Paddle Ideas...

[2manyrocks]

Get a paddle, but if there are some still cheap aux boat motors to be had on Amazon, consider getting one, too.

Doesn't take much of a breeze to make a pontoon go backwards no matter how hard you paddle.

 

[etpm]

I can't recommend a paddle but I do recommend getting either an electric trolling motor or a small outboard. I say this because I insisted, when going out crabbing by Whidbey Island in a boat that had an outboard I considered to be of dubiouus running condition, that we bring along my little 3 horse emergency outboard. Well, I was right. And that little noisy 3 horse outboard motored us slowly home. We were a little over a mile away from the dock and paddling that far would have not been fun.
Eric

 

[Jstpssng]

I can't recommend a paddle but I do recommend getting either an electric trolling motor or a small outboard. I say this because I insisted, when going out crabbing by Whidbey Island in a boat that had an outboard I considered to be of dubiouus running condition, that we bring along my little 3 horse emergency outboard. Well, I was right. And that little noisy 3 horse outboard motored us slowly home. We were a little over a mile away from the dock and paddling that far would have not been fun.
Eric

Conversely, I was out on a lobster boat when the engine blew. Before we even stopped coasting somebody had a line on, pulling us back to home base.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

In NC we are not required to have a paddle. Been checked numerous times by coastguard and Wildlife, never once asked for it. But ya better have all the other stuff...

A couple of years ago my trolling motor was not working (board went bad). Took the kids out tubing. One of them stepped in from the back of the boat and I found that under certain circumstances the fuel line can be broken off when someone stepped on the backplate.

We got a tow from a kind person, luckily it was only a 3-4 hundred yards or so.