78 Seafari 20?

[McGillicuddy]

The Seafari bug has bit me and my wife is really concerned about my behavior. I just found a '77 Blue Seafari named "Facade" down San Diego way. Rare down here. Hull looks reel nice. Is it an original color? Transom is definitely toast and the floor is shot, too. Scuppers are redone seemingly poorly. Maybe that accounts for the high water mark. Zincs all over the aft end, and all shot. An '05 sticker says Mamaroneck Village so I'm guessing its formerly a Westchester Co., NY Boat. Anyone familiar with this transplant? (just digging for history). At any rate, the questions: were the floors weaker in the later Potter years or is this an anomaly. The floor on my '72 looks much better-built and feels far more solid by comparison... Any overall thoughts. Any knowledge of this boat? Doug?, anybody else? Pretty boat, but I already have a project. It has an Evinrude 150 v-6 VRO, Trailer is galvi in good condition. Here are a few pics. Fight or flee? Dude wants 3K but will sell at 2.5K, I think its over priced in this market. I got my 72 for 2800 and I think is in better shape...Felt I over paid, but so rare out here and I'd gone too far to walk away and he accepted 600 less than what he was asking.

[fdheld34]

Gil....offer $2500 for Seafari and Mustang...that would be a sweet deal . I would offer lower price start at 1500???? especially with all the work you are going to have to do to floor transom etc...assuming it is an ez loader trailer?? Does engine run?? I was able to get my seafari $950 below seller's price and next to nothing (but again that is on east coast). This is what I did ....point out to seller what you are going to need to do to boat etc...no shame in that....see what happens..you can always go up a little if needed...and FLASH that cash..worked for me !!!

[fdheld34]

Gil--one more thing...always easier to buy than to sell. I remember having my chris craft and got to the point where I was almost ready to give the darn thing away!!!
Keep that in mind as well...Im sure you know all this..just thinking outloud and sharing a bit!!!!!

[Bigshrimpin]

Stick with one boat. It's too much to have more than one boat unless you have a second home in Baja.

[Bushwacker]

. . . the questions: were the floors weaker in the later Potter years or is this an anomaly. The floor on my '72 looks much better-built and feels far more solid by comparison...

Gillie - I discovered SeaCraft in the late 60's and followed them very carefully during the 70's, making the annual pilgrimage to the Miami boat show for about 10-15 years. I believe one of the first jumps in gas (and resin) prices occurred about 1975, and I clearly remember being shocked by a big increase in the price of a Seafari bare hull. It went to $5000 on the 76 model, from something like $3900 in just one year, an increase of nearly 30%! I still have the original price lists somewhere in my collection of brochures.

I had a neighbor that was a mate/skipper about that time who also worked part-time at Rybovich Marina. The marina/sales operation was actually run by the folks that owned Fisher Body who had also bought Rybovich and kept the name, but they also happened to be a SeaCraft dealer. I remember him commenting that they had noticed a drop in the quality of the new boats received from the SeaCraft plant and that they had to spend more time on them correcting minor problems. Who knows, maybe the increasing price of resin increased financial pressures that caused them to start cutting corners and reducing the amount of resin/glass used in the boats. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened in the boat business! Maybe Fr. Frank will chime in if he had any similar observations, as I believe he was involved in rigging some SC's, maybe in that same time period. Bottom line is that your observations are consistent with mine, in that, although Potter did not go bankrupt till about 79 or 80, the operation was beginning to hit some headwinds several years earlier! Wouldn't surprise me that cost cutting pressures would have increased as they got closer to bankruptcy!

The boat-building business is very cyclic and a lot of builders have gone out of business during an economic crunch. A good friend I went to school with is the founder and president of MarineMax, one of the nation's biggest boat dealers. He could sell freezers to eskimos! Used to see him at the Miami shows, and he told me one time that anytime there was an economic downturn, the sales of "small" boats (~35' and under) just disappeared, but that the bigger stuff was relatively unaffected!

As much as I admire you're wanting to join Nick in the Save-the-Seafari's club, I think I'd let someone else take a crack at that one! Sound's like there could be a lot of hidden costs lurking in it! Denny

[McGillicuddy]

What the heck guys, did my wife send you all a PM on the sly???-
Thanks for the feedback, guys. Thanks for the reminder Bigshrimpin. 1 is enough of a project. Coming from you I'll treat this as free wisdom. Color sure is perty tho'. I believe it is noble to save the Seafaris. I guess I'll back off and pour a slab for my current "Therapy" and keep gettin' her ready for a YFT/BFT session in the coming weeks.

-McGill

[Briguy]

That boat is toast. With that giant plate on the transom..........a $500.00 hull in my opinion. There are really really nice hulls available for the price you are talking about. Just be patient.

[Briguy]

Oh, I'd love to see one of these with a 225 etec!!!!!!!

[Fr. Frank]

Avoid the Noid. It could be a good project, but only if you're not currently working on one.

I worked on and rigged SeaCraft boats from mid '83 to Feb '85, at two different SeaCraft dealerships. Many if not most late 70's boats had liner and cap problems problems like insufficient glass on the underside of the decks, gunwales, and hatches, leaving bare wood exposed or maybe just sprayed with a thin layer of gel-coat. They rotted pretty quickly, and the topside would craze easily, seemingly brittle. I never saw any abnormal problems with the hulls, though.

I know a few new SeaCrafts in '84 had problems with air pockets beneath the gel-coat along the chines. You could take a small ball-pein hammer and tap along the chines and find thumb-sized voids where the gel-coat would collapse when tapped in every single '84 hull we checked. We began checking every one, too, and immediately repairing them before putting them out for sale. The manufacturer claimed it was a problem with the resin being used.

Same things happened again in the mid-late 80's when Tracker took over. Tracker even used 3/4" plywood-core stringers in SeaCraft hulls in '87 & '88. I never saw any pattern of mfg. difficulties with hulls and transoms, though, in any year.

Denny, I had just been hired to manage the in/out storage at Rybovich Marina in December '84 when Spencer Marine added the in/out marina to their purchase of Rybovich Boat Works from Fisher Body. Spencer closed the dry storage marina and let me go in Feb. of '05, when they decided they were going to build a condo on the spot, then decided to reopen the marina a few months later when the permitting for the condo was denied. By then, I had gone on to manage the Bayside Boatel in Ocean City, MD.