[Portland Pudgy]

The volume between the inner and outer hull in a Pudgy should stay dry. Of course due to opening hatches on the water to access equipment, it often feels damp, but no substantial water should collect. If you open the rear hatch, any water will collect the lowest portion of the hull near the wheel. It is easily removed with a dry sponge. Of thousands of Portland Pudgy Boats, there have only been a few that have experienced leaks due to a manufacturers defect. We have accepted returns of these boats and have addressed the issues with our rotational molder. If your boat leaks from below into the inner area of the hull. when in the water due to a defect, we have only seen two points of leakage: the wheel axle and the leeboard slots.

In the case of the wheel axle, this area should be fully filled with plastic, but sometimes crevices occur especially with rugged use of the wheel. We have seen a few boats with small leaks in the axle hole. The metal plate around the keel and axle is there to give additional rigidity to the axle for this purpose.

In the case of the leeboard slots, this is a difficult area to coat with plastic in the molding operation, so special treatment is required on the plates that form the mold for these slots. In rare cases, the plastic resin beads did not properly coat the slots and the resulting plastic sleeve is very thin or has perforations. We check for this at the factory, but sometimes very small leaks have gone undetected. If you have either of these leaks, please contact Portland Pudgy.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 4 weeks ago by  Portland Pudgy.

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