Potter vs Tracker boats

[Scott1115]

@ Terry - sorry, really not trying to stir the pot.

My mistake, "Built by Silver King in 1999" not Sea King.

[DonV]

Hey Terry, I remember Sea King "kickers"!! Would run like crazy on a bench in a barrel of water, but would not run to save it's ass on the back of a jon boat!! I found they made a really nice starter for artificial reefs.

[gofastsandman]

Originally Posted by Scott1115

@ Terry - sorry, really not trying to stir the pot.

My mistake, "Built by Silver King in 1999" not Sea King.

SK made a knock off of the 23. Not a SC.

My 89 20 has a foamed tank.

[flyingfrizzle]

Just a few of the Pros and cons:

Tracker Pros: The 25" transom, longer 20.4 vs 19.8 length, The higher decks, drains out the back.
Cons: The ply wood decks vs balsa, some had less or poor glass lay up, foamed in gas tanks, Not being able to call your boat a "potter built"

Older Potter/Moesly Pros: Better thicker layups, balsa core, more quality controlled era, no foam on the tanks, no foam in the quad stringer hulls to dig out if wet, having a classic "potter hull" resale on restored hulls seem to bring more $ if sold.
Cons: Low decks on the pre 74 hulls, Lower 20" transoms, outboard weight seems to effect the older hulls more. Scuppers out the bottom of the hull,

Me I wouldn't be afraid of either, The newer hull may be in better shape due to less age, the ply wood may be rotten where the older balsa is still fine 40 years latter. Comes down to what you are wanting. If you are going to do a full restore I would be more apt to find an older hull. If I wanted to find a stock unrestored hull to ride with minimum effort I would look for a late 80's hull and find one that was tooken care of. I have seen pre 70's that looked like crap due to a hard life from blisters and lack of care and I have seen post 80's hull look like crap. There are also some fine examples of both being nice, Some of these full restored older ones and some barn finds that are good as the day they left the factory. My slacker friend seem to have a nice example of a late model hull that was well built and serves the purpose well. Like said before.... The magic is in the bottom

[Fr. Frank]

FTR, Tracker DID build a few cuddy cabin boats, the 23' Walk-around.

In '87, some of the first Tracker SeaCrafts were built with fiberglass encapsulated plywood stringers, and really poor transom construction. At Lake Worth Boating Center in Hypoluxo, we sent four 23' WA hulls back to the factory, all of which had severe transom failure within 20 hours of use. All were single-engine OB transom cut-outs. Two of them only had transom cores that extended to about 6' past the cut-outs from the center, giving them only about 48" of plywood in the transom. The transom from there out to the hull side was just 1/4" to 3/8" of fiber glass. Obviously, there was a LOT of transom flex, leading to the failures.

By contrast, the only twin-engine 23'WA I saw had a transom that was a full 2 1/4" thick across the entire beam at the transom. Which is a good thing, because we rigged that boat with twin 225's.

I understand some of the 23's from the late 90's also had some transom issues, but that will have long since shown up, and is a simple fix. Not easy or cheap, but simple.

I have to admit, I think the late 60's Moesly hulls were the best, but don't forget, they're now 45-50 years old.

[Joe R]

Hull id number starts with SXCP..????
HOW A BOUT A 1998 20 MA
is the transom wood or composit....

any other info on Silver King of 1998 20ft....

[flyingfrizzle]

Originally Posted by Fr. Frank

FTR, Tracker DID build a few cuddy cabin boats, the 23' Walk-around.

There is one down my way right now up for grabs, I haven't looked at it in person but I almost thought about it for what the owner wants. The tracker construction didn't shy me away, just the fact that I have 13-15 boats in my yard now did....

[flyingfrizzle]

Originally Posted by Joe R

Hull id number starts with SXCP..????
HOW A BOUT A 1998 20 MA
is the transom wood or composit....

any other info on Silver King of 1998 20ft....

If I remember correctly 1998 is the year they changed to composite so It may be composite if made latter that year and not an 97 that was titled in 98.

SXC HIN Decoder

Our HULL ID Decoder breaks down the Hull identification number into the following information:

The HIN or CIN you have entered meets the Current-Format HIN format. It might also be a type that contains the country code and thus the boat comes from USA or Other . The serial number of the HIN is RC909 and is set by the boat builder. This boat or vessel has a Certification Date of (0) and a Model Year of 2001 with month of build (January) based on the formatting of your hull_identification_number (HIN) .

The manufacturer identification code (MIC) of your craft identification number (CIN or HIN) is SXC. This MIC (SXC) stands for the company name Sea Craft Boats which is currently Out of Business. This boat manufacturer has other company names (SXC sometimes goes by these name(s) Silver King Boat Company Inc, Stern Craft Boat Co (oob), , or .

This company (Sea Craft Boats) is owned by John Bower and is located at 1181 OLD CAROLEEN ROAD in FOREST CITY state of NC. It manufactured this vessel and placed you HIN or CIN on the hull. The Parent Company for this boat maker is TRACKER MARINE GROUP (BUJ). Sea Craft Boats has started making boats, yachts and other watercraft as of 12/01/1994 0:00 and went out of business on (10/06/2011 0:00) in the following country: .

[Joe R]

Thanks for that...flying...the one boat I am looking at # is SXCPA...1798 I left out 3 numbers for privacy ... I am looking at newer or restored 21 ft cc or MA... I have a 20 1970 Potter now that I have had for 35 years of its 45 years... and may do a transom and repower if I cant find a new or restored 21 ,, I don't want to do the work on mine myself. mine is in GOOD condition , but want to move up to a 21 with newer power

Joe R.
20ft Classic SeaCraft
Susie II

[gofastsandman]

Originally Posted by flyingfrizzle

There is one down my way right now up for grabs, I haven't looked at it in person but I almost thought about it for what the owner wants. The tracker construction didn't shy me away, just the fact that I have 13-15 boats in my yard now did....

Attachment 11370

Capt. Lloyd has one. I want to festoon it with wood grained contact paper and lime green spray bombs.