Before my sequoia, I had a 2012 4Runner limited I bought brand new. After 12 years and 180,000 miles I thought it might be time to trade in for something that can tow the boat better. I haven’t had an issue in the 6 months of owning the Sequoia.
What did you do with your Tundra or Sequoia this weekend? (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter Bryanseye
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I never really wrench on my Tundra. It kinda just keeps working. But she takes us on lots of adventures. Lots of seat time because everything where I live is so dang far apart. While most of the county swelters in the heat, it was a high of 57 degrees today and the water was 41°. Brrr.
What make of pontoon boat is that? I usually head north in Sept, but it will be late this year. Might just stay on into Dec this year.
I'd take those temps 365 days a year
joseywales
Renaissance Redneck
Where do you live JB? Looks NW coast-ish.
This is a custom boat I had put together this spring by a Chinese manufacturer. It's sort of a do-it-all boat for us living in Alaska. I needed something inflatable because it's not legal to double tow here and we want to use it when we're out camping with our travel trailer. When we're not camping then I usually set up on the utility trailer because it's just easier to do at home with 2 small kids vs chasing them while doing it on the river bank. If I were trailering all the time - I'd opt for a Hypalon material and make it a bit bigger with more power. But portability was a must-have so this was the balanced outcome I ended up with.
It's very similar (I think almost identical because I'm pretty sure the same manufacturer) as a Takacat, but I wanted a few changes. If you are interested in buying one, send me a PM and I'll give you a link to the seller via Alibaba. I have no affiliation with the seller beyond having bought this one boat and I'm probably going to have one more made to make a few changes and pass this one to a friend or sell it. My cost was around $500 for the boat plus about $400 in shipping to Alaska. And it took a long time from order to arrival - ordered in March expecting a 30 day deliver and didn't actually get it until early July. Plus side of the custom order is both the low cost and also you can customize it any way you want. Any size tube diameter, length, width, fabric choice of a variety of PVC options or Hypalon, welded or glued seams, colors, etc. This one is 15 feet long (450cm) and 45cm tubes. Next one I'd order would be 55-60cm tubes to add more structure on a longer boat and I think and probably 1.2mm PVC with a double layer on the full bottom. It's 135lbs for the bare boat now, I'm concerned going up to hypalon fabric weight would result in a 200+lb boat. It starts to get too heavy for easy use. Especially tossing on the roof top once in a while alone is a PITA already.
Big plus side to me of this design is that it has a tubular transom that is removeable which has two key advantages for me - first it makes it easy to fold up and a lot easier to store and load into and out of the truck when deflated because it's in more smaller pieces. The second big plus is that the transom lower tube is still about 4 inches above the water and that means that on a river when you're going over rocks the boat can still flex and move over the rocks without dragging the rock on a hard transom. That drag on the transom is what tends to destroy typical zodiak style boats - it just rips the fabric apart. I had one previously and found that was a big negative for river use. Some flat bottom zodiac style boats might work well too - but this transom design means that it floats over rocks just like a river raft. IMO it's just as good as a dedicated river raft on the rivers.
But it can also handle an outboard and scoot around pretty well on the flat water or on rivers with deeper water I can motor up river and then float down. I think it's an under-appreciated design because it's almost always marketed toward use as a dingy for sailboats or an alternative for a flat bottom john boat where I think the real magic is in the ability to put a rowing frame on it and hit the rivers. I just got it a few months ago so and am still waiting on a proper rowing frame, but IMO it will really help once I get one on it for both river and motor use. It'll stiffen it up torsionaly that will help for the motoring. It's a bit flexible without a frame. Downside is that the frame adds more weight/complication. So it becomes a balancing act. And it does work pretty decent as it is.
I bought a Suzuki 9.9hp outboard to go with it. Seems like a fine motor so far. But it's really heavy to lug around between truck and boat. It's only 100lbs that doesn't sound too bad, but the awkward shape and weight makes it kinda hard on the back. I've hauled it about 200yds down a beach to get to the ocean once and I wouldn't want to do it again very badly. But it pushes the boat pretty well. I tried it at WOT for the first time this weekend on a lake - still in break in period so I can't do a lot of high rpms yet - and on flat water it had a steady cruise speed of 17mph and seems to burn roughly 0.5 gallons per hour in mixed use motoring. The EFI little outboards are crazy how fuel efficient they've become. I'm mixed on the Suzuki 9.9. EFI is great - super easy to start and runs like fuel injection should. But it's heavy. 20lbs more than a tohatsu EFI 9.8. Suzuki has the option to open up the restrictor for 20hp, but I think 10 is enough. I think I'd see 20mph by changing to a higher pitch prop - even at 10hp I run out of rpm before running out of power. And my other little 3.5hp Nissan outboard (same as tohatsu) is significantly quieter. But they're both very quiet compared to any 2 stroke. Anyway - a smaller outboard is probably fine and the outboard and rowing frames each end up more expensive than the boat.
