We have had boats in the past with Porthole windows and find them marginally useful for seeing anything outside. We have had them leak is heavy seas and that is no fun. There is so much light coming in through the two deck hatches on the R29 that they really serve little purpose other than cosmetics. Personally, I like the looks of the hull of an old Viking or Hatteras convertible without all the modern euro-style windows, or fake window black outs. Look at the picture of that R29 and it is obvious that some of the windows are there for purely cosmetic reasons. The third round window is in the hanging locker and the aft two are fake - sitting behind the galley stove and drawers. It would have been a better use of $ from a functional point of view to omit some of the windows and install something useful such as galvanic isolator, radar reflector, transmitting AIS, etc. That said, in my opinion the look they have achieved with these reasonably sized windows is far superior to the huge black spaces with windows so many of the manufacturers are using that, in part, caused us to pass over those brands when we ordered our R29 last fall.
