I can see how that's confusing. The 1600-pound number on the website is really the boat's displacement with an average load, which is distinct from "payload." The stripped hull is 800 pounds or less; the displacement is how much EVERYTHING including the boat, rig, passengers, and gear weighs in ordinary use. Scrolling through PocketShip photos, I can eyeball the waterline height and run it back through our design software. If the chine is just touching the water, the boat is displacing exactly 1,393.33 pounds. If the chine is submerged by two inches, you're at 1,595 pounds and 5 ounces. If the transom is submerged to the chine, you're at 2,467 pounds. Heavily laden, but safe as long as it isn't all deck cargo...
1600 pounds of displacement represents a fairly ordinary load of adults and gear---probably not much more than 400 pounds of "payload." Ultimately, you can pile 1408 pounds of stuff into the boat and you're okay. Just for sanity's sake, visualize that 1408 pounds of payload would amount to a 200-pound singlehanded skipper, 80 pounds of outboard engine and petrol, and TWENTY-THREE 50-pound backpacks worth of gear. You're never going to need that much gear. And no, this isn't an invitation to load up and cross the Atlantic in a PocketShip.
The Coast Guard payload number is the result of a byzantine and tedious calculation. You can have a go at it, here:
http://www.uscgboating.org/regulations/ ... parta.aspxShort answer: you're not being cheated out of 192 pounds. The published 1600 pounds is just a round number that represents what the boat weighs in most of the photos.