Uptodate – Cabin Available for Big Johnboats

For all the folks who think of johnboats as a low-class boat designed to get around Arkansas’ muddy lakes and bayous, it’s time to think again.

rSeaArk Boats Inc. of Monticello makes, among other things, excellent johnboats. And the big daddy of them all is a 24-foot-long-by-six-foot wide monster.

rMost of us remember the 14-foot johnboats our dads took us out in for the first time. They were just boat. Nothing fancy. Nothing like the sleek, powerful Bass boats that seemed to be required of everyone who gets on the water these days.

rSeaArk came out with these big johnboats five years ago (AB, May 10, 1993).

rRobin McClendon, marketing director for SeaArk Boats, says sales for the big boat are going quite well.

rSo, who’s buying them? Well, a big boat calls for big water. The boats are popular in the coastal waters of Florida, the Carolinas and Georgia, where many use it for crabbing. And quite a few are sold in Alaska, she says, to guide services and outfitters who take groups of people on the water or where equipment needs to be hauled. One of the more popular options for the big boat are ramps for transporting four-wheelers to hunting camps.

rOther options include full aluminum floors, live wells, gun boxes and camouflage paint. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the basic boat with no options is $5,250.

rAvailable for the first time this year is a cabin for the 24-foot model. The aluminum cabin is 80 inches long, 56 inches wide and 60 inches high with a 23-inch-by-54-inch door and three windows. The price? $1,500 installed.

rSeaArk makes some 35 different models of johnboats in riveted and all-welded styles, from flat-bottom to modified vee, from 10 feet long to the 24-foot Super Jon model.

rThe big boat is made of 125-gauge, all-welded aluminum. That’s a quarter-inch thick. Fishermen like aluminum because it’s durable in shallow and rocky areas and is more likely to give upon impact instead of cracking like fiberglass.

rSeaArk Boats and SeaArk Marine Inc. are both owned by the McClendon family that formed MonArk Boat Co. at Monticello in 1959.