Seacraft v.s. Silverhawk
 

Dad is thinking about selling his 1988 25 ft Boston whaler.
He would rather go for a smaller boat due to him getting older but me being 19 I want to go bigger so my question is.
How good is a 24 ft Silverhawk from 96 compared to a 18 to 23 ft Seacraft from the 70's.
I'm talking about durability, maintnance, performance etc..

Sea vs. Sil
 

I'd go on the Silverhawk owners group forum and ask them what they think!

I'm not familiar with Silverhawks, other than their VDH hull is very similar to Seacraft and they have a good rep. A 1970s seacraft will ride fabulous, much much better than the whaler. Performance will be as least as good as the Silver, maybe better. Reliability will be the issue. 1970s Seacrafts are likely to have wet transoms and some soft decks. Most good ones will have had these things replaced already. Don't know what Silver made their transoms out of, but a 96 is approaching 20 years old and plywood would be suspect. Engine and mechanicals are anybody's guess, depends on how old and how well maintained.

Boils down to the condition of the individual boat. You can get lots of advice here on what to look for.

Don't rule out the seacrafts to the mid 80's built heavy my 86 is a tank

Not familiar with Silverhawk but I agree w/ cdadvisdb. A 23' Seacraft will outpace all others running in a sea but every boat stands on it's own merit. Wet transoms are fairly common. A factor to consider is propulsion. A straight inboard like my (38 year old) vintage '75 Potter Built does not push on the transom like an outboard might. The early SeaCraft's Durability, maintenance and performance is why Classic Seacrafts are an item.

24 silverhawk is a splash of the 23 seacraft hull. They are very well built boats . . . most of them were rigged as I/O's, but there a several with brackets too. Essentially the same performance and they will be in better shape than a 1970's seacraft.

My bro's 1997 24' Silverhawk OB

I think '97 was the first year of the OB. This was the first hull and was debut at the Miami Show in '97. Forum member ScottM knows these boats well..........
http://www.classicseacraft.com/jigolos1997sh/index.html

Ok thanks guys.
The 96 I found for sale has twin outboards and it looks like it has been well taken care of.
Found it on Craigslist though.
Anybody knows anything to look for before trusting a craigslist ad ?

Personally I don't really care for the 2 piece construction of the silverhawk.

Find out if the transom has a plywood core and if it is wet.

How? Get a good moisture meter(given the price of the boat, a couple of hundred bucks is cheap), pull some screws low in the transom, jump on the motors to see any flex, look very closely at the transom for stress cracks, if the owner will allow, drill some small holes low on the transom inside, look at sawdust for moisture or rot.