Just needed some opinions. Bought a new Palmer defiance this year, which I like but the boat was advertised as self bailing. Now since having the boat, I've found out it won't bail at trolling speeds, or stopped. You actually have to throttle it up and get the boat to come out of the water a bit to get the floorline higher before it will start to bail. On top of it anytime the boat is at rest, or trolling, water comes in through the self bailing drains (even with check valves), and flows down into the bilge rather than draining out. So the bilge pump is going off every couple minutes trying to keep the bilge dry. The manufacturer, says this is normal for a self bailing boat of this size(20 feet), that they all take on a little water like this. They are willing to put in some macerator pumps that would shoot the water out the drains if I flip a switch but the boat definatly wont self bail after that. The floor line is just too close to the water. My questions are: Does anyone else have a different brand of smaller self bailing boat that has these types of problems? Should I just accept the manufacturers suggestion even though I don't want to? Or should I press it, and try and get a refund? Although both the manufacturer, and the dealer said they wont do that. They say my expectations of what a self bailing boat of this size will do are unrealistic. All I wanted is the boat to bail itself out using gravity at rest or trolling speeds and if water comes up through the drains, it at least will flow back out rather than loading in the bilge. Is this unreasonable? Thanks for any info.

Sark