Fishing boat upgrade help

[7lazy77]

I currently have a 1996 16' Alumacraft boat that is just simply getting too small for me, my wife & three kids. I would like to get into something with a little more elbow room & would like to stay within the $10k - range. Looking around at some of the boats in my area, the Crestliner Sportfish 1850 caught my eye! To keep within my budget, it appears I would have to look at 1997-2004 models. I really like that layout of the boat, but don't know much on Crestliners? Any pro's or con's of these boats? Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[airshot]

I can only say that crestliners had an issue with the welds for a while but I think that is over....perhaps someone with more knowledge can chime in here. I was in the same situation a number of years back, always been an aluminium boat fan, made the big mistake once and bought a glasser but never again. We use lake erie in Ohio and moved up to a StarCraft Islander 22' cuddy cabin and have not looked back. Favorite boat we have ever owned, takes the lake well and plenty of room to store stuff inside the cuddy out of the way. Have an 8' bimini top to keep us cool on hot days and the economical 140 hp can run all day on less than one tank of fuel. Of all the alum boats I have owned ( at least 7) the starcraft models have served us the best. Rivets are easy to repair should one leak. Well that's my two cents........

 

[smokeonthewater]

Only issue I see is it will still be too small... Look for 20' plus IMHO

 

[Teamster]

A friend of mine has an 1850 Sportfish and likes it,....

 

[Nathan R]

I was leaning very heavily towards a sportfish before I bought my Tyee. Really there are a lot of great used boats out there that would come in around that 10k mark. I was in the same position as you last spring. I ended up finding a 96' Tyee in immaculate condition except for the fact that it didn't have a motor and the transom was wrecked. When all was said and done I was pretty close to the 10k price tag after repair and outfitting.

Do your homework and watch the Craigslist ads. A friend of mine bought an 06 18' sportfish last fall for 9k fully equipped. Granted it's a little under powered with a 90 mercury, but otherwise it's a nice boat.

 

[7lazy77]

Thanks for hte input. As I said in my initial post, I really like the layout of the Crestliner Sportfish, but was wondering if there were any other similar layouts with other manufacturers that you would recommend?