LAKE VERMILION- When people go to the Lake Vermilion Antique and Classic Boat show, they’re most often likely to find vintage vessels by time-honored makers like Chris-Craft, Stanley Boat Works, Gar Wood and others. But the big head-turner at this year’s 31st edition had the nameplate “Peterbilt,” a name usually attached to the big cruisers of America’s highways.
Nestled in at one of the slips at The Landing’s boat dock on Sunday was something unlike most attendees had ever seen before, a pontoon boat outfitted with a Peterbilt semi tractor in front and plenty of passenger space in the back.
So, what possessed Jeff Foster, CEO of Jeff Foster Trucking of Superior, Wis., to create such a fanciful craft?
“I’ve been asked that several times,” Foster laughed.
A friend of Foster’s had passed away and he bought his friend’s 28-foot pontoon boat from his mother. It sat for a good while on a trailer at his shop in Wisconsin before he came across his inspiration.
“I saw a picture on the internet of a pontoon boat that was made similar to this, but it was short and cobbled together,” Foster said. “I showed it to the guy that runs our body shop and he went, ‘We have a body shop, we’ve got all this stuff, we can build something a lot better than that!’ And I’m thinking we’ve got other better things to do.”
But then his body shop manager said crafting the truck/pontoon hybrid could be a good team building activity for the guys in the shop.
“That got to me,” Foster said, “and all of a sudden here it is, we’re going to build a pontoon boat. And this is the end result. I’m just amazed that when they do something they do it better than ever, and as you can tell this is an amazing piece. We’re just so grateful to the guys who run and operate the body shop and their pursuit of perfection.”
Foster’s crew undertook the project in 2017, and it took about eight months to build. The cab and hood came from a pair of 1988 Peterbilt Model 378s that he had on hand, and other parts were added for the finished product. They also added a third pontoon in the middle, set back from the front.
The “Petertoon,” as it is called, retains many of the functioning items from its Peterbilt parents, including high beam, low beam headlights, turn signals, chicken lights, and of course, the horn.
“We blow that way too often,” Foster laughed.
When people see the pontoon from the shore, they’ll inevitably do two things, Foster said. First, they’ll take a picture. Then they’ll pump their arm, a signal to blow the horn.
“Once you can hear the horn, you can hear that for the next mile or two, so then everybody is coming down to their dock and everybody wants you to blow the horn.”
And when Foster wants to beach the pontoon, there’s no need for anyone to get their feet wet getting off and on the boat. The front grill is hinged, allowing crawl-through access from the front into the cab.
This year the Petertoon has a new engine, a 115-horsepower four-stroke Yamaha.
“We just put it on this spring, which is why we have it out a lot this year, because all of a sudden we have something that’s dependable and shifts when it’s supposed to,” Foster said.
Having the unusual conversation-starter has been nothing but fun, Foster said.
“It’s enjoyable for our family, for the guys twho built it, and for our company,” he said. “It’s a unique piece that not everybody gets to enjoy.”
And as for those at the show looking for more traditional boating fare, there were plenty of antique wooden boats to delight them, including a first-timer to the show, a 1960 20-foot Mariner Deluxe Utility shown by Steve Long of Turtle Lake, just south of Bigfork.
“My wife decided she wanted a wooden boat but was thinking of something different,” Long said. “She saw an advertisement for this one and thought maybe we could do this. We bought it thinking that we just needed to put a new bottom on it.”
But as is often the case, a closer look revealed more extensive work was necessary to rehab the boat. Jeff Larson and Dana Hein at the Sunrise River Boatworks shop in Tower handled the restoration.
“They replaced a large majority of the wood in it,” Long said. “As they pulled the bottom off they could see where there were bad spots and dry rot. They played it safe and replaced what they thought really needed to be replaced. They spent over two and a half years working on it and the boat has turned out to be just beautiful and runs well and handles very nice. We’re really, really pleased with the job.”
Long said the Gray Marine 175-horsepower inboard engine will propel the boat along at about 35 miles per hour, but that he and his wife haven’t had it out much since getting it back in June.
“We haven’t used it a lot this year because we’ve been busy with some other projects,” Long said. “We’ve taken it out several times but we haven’t used it as much as we would have liked.”
And the boat, named “Endless Adventure,” is a reflection of how Long and his wife view life. He said they’re about to make a move to Minneapolis.
“Even though we have the ‘Endless Adventure’ here, it’s another adventure,” Long said.