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Loaded up and truckin'...on the water? Portage co. man builds semi-truck pontoon boat
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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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CUSTER, Wis. -Summer's here, and that means a lot of Wisconsinites are getting their boats out on the water. But don't feel intimidated if you're pushing off from the dock and see a semi-truck making waves on the open water.
John Yach of Custer spent the winter building a pontoon out of a Peterbilt cab he calls the "Semi-Conscious".
"My wife came up with that one day we couldn't figure out a name thought about it for weeks had all kinds of ideas and sitting on the couch she came up with Semi-Conscious," Yach said.
Each year for the past few Yach has had a project: one year a 1966 C10 Chevy pickup, the next, a tri-toon you can drive from the bar.
But why build the semi-pontoon?
"To see if I could," he replied with a grin.
No engineering degree needed: Yach used to be a welding fabrication machine operator.
He spent 700 hours on the semi pontoon, made with real truck parts from across the country friends, family, Google and Facebook helped him find.
"Every piece has been modified, cut, re-welded, lightened up, gutted out all interiors," Yach said. "Everybody pitched in. (My) wife, she kind of left me alone, so I could get it done."
The chassis is 250 pounds of real aluminum Peterbilt, with a keg that Yach is looking to get working soon too. "The front I've got all hinged. So that can be used for storage, so the grill opens up."
The pontoon has a top speed of about 25 miles per hour.
"It pulls up out of the water, really nice, feels good, it steers and you actually feel like you're sitting in a semi," Yach said.
Inside, it's almost all Bentley pontoon from the steering wheel to the fuel gauges.
The Semi-Conscious blew up on Tik-Tok, and it even made one person blink twice when the horn broke through the calm scene where they were camping once.
"A guy pulled in and thought that the semi had backed right into the water because they had it up onshore at our site, and the site is lower than the road. So he could just see the top half of the semi sticking out of the water," Yach said.
Yach is not looking in the rearview mirror -- he's already thinking of his next creation. "An all-terrain machine that floats so I can go from my house, hit the water, go fishing on it."
Despite the passion project, the whole Yach family will be the first to offer you the semi-pontoon for a trip on their private lake.
Because that's the load this semi's always lugging -- smiles.
"Usually wherever we go they got to stop at the sandbar everybody wants to take pictures and look inside, and talk about basically how it was buiIt," Yach said. "I think it was worth it."