the buoyancy of this but it's a reputable company I trust that it would it would keep her afloat but as far as the fit goes I'm super pleased with the fit I think and it's comfortable there's lots of dog life jackets out there for smaller breed dogs it's really hard to find ones for you know a Mastiff a Great Dane something that's over a hundred pounds and this one is geared for over 90 pounds no weight limit actually over 90 pounds the company said as long as the dimensions of her girth and her lengths fit with what the jacket size was that it would keep her afloat yep so so very happy with this jacket I'll put that link Down Below in the description you bought it off Amazon um it was the same price on Amazon and Chewie okay so I'll put the Amazon link down below so other thoughts on the pontoon boat um we have had it out tubing so I think there was probably in my mind a bit of a misconception that unless you get a try tune with 115 or 150 or 200 horsepower engine you won't be able to do any water sports I think I was definitely wrong on that because the first time we had it out here I was really impressed that this will get up and move pretty decent I mean it's not just putting along on the water you can get from point A to point B in a respectable amount of time so if you want to come out here to where we are and just anchor and shoot a video or go fishing if you're a fisherman or swim or jump off the boat take a nap take a nap it's easy to get where you want to go and we like I said we have the 60 horsepower Mercury Bigfoot EFI four-stroke engine super easy I've had other Outboards in the past that are the two-stroke with oil injection you know you're messing with getting them primed and choked and started this starts just like your fuel injected car you just turn the key it starts right up it's extremely quiet so we've been used to since 2010 running a 351 cubic inch Ford engine in our boat it's a loud rumbly engine it sounds amazing but this is a different experience it's nice and quiet like I said you can go fast enough to tube I think I could probably ski behind it I don't know it's been a while since I've skied behind a smaller engine like this our top speed that I've had so far here with Jennifer me Olive and 40 gallons of gasoline in the tank has been 19 miles an hour so you can ski at 19. I just don't know how hard it would be to get up out of the water on top of the water and accelerate what I was thinking too you know we having this boat I think if Mackenzie were little you know she would have played and played on this definitely having the sun cover in the Bimini top you know I think she would have really enjoyed it but I wouldn't give up the memories we've made either on the nautique because she's learned to ski she's learned a wakeboard she's kneeboarded you know it's definitely a a wild ride tubing you know this isn't going to be the same I'm sure when she was little it would have been fast enough for her so I don't regret all the memories that we made on the nautique but I do think that this would be a great boat too for people who have young children yep so if you're wondering what this boat is this is a 2011 Sun Tracker 21 foot party barge and we wanted the party barge because we're Party People yeah we're wild and uh so when I was looking for a pontoon boat a couple things were important to me a uh looks like it was in decent shape and this one was actually better shape than what I thought the pictures portrayed um I wanted a boat that didn't look like it was going to have to be you know the whole flooring replaced or all the carpet we wanted the Bimini top or as we've always said our whole lives Bimini top so this had a nice Bimini cover that keeps it nice and shaded where we can sit and Olive can lay but that still leaves the front half of the boat behind where the camera is set up for lounging out in the sun and those were other things we were looking for we didn't want the fishing chairs because we're not really fishermen people we wanted chairs that were long enough that a person could lean back and relax maybe even lay down and some of the other boats we looked at the the benches were too short up front also gives us a ton of storage we've got life jackets you know all kinds of stuff stored underneath the seats nice and dry stay up out of the weather it handles the top better than I thought it would and we've always had a v-bot on boat and when you when you're here on the lake you can get other boats around you making a lot of chop this Cuts right through it no problem yeah this is the summer of olive huh summer of olive so there were basically four reasons we bought a pontoon boat this summer and they all had to do with being able to give the summer of olive to all of this year number one the this is a boat that stays dry so you know she's got lots of places here she can be number two it's very roomy we can put her big baby crib mattress on here she can lay just about anywhere here she wants to on the boat number three we can pull right into Shore with the pontoons now I never Beach any of my boats before this but with the pontoon boat we're driving those pontoons right up onto Shore it's just one easy step once I do a couple more pools in just by pulling the boat by hand it's one easy step for Jennifer and Olive and Mackenzie and my parents and her parents to get on and off the boat and then number four the last reason we wanted a pontoon boat is the Bimini top some sun cover so when we're out here on the lake it gives us some shade for all of and all of us to be in while all of those reasons really was because we were going to be spending weeks at the lake this summer and we wanted to be with olive I feel like all of those reasons also are very fitting for families with young children or people who their children are grown and just an easier boat to get in and out of I just feel like it's exponentially easier than the Skibo yeah if you're going to be new to boating there's a lot of advantage to a pontoon boat they are a lot easier to use the outboard engine is much easier to use than our inboard engine with a Rudder system 60 60 horsepower is much easier to use than 310 horsepower I think this is going to be an easier boat to maintain and like you said it's a it's a nice boat for if you if you've got a small family or if you've got pets that you want to include with you on your adventures that it's not quite as easy to do those things on a ski boat not a small family a young family young family yeah a family of small individuals so let's talk a little bit about why we chose this boat so they're like I said they're they're maintaining their value there's not that many online but when you do find the right one sometimes you need to be ready to make that plunge so when I was first looking at pontoon boats I didn't have any idea in my head what brand I was interested in I did know that this particular brand Sun Tracker I see a lot of out on the water and that's mostly because these are available at your Bass Pro Shops your Cabela's so a lot of people evidently buy boats at those locations there are other dealers that sell Tracker boats but it seems like most people get these at like a Bass Pro Shops or a Cabela's now I know some people will say the other brands are better than these because it's kind of like this is the box store brand of a boat but I am really impressed with it and a couple things we really like about this one I'll show you here why we chose this one over some other options so one of the things I really like about this Sun Tracker 21 foot party barge