Aesthetics are a big part of boat ownership; lots of people want a great looking boat.
On the other hand, more and more buyers are being seduced by the incredible features and accommodations a pontoon boat can offer.
In spite of their ungainly appearance, pontoons have seating for the whole family on one large, flat expanse of carpeted floor. You can spend a whole day on the water with the whole family - especially if you get the Bimini top for protection. Enter the deck boat.
Developed in the US for the trailer boat market, deck boats are a marriage between the performance and sleek lines of a deep-V runabout, with the living space of a pontoon. For our Canadian market, the Princecraft Ventura 190V is one of those rare compromise solutions giving you the best of both worlds.
Princecraft builds the Ventura 190V on a deep hull and tops it off with flat flooring on almost all the space offered by its 19 foot, 2 inch length and 97 inch beam. To make it appear sleeker, there are aluminum sides added above the decking that are decorated with coloured graphics. It all looks pretty nice.
Powering this deep-V living room was a MerCruiser 3.0 L sterndrive. Larger engines are available, but this venerable design produces quite a bit of torque, 135 hp and delivers good performance in this application. Having a sterndrive allows a full-width aft swim platform with boarding ladder. There is a starboard side transom door and an eight-footwide sun pad for tanning when you are moored. This lifts up for generous engine access and storage. The interior is laid out like a pontoon, with an L-shaped settee for four or five on the port side and two forward bench seats with the helm mid-ships on the starboard side.
There's a removable picnic table and all seat bases are rotocast for durability and have abundant storage areas underneath. There's a ski locker and a generously sized anchor locker in the bow, as well. You enter at the open flat bow or through a port side door. The helm position was very comfortable with an adjustable, pedestal-mounted bucket seat and well-placed steering wheel.
A venture windscreen protects you from the wind, but has a bit of distortion at the top that I found irritating. You get speedometer, tach, tilt, oil, temperature and oil pressure gauges. I thought the MerCruiser gearshift seemed smoother than I remember, too. The 3.0 MerCruiser is a bit rough at idle, but things smooth out with a little throttle.
The Ventura accelerated to 20 mph in only 4.6 seconds, stayed solidly planed off at 3000 rpm doing 22 mph, then revved on to 4800 at a very respectable 38 mph. The power steering delivered precise and effortless control and Princecraft's well-designed hull turned tight at all speeds and delivered an impressively solid and soft ride.
Packaged with a matching trailer, the Princecraft Ventura 190V is a boat you can keep at home in your garage. Just hitch it up any sunny day and you can spend an extended time out on the water with a gang of people - all doing what they enjoy thanks to the generous deck boat accommodations.
SPECS
According: usboattest.com
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