Thursday, Jan 26, 2017 at 18:42
Hi Warren,
I've had a 12' 6" Porta Bote for quite a few years now, but I've experienced some issues, in particular with regard to transporting it. Sure, they're relatively light in weight, at least the basic hull is, and it travels quite comfortably on our roof rack (even at my age, I can still get it up there by myself) when suitably tied down with ratchet straps and a rope from the bow grommets to our bullbar, but you still have to store the seats, transom, oars (or paddles), all the other (SA) legislated safety gear, including PFD's for everyone on board, anchor & line, bucket, floating torch etc, etc, and your motor and the spare fuel for that, somewhere. DO NOT MISPLACE YOUR SPLIT PINS FOR THE SEATS OR THE TRANSOM BOLTS! The boat won't go very far without either!
In our own case, we have a 100 Series 'Cruiser with Outback drawer system, a 60 litre Engel on a fridge slide and a cargo barrier, which really doesn't leave a lot of room at all for all the previously identified stuff. I can JUST fit the motor diagonally across the "empty" side of the cargo area along with most of the items mentioned above, leaving the seats and transom to be stored on the back
seat, or in the rear footwell, or on the roofrack.
Let me assure you, that doesn't leave much room in the vehicle for other items!
The model I have (Gen 4, if I recall) is rated for a load of only 580 pounds, and is also limited to an 8hp motor, but with my 5hp, I can only get it up on to the plane one-up. With two on board, planing simply doesn't want to happen and, even then, I've found that full throttle will see the transom flex sufficiently for the motor to push forward and bind on the keel tubing, making the steering quite sticky. Not an issue at lower revs, but very disconcerting the first time it happened to me! Of course, this difficulty may be unique to my particular boat and others may not have had any such concerns.
OK so we might take our Jayco Eagle Outback too, which alleviates some of the storage issues, but I'm not sure I'd want to relocate any of the boat-related items from the 'Cruiser to the van - Murphy would suggest that, if I were to do so, those items would still be back where I'd parked my van, when I went to put the boat together and use it!
One other matter I should mention - the hull flex may take some people a while to get used to. It's certainly a very different sensation from using or travelling in a tinny. It's a little like standing on a water-bed, which isn't too bad in calm waters and I don't mind it at all, but I've only used it on inland waterways and, while I'd certainly defer to others with more salt-water experience than I [which is just about everyone, I'd say :-) ], I'm not sure I'd want to risk a beach launch, into even our SA "surf", any time soon. The cutaway transom doesn't help in that regard. The boat won't sink, but stuff will be floating all over the place and I don't like the idea of getting everything, including my wife and me, extremely wet.
I'm sorry for the overly long reply - it didn't start out that way!
Hope this post hasn't put you off too badly - I really quite like
mine, for my purposes, but your needs and experience will differ from
mine.
Anyway, all the very best to you, in whatever decision you eventually make.
Regards,
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