Other thought is that it's flat bottom, so it's a rough bouncy ride in anything choppy. The v-bottom is what you want if you're only doing lakes or ocean cruising. We've taken it out on Kachemak bay, but I'd only do it on calm days and I don't venture too far from shore. With just me and a buddy in wetstuits or dry suits - I'd blast over to the fjords. But with kids - I definitely play it safe.
Anyway - sorry for such a long post, but kinda giving a pro con comparison on this style of boat. I feel like it's a good fit or me. Hauls up to 6 people well.
Here's a picture of the transom without the beach wheels installed so you can see a bit of how it goes together. It handles the weight of the motor on the beach wheels easily though. Much better than I thought it would. It's easy to roll up or down a boat ramp by hand and once in the water it's easy to pop the lever and release the wheels to lock in the up position. When we're camping I actually just put it on the beach wheels and then sit on the tailgate and hold the bow of the boat while my wife drives back and forth to a camp spot as a trailer.
I'm living in Anchorage. It's beautiful for sure. TBH I'm ready to move south. It's cold, dark, and wet a lot. It's sort of extreme on all fronts. The fun stuff is 10/10 and the downsides and frustration are 10/10. Probably leaving this fall sometime or next spring. I'll really miss it. But not the rain. In my dream world - or possibly retirement - I'd spend maybe May-July here. Those 3 months are pretty special. The 90ish days of almost straight rain that start about now are not so special. Haha.
Thanks for the long version. Much more helpful. I had a Strizh 480Jet Russian River boat. 60 Merc on the back. Sold it last year.
I presume you can adjust the width between the tubes? What I really want is a pontoon boat that fits in a 4' sq ATV trailer that
I can make up to go up flat rivers with my ATV as the cargo. So I want minimum 52" between the tubes which seems to be the issue. PM me the Alibaba link and I'll look it over. I've got a 60 Land Cruiser
motor rebuild first and mucking around with this new to me Tundra to get it up to speed. But having the boat project puttering along in the background would be fun. Retirement isn't too far away - Time to play!!
I'll send you a PM. They should be able to make it any size or configuration you want including width inside between the tubes. It would make a good landing craft for an ATV I think because you can just drive onto the front. I think the floor would handle it okay for the weight of most ATVs. You could always put some planks on it to spread the load if necessary. Not sure how it would be practically to load - in the sense of needing to have the boat in the water and then drive it on without pushing the boat away. Maybe you could figure out a way to add a reinforced spot with heavy duty D rings to attach some loading ramps? Sounds like a cool idea! I want to see your tundra on it! haha.
Oh, it’s been done! I really should join FB. I want to know why the rear wheels are spinning and what they are driving.
Buyer beware second hand Land Rover been driven in ocean!
Buyer beware second hand Land Rover been driven in ocean!
That's the main reason for leaving western Washington, the damn rain!
I live on the east side of Vancouver Island, it's not nearly as wet and rainy as it used to be.
I moved to eastern Washington and it's been awesome. Very little rain and dry heat is nice.
With kids, every f***ing time you want to go outside - even just to play in the yard - it's bundled up in rain suits and boots etc unless it's snowy then it's more bundled up. It's always a muddy wet mess. In Utah I could just turn the kids loose in the yard about 9 months a year and they could go play. Usually barefoot. And if it's not raining it's snowing and dark for 18 hours a day. One funny effects is that at least in coastal Alaska we basically never see the stars. My kids ask what they are on the rare occasion we see them - it's only a few times a year that it's both dark enough at night and cloud free. Between that and the schools and childcare challenges - I'm ready for a little more sun.
That seems so risky if the seas kick up at all. I've thought about that for my side by side just for short crossings where it's too deep by just lashing on cataraft tubes to the sides. It just seems like it would be really unstable. Scares the hell out of me TBH.
Sounds miserable. I dealt with the same on the west side. My kids never played outside due to the rain. Even in the summer months they stayed inside because we lived on a hill and there was no sidewalk for them. Now living on the east side of the state I cant get them to come inside haha. They are absolutely loving it out here. Wife mentioned she misses the trees and mountains but would never go back.
joseywales
Renaissance Redneck
New meats for the Sequoia. I’ll be very happy to get rid of the lack lustre Falkens.
I’m not usually a tire warranty guy but I might consider it with those - SirWilliam has had a couple sidewall failures and just ditched his.
That's unfortunate, I thought they were supposed to have a thicker sidewall?? Being an r/t tire they are a softer compound though right? So I'm not surprised they're wearing faster.
To be fair, I've seen a lot of tires get flats on trails. s*** happens and no tire is going to be perfect. I've seen Toyo MTs, Yokohama MTs, KO2s, MTR with Kevlar, etc, all have seen sidewall damage.
I’m not sure where his first one was - but the second one I believe was on Black Bear Pass which isn’t a trail you’d expect to lose a tire on. Dude does a lot of time in dirt but mostly FS roads and not rock gardens from the looks of it.
I’m not sure - I was looking at those tires briefly but ended up going with BFG HD Terrains. They’re heavy AF and loud but they are wearing like iron and traction has been good.
