We recently bought a lake house on Table Rock Lake in NW Arkansas and are seriously looking at buying a tritoon.

I am looking for recommendations. Looking for quad bench, 250-300 HP, and less than $100k. Have initial recs on Harris, Barletta and Bennington by people who have only been on one, but not owned.

Thanks for your input. Please stick to tritoon or pontoon recs, because that is what we are in the market for.

Take a look at Crest. Have one and really like it.

Watch the used market carefully. The deals to be had right now are on higher end models like you are looking at.
New, you might have a hard time staying under $100K. I think for an engine that big you are looking at 25' and above.

Gunny will be able to answer all your questions, but I would say all the choices mentioned would be fine.

Have gotten a good look at Bennington, Godfrey, Crest and Sweetwater.

Theres not a whole lot of difference in build quality overall, imo.

These boats are shipped without the motor so you relying on the dealer's rigger to unpack the motor from a crate hang the motor and get it right. It not a huge process but has to be done right like anything else. A big 250 or 300 is a big investment thats got to be maintained properly every season by someone you trust and convenient to you.

All the extra accessories on these pontoons look cool but tend to break or have problems. Top offender is underskirt LED lighting and LED controllers. The factory installed stereo / amps / touchscreens are often problematic. Electric Bimini tops are another thing that tends to break.

Point is I wouldn't make a decision based on the amount of accessories that one boat has. On a pontoon, the less accessories the better, imo.

Also one thing to check on new pontoon before you take delivery is that the trailer bunks are set up properly and the toons are sitting right on the trailer. Trailers are shipped separate from the boat and the trailer bunks are adjusted later If the bunks are not right it can cause you problems and cost you money.

Gunny, another derail but what's the story on that old boat repair place in Houston off Gray near downtown. I lived in the area until '16 and remember it being closed all the time with old boats in the showroom, etc. Gibbs I think it was or something

Yep. It was at Gray and Montrose. Was owned by Warley Gibbs. He opened it back in the late 50's I think. I knew his son. They quit selling new boats a good number of years ago and just did service and co-signed used boat sales. They put the property up for sale years back and said when it sold they were done.
Last time I was by there was before Covid and nothing was there but the empty building I think.
Only old downtown dealers now are Red Wing and Helton I think.

I did alot of research on tri-toons last year. I ended up going another direction, but your initial recommendations are good. I thought the Barletta's were the best, followed by Harris, then Bennington in a group of others.

Was going to give some info on Barleta boats. Founded in late 2017 by Bill Feneck. Great guy. Barleta sold to Winnebago industries sometime in 2021 I believe. Winnebago also owns Chris Craft.
Bill Feneck stepped down from Barleta in 2022.

We have had several Bennington tripletoons and they have been great.

I think the Barletta and Harris's look the best.

Sweetwater's have very thin metal and are trash. They have the worst resale value.

Get the highest HP your boat is rated for. Yamahas are awesome. I heard the Suzuki 300 HP might be the best engine in the market.