is right here at the back there's enough room for me back here to walk the entire width of the boat from side to side a lot of pontoon boats and you know at the back of the the decking here I've got this space I can walk back here I can take the cover off the engine take a look at things right here is our fuel tank and fuel fill we've got 40 gallons of gasoline within this Hall section of the boat so you don't have the red tanks or you know external fuel tanks that's really nice the engine sits back a little bit which I like so I can see the engine while I'm driving some of them the engine is kind of tucked up in here and I can see how that would give you more space but I like being able to see the engine back here I also think it gives you a better drive on the boat with the engine being a little bit further back it gives us the opportunity to have this nice ladder back here so there's a little bit of a bevel on this back angle and that gives us a doorway we can come in and out and a boarding ladder here at the back so the boarding ladder was on our list of must-haves yes because we thought we do like to get off the boat even just the two of us and swim and we had no idea how we would climb up and down on a yeah pontoon boat so the other nice things that are on the back end here we've got eyelets for anchors and hooks on both sides and like I said being able to walk around and attach those things is really nice and while Chad is always in charge of you know as far as the engine goes and the brand the comfort and the use Factor as far as the boat goes so I really like these sun decks now we looked at some that had a much wider Sun deck that I thought would have been nice but I like that this boat still has the sun deck I mean it's easy to sit on Mackenzie has done some sunbathing up here but it's small enough that it still gives us really nice seating because I think probably more than using up here we'll be using this um the rounded seating area but definitely I really like having the sun deck and again while we were looking for a pontoon boat specifically in order to be able to bring Olive with us this summer you know MacKenzie's getting ready to go off to college and while she still plans on camping and boating with us she does have her own life and her own things that she's doing so we did also think that when we were buying a pontoon boat that maybe it would be easier for Chad and I to be able to manage by ourselves and one thing I am really liking about the pontoon boat compared to the inboard boat is that when we take the boat into dock or we're getting the boat in or out of the water we have these anchor points that we can use rope Chad's pretty particular about all of our watercraft our jet ski and our boat he doesn't like it rubbing up against anything so having a pontoon boat that we can I don't know what do you call that when you're at the dock doc just docking oh what a novel word for it that it's it's been super easy one of the things I really like about this Sun Tracker party barge is all the storage you can see lots of nice and tight compartments here so the water doesn't get down in them that's where we keep our anchor this one we keep life jackets and also the table is underneath there the table can be placed here at the front of the boat or back at the back same storage on the opposite side both sides of the front front have this door storage another door here and then storage under all these seats in the back also General yes yeah to begin with and I'm super impressed how dry everything stays like those seats are so tight that we haven't gotten any water in them and it's nice to be able to not have to put on a wet life jacket or and even after all these days of rain right we've had that nice boat cover on that helps out a lot but I think the boat is well designed and lots of cool features like this is you know a garbage can but we use it kind of as dry storage for phones and Chargers compared to this the inboard ski boat that we have there's literally no storage like even when Mackenzie was five years old when we were getting on and we had snacks and coolers and towels it was even last year but all of the stuff that we travel with just had to be right in our main walking path so this is very very convenient just like there's a walkway on the back there's also some space here on the front a little walkway in front of the rail so you've got access to stepping out and you can even sit there with your feet over the edge when the boat is not moving and the engine's not running I think only having the pontoon boat even for a couple of weeks my initial thoughts is that we probably waited too long to buy a pontoon boat and I know that there's lots of people who say you know buying a boat is one of the you know the the best stay is buying the boat and then selling the boat you know that what was the thing the two best days in a boaters layer for the day buys it the day he sells it yeah then people also say is a boat is like a hole in the middle of the lake like you're just throwing money now well we've been really fortunate I don't feel like we throw money at our watercraft at all right but I feel like if we would have bought this years ago we still we would have used it a lot I know that we use the nautique a lot too and I'm not saying that I want to get rid of it but I feel like in general with the money that you can spend especially on a used boat if you can get it at a good price you'll have that in a you know a fancy family vacation for a week and so instead of a fancy family vacation we have a boat that we can use for as long as we want until we're ready to sell it but I would definitely say if you are thinking about a pontoon boat and you have the extra money available do not go into debt to buy a pontoon boat but if you have the money available I definitely would recommend getting a boat and boats really maintain their value really well so our nautique we both we so our nautique we bought in 2010 we could sell that in antique today for probably close to if not what we bought it for and this pontoon boat we bought we probably could resell in five years we're pretty close to what we bought it for thanks for watching our video today hopefully this explained why we chose to buy a pontoon boat at this stage in our lives and in the summer and in olives life and then also why of all the pontoon boats available we chose the Sun Tracker party barge 21 foot boat with a 60 horsepower Bigfoot Mercury engine thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video if you found it informative or entertaining we'd appreciate give us a big Thumbs Up Down Below leave those comments on what your thoughts are on boating if you have a boat what some of your favorite features are of boats I know I love that 310 horsepower and the rumble of the big V8 but I also like the quiet and comfort of our pontoon boat [Applause] thank you [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Purple Collar Life

Views: 42,824

Keywords: reasons to own a pontoon boat, we bought a boat, Sun Tracker, Party Barge, SunTracker, sun tracker party barge 21 signature series, pontoon boat, Great Dane, family dog, best boat for dogs, pontoon boat dog, best family boat, 60hp Mercury, Mercury EFI, Mercury Big Foot, pontoon boat top speed, tubing behind pontoon boat, bimini cover, boat comfort, most comfortable boat, driving a pontoon, pontoon advantages, Purple Collar Life, here's why, why we bought a pontoon, bimini

Id: sFyYn-Bn86s

Length: 25min 2sec (1502 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023