A pontoon boat, like this small pleasure boat, typically floats and balances by means of two pontoons mounted lengthwise.

A pontoon is a flat-bottomed boat or the floats used to support a structure on water. A boat is a Watercraft of modest size designed to float or plane on water and provide transport over it It may be simply constructed from closed cylinders such as pipes or barrels or fabricated as boxes from metal or concrete. A cylinder is one of the most basic curvilinear geometric shapes the Surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given Straight line, the axis The M acro E xpansion T emplate A ttribute L anguage complements TAL, providing macros which allow the reuse of code across Concrete is a construction material composed of Cement (commonly Portland cement) as well as other cementitious materials such as Fly ash and Slag These may be used to support a simple platform, creating a raft. A raft is any flat floating structure for travel over water It is the most basic of Boat design characterized by the absence of a hull. A raft supporting a house-like structure is one form of houseboat. A houseboat is a Boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a Human Dwelling. The basic design is usually implemented as a simple catamaran or, with three rows of floaes, a trimaran. A catamaran (From Tamil 'kattumaram' is a type of Multihulled Boat or Ship consisting of two hulls or vakas joined by some A trimaran is a Multihulled Boat consisting of a main hull ( vaka) and two smaller Outrigger hulls ( amas) attached

Pontoon boats generally are low cost and less expensive to insure than a normal boat, even when equipped with engines of over 200hp. The are also almost foolproof to operate and cannot be sunk. Their shallow draft also reduces damage from submerge collisions and being run aground. As such, they are the most popular vessel style for rental operations, on US freshwater ways. They also offer the largest value in terms of capacity to price.

Pontoon boats are also used as small vehicle ferries to cross rivers and lakes in many parts of the world, especially in Africa. Vehicles, derived from the Latin word vehiculum, are non-living Means of transport. See also Merchant ship A ferry is a form of transport usually a Boat or Ship, used to carry (or ferry) passengers and Pontoon ferries may be motorised, such as the Kazungula Ferry across the Zambezi River, or powered by another boat, or pulled by cables. The Kazungula Ferry is a pontoon ferry across the 400-metre-wide Zambezi River between Botswana and Zambia. The Zambezi (also spelled Zambesi) is the fourth-longest River in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa A type of ferry known as the cable ferry (called 'punts' in Australia and New Zealand) pull themselves across a river using a motor or human power applied to the cable, which also guides the pontoon. See also Merchant ship A ferry is a form of transport usually a Boat or Ship, used to carry (or ferry) passengers and For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. New Zealand is an Island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island

History

The invention of the pontoon motorboat in the USA is credited to a Minnesota farmer, in 1952 ^[1]. Minnesota ( Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers

One of the two pontoon ferries that cross the Zambezi at Kazungula

Notes