Whatever Floats your Pontoon Boat
Pontoon boats and catamarans are a favored way to enjoying a day on the water. They offer a spacious deck for comfort and maneuverability, while being agile yet sturdy in the water. It is said that the first pontoon boat was built in 1952 by one Mr. Weeres of Minnesota, and ever since has been a powerful contender in the boating market. While we all know just how exciting they can be, do we know how they look? How does two or three aluminium tubes keep an entire boat filled with people above water? Is there anything inside the signature pontoons that helps the pontoon or catamaran float?
To answer how a pontoon boat works, or rather, how any boat works, we have to turn to the ever resourceful world of science. There are two main forces that determine if an object will float in water. These two forces are gravity (downward force) and buoyancy (upward force). The gravitational pull of an object must be less than the buoyancy of the water it is displacing. This means if you took an area of water that was 2 feet tall, 5 feet wide, and 8 feet long, and weighed it, a boat of the same size would have to weigh less than the weight of that water in order to float. This is the key behind pontoon boats floating.
The inside of the aluminium pontoons that pontoon boats and catamarans have are mostly empty. Some may come with dividers in them, in case of a leak, but otherwise there is nothing but air in them. Even though there is empty air inside of them, the insides still count as a part of the overall weight of the pontoon boat, because the pontoon as a whole is displacing the water it is floating on. Aluminum being light yet durable itself makes the pontoons even more buoyant. Even with the higher quality aluminum and build that is used by sightseerboats, the overall weight is very light compared to water filling the same amount of space. This special attention to detail is important because when you take your custom built catamaran from sightseerboats out over the water with customers on board, their mass gets added to the overall weight of the boat. You want dependability along with buoyancy, or else you may want to start giving out refunds.
When you put two or three of these pontoons under a boat, you gain enough buoyancy to keep the rest of the boat, and the people standing on it, safely above water. If one of these pontoons were to get damaged and let water inside, however, the entire equation changes, which can cause problems. This is why sightseerboats.com uses top quality materials and techniques to make their custom catamarans more durable, so you can relax as you set sail.