Yankee Loungenuity
What do you get when you attach your favorite outdoor lounge chair to a couple of pontoons? Relaxation that floats.
The birth of the TunnyCraft Electric Boat comes from humble beginnings. Founder Roland Noel and his brother were comfortably floating on blow-up chairs in a swimming pool one summer when the proverbial lightbulb went off above Noel’s head.
A welder/fabricator by trade, Noel and his wife, Susan, loved to canoe in the summer on lakes around their hometown of Waterboro. The paddling ultimately caused so much pain in his lower back that his love for the activity turned into disdain. Noel needed something more comfortable yet just as quiet to fish in. He started building his first TunnyCraft prototype in his garage in 1995 and sold his first floating lounge chair six years later.
The TunnyCraft is literally a lawn chair welded onto two pontoons. It has a small motor powered by a rechargeable deep-cycle AGM battery that eliminates lead and acid leaks into the water. The boat is easily steered by a lever on the right-hand side of the boat and comes complete with a fishing rod holder, cup holder, and a tackle box. “After a hectic week my wife and I jump on these in the lake. It’s our way of relieving stress,” Noel says. “We can go out there for two, three, or four hours and just relax.”
TunnyCrafts are not tipsy like a canoe or kayak and they’re just as quiet—making them the ideal way to enjoy nature, take photographs, and fish with your feet up in a comfortable position. “Pontoons self-stabilize. They have a low center of gravity and don’t tip over,” Noel says.
Each boat weighs about 158 pounds and can reach speeds of six miles per hour. Noel, who works full-time at Pentair Water Filtration in Dover, New Hampshire, builds his boats during the winter months, giving him plenty of time to enjoy them in the summer. “It’s my passion,” he says.
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