1989 Sun Tracker Party Barge 24DL into Tritoon bui

Hello All,

Last summer the family and I came across a '89 Sun Tracker Party Barge 24DL for practically a steal, so we took the plunge and bought it. Like many pontoons of this age, she was in very rough shape, Rocky Raccoon and family made home in the boat for a long while...  So the gutting process began and she now sits as a skeleton. I came across a middle toon from a 2016 Harris Tritoon with transom and lifting strakes for cheap. It was a warranty take off, because of a pin hole leak in the nose cone weld. Welding aluminum is no biggie for me, so I grabbed the toon and brought it home.

I have a question about the lifting strakes for the more experienced out there. This middle toon has the Harris PII performance strakes, which are negative angle. I was going to weld strakes on the inboard side of the outer tubes. Can these strakes on the outside tube be positive angle? Do strakes have to be all the same angle (positive or negative)? Can you mix the two? I'd like to do all my welding to the toons while it's light and I can flip it over easily to weld down instead of on a trailer and up.

I have pics to post of the progress so far, I have to upload them this weekend.

I was fortunate to find a center toon as a warranty take off.  This center toon came off a 2016 Harris, it has Harris's PII lifting strakes.  I need to find a gas tank.  The toon was pulled for a pin hole in the weld and since welding aluminum is no biggie for me.  This was an awesome score.  This toon and motor pod are a foot and some change longer than my current 24ft. toons.  I also have some 2x2 .125 wall box tubing left over from some other project.  I will use this to strengthen the rear of the boat for the extra weight.  I want to adding lifting strakes to the inboard side of the outside toons.  This is the help I need.   

Nice, looks like its coming along!

So I've decided to add some more 2-1/2" box tubing to the entire boat. The current Z-bars are on 24" centers, So I think to add a little more comfort...at least in my mind  ...I will add a box tube in between each of the crossbeam sets. Lake St. Clair here in Michigan can get pretty rough and ruthless. In total 8 box tubes, 3 in the back by the motor pod and the other 5 will fill the spacing between the rest of crossbeams. What do you all think?

Well that ought to stiffen that thing up like a champ!

Great work. Keep the pics coming.

Hello all,

Hopefully everyone is on the lake and enjoying sun & fun.

I finally have some pics of progress on the tritoon build. These are of the lifting strakes I put on. They are 5052 Aluminum .125 thick. I did them 6" x 6". TIG Welding 30 year old crusty aluminum tubes, took a lot of prep work. Also another challenge was dealing with all the dents and crush points from being cribbed up over the years. I used the extruded box tubes clamped to the M-Brackets as my zero point for measuring points on the lifting strakes. We tried other ways, but the tubes themselves have lots of distortion from being cribbed up. We focused on making sure the running surface was the same height between both sides. I did stringer welds of 6" every 20" on center. Still love my Miller Sycrowave 350! She may not be as fancy as some of the newer welders...but she is solid and dependable!

Edited by abrasivereshaping - 06/22/2020 at 8:55pm

Looking good and I am jealous of your aluminium welding capability's. You nudged me to buy a spool gun for my Millermatic 210 & picking up the new gas bottle and wire this week. Fortunately I have access to a lot of scrap aluminium to practice on as there is a horse trailer mfg nearby. 

Edited by Motor7 - 07/19/2020 at 1:18pm

Some updates on the project Tritoon. I still have bad ventilation issues with the new prop.(Turning Point Hustler 14 x 13). I can spin 5500 rpm WOT, but only getting 19-20mph GPS. I'm constantly fighting to get the prop bite the water. I currently have the motor buried deep, my cavitation plate is 2" below the bottom of transom. I have manual trim on this old 90HP Johnson. I've left the trim pin at it's lowest setting, 0 trim, you could call it. I've tried to raise the trim but that exacerbates the ventilation issue. My thoughts and BMAC hopefully can chime in, is the negative angle of the strakes on the center toon is trapping air and funneling it to the prop. I've noticed Harris does not have their strakes go all the way back to the transom anymore. So this morning, I decided to cut off the last 3ft. of strakes on the center toon.

The boat rides high and wonderfully smooth. We had one rough day on Lake St. Clair over the weekend, 3-4ft. with heavy cross chop and she comfortably ran through them. I look forward to putting a 200-250hp on her. However, I want to make sure the water isn't getting aerated by the strakes. It would be the same conversation, different motor