Last reviewed: 2026-07-02 > Quick answer: Renting a boat with zero experience is normal and manageable. A pontoon boat is the easiest boat there is to drive: one throttle, no brakes, slow is always the right speed. Every Harris Boat Works rental starts with a ten-minute...
Last reviewed: 2026-07-02
Quick answer: Renting a boat with zero experience is normal and manageable. A pontoon boat is the easiest boat there is to drive: one throttle, no brakes, slow is always the right speed. Every Harris Boat Works rental starts with a ten-minute hands-on orientation, a fitted life jacket, and a lake map. Complete the boating licence course online the evening before, then book at harrisboatworks.ca/rentals.
A lot of the people stepping onto our rental dock have never driven anything without brakes. Some have never been on a boat that wasn't a ferry.
By 10 am they're anchored in a bay with the cooler open, wondering why they were nervous.
This is the guide version of what we tell every first-timer at the dock. Read it the night before and you'll show up as the calm one in your group.
Who this is for
You booked (or you're about to book) a rental on Rice Lake and you've never driven a boat. Or you drove your uncle's tinny once in 2009 and you'd like a refresher before six people watch you dock. Either way, this is the no-judgment version. Experienced boaters can skip to the fleet and cost guide.
The One Big Mental Shift: No Brakes
A car stops when you press a pedal. A boat stops when the water gets around to it.
That single difference drives every boat-handling habit that matters:
- Slow is free. Nothing on a rental day requires speed. Every mistake happens faster than it needed to because someone was going faster than they needed to.
- Neutral early. Coming up to a dock, a swim raft, or another boat, come off the throttle way earlier than feels natural. The boat keeps gliding. That glide is your braking distance.
- Reverse is your brake. A short burst of reverse kills your remaining glide. We show you this at the dock before you leave.
A pontoon boat idles along at walking pace. At that speed you have all the time in the world to think, which is exactly the point.
Driving a Pontoon, In Four Sentences
Push the throttle forward slowly and the boat goes. Pull it back to the middle and you coast in neutral. Pull it further back and you reverse. Steer like a car, but expect the nose to respond a beat later than your hands.
That's genuinely the whole system. The kill switch clips to the driver (motor stops if you leave the helm), the horn is on the dash, and we walk all of it before you're untied.
Wind: The Thing First-Timers Underestimate
Rice Lake is long and shallow, and like most lakes it's calmest in the morning and choppiest mid-afternoon. Two habits handle it:
- Do your relaxed cruising early. Mornings are glass more often than not. If your crew wants a calm swim-and-lunch anchor, do it before mid-afternoon.
- Approach the dock into the wind when you can. Wind pushes a pontoon around at low speed (all that boat sits above the water like a sail). Nosing into the wind gives you control; letting it push you in from behind takes it away.
If whitecaps build and you'd rather not deal with it, head back early. Nobody at our dock has ever been mocked for coming in ahead of weather. We cancel or reschedule rentals ourselves when the forecast is genuinely bad.
Docking Without the Audience Stress
Docking is 90% of first-timer anxiety and it's the most over-thought part of the day:
- Line up your approach from far out, at idle speed.
- Aim for a shallow angle to the dock, not straight at it.
- Neutral early, glide, short reverse burst to stop.
- Let the crew step off with lines. Nobody jumps, nobody pulls the boat by hand while it's moving.
And here's the part we mean sincerely: come in slow and crooked and bump a fender, and that's a normal Tuesday. The fenders exist because everyone was new once. And at day's end you're landing back at our dock, where staff handle the return check anyway.
The Rice Lake Stuff Specifically
Two local things every renter hears at orientation:
The old railway causeway. A rail line once crossed the lake between Harwood and Hiawatha, and its remains sit just under the surface mid-lake. The crossing points are marked with buoys; the rest of the line is not. This is why we hand every renter a lake map, and why "follow the buoyed passes" is the one rule we repeat twice.
Weeds are normal. Rice Lake is a shallow, fertile, world-class fishing lake, which means weed beds. If the motor feels sluggish after crossing a weedy patch: shift to neutral, shut the motor off, then tilt it up and clear the prop before restarting. A minute, not a crisis, and hands never go near a prop with the engine running.
What HBW checks before you leave the dock
Every first-timer gets the same send-off as every veteran, just with a few extra minutes and zero eye-rolling: fuelled boat checked that morning, life jackets fitted to your actual passengers, safety kit counted, and a hands-on orientation covering throttle, kill switch, anchoring, the map, and the causeway passes. Then you're off, with the whole day to practise and us a phone call away. We've been putting first-timers onto this lake since 1947; the orientation is why they come back as regulars.
If Something Goes Wrong Out There
Short version: call us and stay put. 905-342-2153, or text 647-952-2153. The boat has an anchor; drop it so you're not drifting while we talk.
Motor won't start after your swim stop? Nine times out of ten it's the kill-switch clip not seated or the throttle not in neutral, and we can walk you through it on the phone in under a minute. Genuinely stuck? Stay anchored, call us, and we'll sort it out from our end. It's our boat and our lake; you're never negotiating with a rental company three provinces away.
Common mistakes
- Skipping the licence until rental morning. The online course takes about 3 hours. Do it the night before at myboatcard.com/card/harrisboat (HARRIS15 saves 15%).
- Docking at car-parking speed. Idle. Glide. Reverse burst. Repeat it like a mantra.
- Letting the confident friend "handle it" with no card. Whoever drives needs the licence. Two licensed drivers makes the day better for both.
- Ignoring the map. The causeway doesn't care that you're new.
- Overloading the bow. Spread people around the boat; a nose-heavy pontoon steers worse and rides wetter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is renting a boat hard if I've never driven one?
No. A pontoon has one throttle, no brakes, and a walking-pace idle. Our ten-minute dock orientation covers everything, and we don't rush first-timers. The learning curve is roughly "golf cart," not "airplane."
What's the easiest rental boat for a beginner?
A pontoon, no contest. It's stable, slow to react, forgiving to dock, and has room for the whole crew to spread out. Our 23-ft cruise pontoons are what most first-time groups take out. See the full fleet guide.
Do I need a licence for my first rental?
Yes, whoever drives needs proof of competency. The boating licence course is online and takes about 3 hours; do it the evening before. Non-Canadian visitors complete a renter's checklist waiver instead. Full details in our licence guide.
What happens if I damage the boat?
Tell us; that's the whole procedure. A $1,000 deposit hold covers assessment, and fender-level bumps are a normal part of everyone's first season. What turns a small thing big is not mentioning it.
What should I bring for a first rental day?
Sunscreen, hats, water, towels, a cooler with food and non-alcoholic drinks, and a dry bag or zip-lock for phones. Life jackets and safety gear are included and fitted at the dock. Leave the alcohol at home; it's prohibited on the rental boats.
What if the weather looks bad on my rental day?
If conditions are genuinely poor (high winds, rain), we cancel or reschedule with no penalty and refund your deposits and payments. If it's merely breezy, morning slots are your friend.
Ready for Your First Boat Day?
Do the licence tonight, book the boat for a calm morning, and let us handle the rest at the dock. The nervousness lasts about ten minutes; the "why haven't we done this every summer" feeling lasts the drive home.
Book online: harrisboatworks.ca/rentals
Questions? Text: 647-952-2153 or call: 905-342-2153
Address: 5369 Harris Boat Works Rd, Gores Landing, ON
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