[Blue_Heron]

The Seacraft 20 will never be a flats boat for the reasons stated above. The "Conch 22" is nice, but personally, I like the original lines better.

A Seacraft 20 is already the perfect bay boat, but it can also handle offshore conditions on a nice day. And you have the advantage that if the weather takes a turn for the worse, you can make it home safely.

I go to the Keys each June with a bunch of friends I've known for 25+ years. One of them has a Pathfinder 22. On a trip a couple years back, we went offshore in 2'-3' conditions, but a squall line blew through late morning and the trip back in was a true 6'-8' following sea.

My buddy with the Pathfinder stuffed his bow 3 or 4 times on the way back in and had green water in the cockpit up to his ankles. I had my 20SF and we basically just surfed it in on the following sea. The only problem we had was that there was a loose section of rub rail, and every time we would dig into the back of a wave, the water would squeeze between the rub rail and the cap and squirt my buddy Dan in the face. It was actually quite amusing if you weren't Dan.

My $0.02 is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm not going to suggest that you leave your boat original for philosophical reasons, just be sure if you modify the original configuration it suits your needs better than it would have if you'd left it original. Restoring/modifying these boats is a tremendous amount of work. Be sure before you start that the end result is what you really want.
Dave