You might want to join the Porta-Bote Yahoo worldwide group. It has several thousand members, many of whom own 8′ Porta-Botes.

They’re an independent group of owners and will answer your questions directly.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PortaBotersWorldWide/

Sandy

Hi Rick, I read your question regarding leaving your 8′ ft Porta Bote open in your pick up. Have you recieved any replies?
I am in the process of purchasing an 8footer for fishing local lakes and would like to know how you like your boat and if it is the right size for one man fishing? Are you happy with it?
I intend to fold it each night and fit it into my Saturn Vue.
Richard

We really owe a debt of gratitude to you for helping to shape the way we now do business. But, now we need your cooperation in explaining to your viewers about the present company and how we now conduct business.

Don’t have your email address so we have to correspond this way.

Best wishes for the Holidays,

Sandy
==============================================
Hi Sandy K. I must write to you to congratulate you on a really great product. I am 73, the temperature in South Bend, Ind is @45degrees and we still managed to grunt it together for the first time, inside our garage. We is my wife and I. Having spent my life with concept, design, document, fabricate, assembly, start-up and trouble shoot new automatic blast cleaning equipment (Wheelabrator, Pangborn, Erwin,) I have a good understanding of quality design. Everything with your Porta-bote is thoughtful and knowlegeable Ed Nieter

It rocks and is good fun basic boating - sure I broke a seat hole where the pin goes through, but thats what happens when you ’sea-test’ your bote in 2ft swells to see how it will handle. No prob as will just fix this with about an hours effort. Am a bit disturbedf by all the people blaming Porta-Bote as boats do break and get hammered in the sea / river.

Bote has been my way of being able to afford a safe, good sized boat to get out and have some fun - bring on summer!

If you monitor these blogs you will see that there are both positive and negative comments. Mostly (99%) positive.

In all cases, Porta-Bote is encouraged to respond to both types. As a matter of fact, some of the very positive endorsements we sent you were from Porta-Bote owners who subscribe to these blogs.

Here’s the info on the Porta-Bote Yahoo Club Blogs.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PortaBotersWorldWide/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PortaBote/

Sandy

Yes, the reinforced transom has been standard for several years.

The new seats are of a completely different design. They will carry up to 600 pounds. The seats and transom now carry a 5 year warranty.

Each one of the positive posts were genuine. We included their email address so you could verify.

The problem with the original section of you blog is that it no longer applies. It did a good job of calling our attention to the problems which we have strived to correct. We sent just a few of the hundreds of positive comments to illustrate how much has changed, We are deeply grateful to you for opening our eyes to these problems.

Hopefully you will update this blog to reflect the changes. Admittedly, it’s a lot of work. But, the tone should really be updated to reflect the product and the company as it exists today.

One poor fellow actually cancelled his order which was on and interest free layaway and almost paid off after reading some of the early messages. Several submitted years ago

We sell over 10,000 Porta-Botes a year so we didn’t really feel it financially. But, we do feel sorry for him in that he probably will miss many years of enjoyment using his Porta-Bote.

Thanks again for responding.

Sandy

It’s great to hear that the seat design has been improved. I took a look at the porta-bote site but couldn’t find the details. We noted the extra reinforcement on our replacement transom. Is this now standard? Has the warranty on the seats and transom been increased?

I was disappointed that you removed some of the positive comments we have received from Porta-Bote owners.

I had hoped you were better than that. I was trying to show a better balance of comments as happy pwners rarely will go on a blog to express themselves.

Guess I was wrong. Assume this comment will also be removed. Too bad.

Sandy Kaye
President
Porta-Bote International

Believe it or not, this blog has helped our company by illustrating some weaknesses which we have strived to overcome. So, for that we are grateful and pledge to continue to improve our service and products.

Sandy

Hi, this blog started about 4 years ago. Since then, there have been many positive changes within the company and with the Porta-Bote products including newly designed “super seats” that hold 600 pounds, etc.

So, we’re going to start forwarding some of the many positive comments from customers who are satisfied with our services and Porta-Botes.

We’re doing this so that there is a better balance to this blog.

We now have over 90,000 Porta-Botes being used around the world and selling about 10,000+ a year.

If we have offended anyone we certainly apologize. At the same time there are always two sides to every story.

Sandy Kaye
President
Porta-Bote International