Gordon wrote:
I see you use a portabote as a dinghy. What are your thoughts on it?
Thanks
Gordon

Gordon,
Dinghies are like religion. Everyone's got an opinion and they are all
passionate about them. I don't want to start another flame war with
everybody defending their favorite, but since you asked, here's a repost
of a detailed response I made to someone else on this subject a few
months ago.

------

We used to use a 10' Avon inflatable and in fact, still have the Avon,
but haven't used it since we got the 12' Porta-Bote in 2001. About a
year and a half ago, we completed a 2 year cruise which took us from SF
bay area down to Mexico, up into the Sea of Cortez, on down the mainland
coast of Mexico, to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, The
Galapagos, Polynesia, Tonga, then back up to Hawaii, and finally back to
the SF bay area. In all that time, we spent a total of 3 days in a
marina in San Diego during final provisioning and another 3 days in a
marina in Hawaii, doing some work on the boat before crossing back over
to California. The rest of that time, we anchored out.

I relate the above just to validate the fact that we relied on our
dinghy on a daily basis to get us back and forth from shore, to take
excursions on and to dive from for an extended period of time.

The Porta-Bote isn't for everybody and it has it's weak points, but on
the whole, it works very well for us. "Us" is a husband and wife in our
mid-50's. I'm a big guy (6'3" 275 lbs) and my wife is about 5'8 & while
I won't say her weight, she's not what anyone would call skinny. I
should also note that for a month in Tonga, we also had our son and his
girlfriend with us and the 4 of us had no problem using the 12' Porta.

Good points:
- Ruggedness. We never worry about it rubbing against barnacles or
sharp rocks. The worst of that leaves cosmetic scratches, but nothing
more. I think everybody with inflatables that we ran into eventually
had some kind of problem (seams, valves, punctures, etc.). Porta-Bote
users never had to pump up their dinghies in the morning to get them hard.

- Easy of use. One person can deploy or restore it, but it's lots
faster with 2, so we almost almost always did it together. From stored
on deck to in the water with the outboard on and ready to go is maybe 10
minutes without rushing. Noticeably faster than pumping up the Avon. We
literally spend almost as much time getting the outboard off the stern
rail and onto the Porta as we do assembling the Porta. It's light
enough that when recovering it, we tie the bow line to the spinnaker
halyard and I hoist it up out of the water and aboard without using a
winch while Kathryn guides it into position on the foredeck for
disassembly. Launching it after assembling it on the foredeck consists
of just dumping it over the side. It also tows nicely. In fair
weather, we would rarely bring it up on deck unless we were going to be
out overnight.

-It stows easily. As you can see in the photo, we stowed ours
horizontally on top of the coach roof. Others stowed it along the rail.
http://home.comcast.net/~triciajean1...1-05-04-07.JPG

-It rows easily and straight. If you've ever rowed an inflatable,
you'll know how nice this is. A few owners never use an outboard (most
do though).

-Faster with the same horsepower. It is much, much faster than our Avon
with the same outboard. We started our trip with a 3hp which would
plane when there was just one of us aboard. It was giving us some grief
(hard to start sometimes), so we replaced it with a 6HP, 4 stroke while
we were in Zihuatanejo. It now jumps up onto a fast plane with both of
us + groceries, etc. aboard and absolutely flies when there is just one
of us.

-Capacity. Compared to an inflatable of equivalent length, you can put
a lot more grocery bags or other gear into it since you don't have those
big, fat tubes taking up so much of your volume.

-I never heard of a Porta being stolen. Quite a number of inflatables were.

-Cheaper by far. We paid $950 on Ebay for our 12' Porta-Bote with
accessories in like new condition.

-There are probably more good points, but that's what came to mind.


OK, now for what you've been waiting for, the bad points:

-Weak seats. They've redesigned them since we got ours and the company
says their better, but the ones that came with ours and the other Portas
we ran across didn't make it through the first year of continuous use. I
don't know if it was the UV exposure or what, but the stainless support
pieces would push up through the bottom of the plastic seats. We had
some wooden ones made (2 in La Paz and the 3rd in El Salvador) and liked
them a whole lot better than those plastic ones. Stronger, look like
they are going to last forever and since we painted them white, they're
a lot more comfortable to sit on than the black plastic ones after
they've been sitting in the tropical sun for awhile. The only down side
is that they don't have the built in flotation like the plastic ones
did. Before we go out again, I'll have added it to them.

-Crappy oars. One plastic blade broke and the fittings rusted badly. We
replaced them with these on a trip back up to the States and were very
happy with them.
http://images.westmarine.com/full/adjoar2004.jpg
and
http://images.westmarine.com/full/d07944_f.jpg

-The black pipe protecting the keel hinge detached in the middle on 2 of
the Botes that belonged to others, though it never happened to us. This
was not debilitating, just ugly.

-Not nearly as much flotation as an inflatable. DUH! If it ever did
get swamped, it would be harder to unswamp. Realistically though, the
only way you are going to swamp one of these puppies is in the surf
(happened to me once - I got thrown sideways and then the next wave
rolled me) and where there's one wave breaking, there are lots more
behind it. If you swamp any dinghy in the surf, the only way you are
going to get it unswamped is to jump out and drag it up out of the surf.

As far as size goes, I'd get the largest that you can easily stow up to
the 12' model (I understand that the 14' one is substantially heaver
than the others). We knew one boat with an 8', a few with the 10' and
we had the 12'. The 8' seemed a bit small to me. Fine for 2 people,
but it gets crowded quickly when you start adding more.


For what it's worth, none of the Porta owners we ran across regretted
their decision and wanted to go back to an inflatable. Lots of the
inflatable owners were unhappy with their dinghies. Also, whatever you
do, don't get a PVC dinghy if you are headed for the tropics. They just
don't hold up down there. If you do decide to get an inflatable, get a
hypalon one.

--
Dan Best - (559) 970-9858, Fresno, CA 93704
B-2/75 1977-1979
Tayana 37 #192, "Tricia Jean" http://triciajean192.home.comcast.net