Porta-Bote Tests And Reviews By International
Boating & Fishing Experts

Click on each Porta-Bote review for some "eye-opening" tests
by Independent World Class "Experts":

The Small Boat Journal Number 19

Porta-Bote
Opens a New Boating
Experience
by Dennis Caprio

Join Us While We Unfold The Mysteries Of
Foldable Portable Boating

If you're used to rigid-hull dinghies and skiffs, you won't expect much from the Porta-Bote. We didn't, but we couldn't resist trying a twelve-foot hull that weighs less than seventy pounds and folds flat for transporting. As you might have guessed, trying is believing.

Porta-Bote is made from four sheets of polypropylene, joined by a patented-and mysterious-hinge at the keel and chines. Each hinge is capped with three-quarter-round polypropylene tubing. The polypropylene is treated to prevent damage from ultraviolet rays. Three seats each equipped with fold-down center supports, fit into clips beneath the gunwales and give the boat shape. Locking pins make sure they stay put.
Among dinghies, and inflatables, Porta-Bote wins the overall boat championship.

Porta-Bote folds flat, gunwales into the keel then in half at the keel. If the distance to the water is great and you don't want to carry the boat, an ingenious device with a pair of wheels, allow you to roll the boat to the water. The dolly is called Porta-Dolly.

The folded Porta-Bote is four inches thick, about 24 inches wide, and it will fit into a station wagon, a pickup truck or atop your car. A pair of nylon straps that hooks under the doors let you carry Porta-Bote like a surfboard.

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To unfold the boat, place the hull flat on the ground, keel away from you. Step on the chine hinge of the lower half, then unfold the upper half. Insert seats and transom.

Porta-Bote is an anomaly, and in order to appreciate it, you might have to forget everything you've learned-about rigid boats, that is. Soon, you'll realize that Porta-Bote is almost as stable as a barge. I weigh 160 pounds and had to work very hard at getting the side gunwale down to the water.

Under way in a chop of a couple of feet and in winds to twenty mph., Porta-Bote jabs, feints, and takes the square waves like a bantam-weight boxer.

Porta-Bote’s ultra wide 5' beam, Deep V entry hull and chines dig in and give her much more directional stability than flat-bottomed twelve-foot inflatables. She's also a great deal more comfortable at speed in a chop than a rigid skiff or an inflatable. She doesn't bounce like an inflatable, and she doesn't pound like a rigid boat. The flexible polypropylene hull absorbs the impact.

Porta-Bote’s size and weight allow her to be wonderfully maneuverable under power.

She stops quickly, turns sharply and backs accurately, as you'd expect, but her performance under oars really surprised us. We rowed her in a wind and chop. She showed good directional stability on all points and carried way remarkably well.

The oarlock horns clamp to the looms of the aluminum-and-plastic oars, and although the gunwales flex a little with each stroke, we were able to transmit plenty of power.She reliably pointed about thirty degrees stern to the wind.

The hull is extremely durable and naturally buoyant. Foam flotation along the inside of the hull just under the gunwales makes the boat virtually unsinkable. She is easy to transport, easy to use, and easy to buy. She brings out the Huck Finn in reasonable adults and gets our vote as a great boat for diddling the day away on the water.