Lazzara went the other direction and put everything below water. It must have had something to do with a clean looking hull. We had 14 holes below the water line including the removable speed paddlewheel. I never like all those holes but it did look good. The 1 nice feature was since the generator exhaust was underwater all you could hear outside the boat was a fairly quiet 'glub, glub'.

Because of all the holes I had multiple ways of pumping water out including a valve to switch the engine intake to suck from the bilge.

Too many holes for my comfort. Never did have a problem though.