Have you ever seen that advertisement on television where a Tigger character from Winnie the Pooh comes shooting out of a boat in the background Have a closer look next time and you will see they are on a pontoon. Pontoons have become a very popular means for a group of people to enjoy themselves on the water. Their style, use and outfitting have come a long way since the floating deck was first built in 1951.
This was made out of steel barrels welded together to form two cylindrical airtight pods placed side by side onto which a wooden deck was built. However a further development was to use aluminium for the floats instead of steel. There were several reasons for this. Aluminium resists corrosion, can be cast and extruded, is a good conductor of both electricity and heat and it is light. The result was a longer-lasting lighter structure.
Briefly, aluminium is the most abundant metal in the earth s crust. It is found primarily in bauxite ore which exists in enormous reserves and, in places, is still in the process of being formed. This is happening in tropical countries like Brazil, Australia and West Africa. Gibbsite is one of the ores in bauxite. The gibbsite in the older bauxite deposits dries out, leaving behind boehmite and diaspore. It s the means by which an older or newer deposit is defined. Being so plentiful and replaceable puts it in a remarkable position. It is environmentally friendly and can also be recycled indefinitely without damage to its structure.
By the way, there is a theory that cooking utensils made from aluminium, more specifically pots and pans, could damage your health. Possible problems were thought to include damage to the central nervous system, dementia, loss of memory, listlessness and severe trembling. There have been numerous medical conferences to discuss this theory but no definite conclusions have yet been reached.
Extracting aluminium from bauxite requires huge quantities of water, which accounts for the first plant being sited at Niagara Falls in 1901.
The first pontoon company, built by Mr. Weeres was sold on and apparently one of the deciding factors in its purchase by the new owner was the workforce. Welding aluminium is a precision skill, so a group of trained welders was a big plus. Building different sizes, and improving and expanding their outfitting resulted in the business moving into export markets, keeping in the forefront of its competitors. Customers now have a wide choice and boats are streamlined to suit the size of all purses.
Pontoons are used for a wide variety of purposes. Houseboats are built on pontoons. Helicopters use pontoons platforms as landing pads. Sea-planes use pontoon floats to land on water and it is now possible to buy a small helicopter kit which uses pontoon pods as its skids enabling it to land both on water or the ground great for adventure enthusiasts.
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Because pontoons have a shallow draft (they do not lie low in the water), damage from submerged items or running aground is less likely to occur. Therefore they are found as ferries at river crossings in out-of-the-way places, like Kazangula on the River Zambezi between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The load is usually not more than a truck and three or four cars, plus foot passengers.
Their low upkeep costs and their low comparative cost per sq footage make them less expensive to insure even if they have a 190 hp engine attached to drive them. This also means they make an attractive rental businesses.
Some individual fishing pontoons are of innovative and unusual design. They can be inflatable or otherwise. A few examples are Classic Accessories Colorado Boad, Classic Accessories Backpacker Pontoon Boat and Bucks Bags High Adventure 9' Pontoon Package. These are more can be viewed at:
Pontoons Are In Favour Part Two
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