2025 My Season By The Numbers

2025 was a good year. I traded in my 22 Stingray 182 SC for a 23 Sun Tracker Party Barge 22 DLX pontoon demo boat with a 115 HP Mercury Pro XS outboard at the Detroit Boat Show in February. Price was right. I never saw myself as a pontoon boat owner until my Son purchased one in 2019 and I found I liked the stability a pontoon boat has along with the room to move around.

I did most of my boating on the Detroit River, Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair. I did trailer up to northern Michigan and I launched on Lake Superior, Higgins Lake, Houghton Lake, Elk Lake, Lake Skegemog and South Lake Leelanau. That’s one of the reasons I trailer my boat. Can go anywhere and launch.

I think I can say I had a pretty good season overall.
The numbers:

23 Launches

5 Day trips to Put-in-Bay Ohio

70.0 Hours on the engine

803.7 Miles travelled

209.964 Gallons of rec fuel used

3.82 MPG

2.99 GPH

$874.00 Dollars cost of rec fuel

$900.00 Boat storage fee Gibraltar Storage

$476.99 Garmin ECHOMAP UHD2 53CV+TRANSDUCER

$904.18 Mount 3rd cleat starboard mount Garmin GPS/Sonar

$125.25 Put on MC#’s and boat name

$33.39 Pkg. of 4 rail mount fender holders

$36.72 2 rail mount flag poles and American flags

$84.75 Amazon for plow style stainless steel anchor

$198.68 Quicksilver Spare propeller

$232.14 Mercury propeller to replace damaged propeller

$202.44 Replace unrepairable trailer tire

$374.51 Replace broken trailer tail lights

$67.83 Starbrite canvas waterproofing

$146.61 New battery (left master control switch on)

$13.76 Bought spare set of keys for boat

$1139.71 Winterize engine grease hubs shrinkwrap boat

$5810.96 monies spent on boating. Worth every penny. Some of the expenses are one time expenses and shouldn’t be repeated.

Hello! We have a 1993 Carver 440 aft cabin twin Cat 3116 engines that we are planning on cruising the Bahamas with. Has anyone taken their 440 down south as far as Puerto Rico?

I have a fuel smell in the cabin of my carver 355. It is in the cabin only, there is no fuel smell in the engine compartment. The fuel tanks and fuel lines are good not leaking. Looking to see if anyone else has had this problem and what the fix was.

Need some help! I am not on the boat. Most of the electrical load is off, but the shore power breaker on the pier pedestal keeps tripping. I'm on a 50 amp double pole breaker. I've removed the y-adapter and only feed the port side receptacle on the stern (no power to AC's). Water heater is off. biggest electrical loads are cyclic with the fridge and battery charger. Any ideas on what i need to check? Breakers on the boat are not tripping, nor is the small fuse on the stern receptacle

Calling all my sister ship owners. I have the ‘04 366 variant but I believe my questions/issues are related to all three models.
1. The seat in the aft shower. I have some gaps at various points around it and I’m pretty sure that’s how relatively clean water is getting into my aft bilge. Quite a lot after a couple showers. And no, it’s not the sump overflowing or leaking. Anyone else have this issue and have you found a solution short of a bead of silicon all around the edge?
2. The Charles C-Charger. Anyone replaced this? My exhaust is huge and almost completely covers and blocks access to the charger. Did you have to remove the entire muffler to gain access? What size/model did you go with?
3. Rode locker drain. Does your chain/rode locker drain externally or does it all drip down into the forward bilge? I keep getting muddy chain marks and water all down in the very forward section that has a small hole and seems to overfill into the forward bilge with no way/access to clean the very forward section.
I appreciate any/all feedback and any other problems and solutions you’ve tackled. I know all boats are a compromise but I had the previous hull (350) prior and this one seems to have even worse access.

This is so sad, cannot believe we need to renew our boaters license every 5 years now in Canada with a fee attached. In the end, it seems like all they are looking for is address changes that might have occurred not to mention money.

https://cheknews.ca/transport-canada-ma ... e-1298051/

I have a 1996 Carver 355 with Vacuflush. My wife texted me today with this pic. Dark liquid, smells like pee seeping out from under v-berth. Does anyone have any idea where to start looking for the leak?

Have a 1994 Carver 390 with a leak somewhere in the steering. Anyone have any experience fixing one of these? thanx, dc

Here’s my thought process…please stay with me, I promise I get to the point and subsequent questions. This past season we had a lot of life changing and demanding situations that kept us from using and even maintaining the boat. One item I did start work on at the end of the season was the Kohler 7.3e gen. After adjusting the auto choke and putting in fresh plugs, I got the crank time down under 5sec. Was closer to 30sec previously. But then I noticed it did not want to restart and it would run fine with the sound shield off but would shut down shortly after closing the front access door, presumably overheating? Never got a chance to look further. Now it’s winterized and I have a chance to get out there and pull a few bits to work on at home. Here’s my thoughts:
1. pull the carb and rebuild at home with a new kit and new electric choke.
2. Also pull the heat exchanger and thermostat to clean and check at home and reinstall at a later/warmer date.
Any issues with leaving the carb and heat exchanger off the genny for weeks/months? Anything else I should pull or look for? I have already ordered the carb kit, electric choke, thermostat and O rings for the exchanger. Anything I’m missing?

I currently have three of these systems on my 1989 Californian (built by Carver). All are split systems. Has anyone replaced/ungraded these that would retain the split system setup or gone to the new self-contained concept? if so, is this a costly project? What units (in either case) were purchased?

Thanks in advance!!