[Jeff_H]

I know the Apache reasonably well. I''ve always liked these boats. Sparkman and Stevens was of course ahead of their time in many ways and were the leading edge designers of that era. Chris Crafts were generally well built but like any high production of that era tended to use a lot of accellerators and their gelcoats were not the best so that spider cracking was pretty common. Spider cracking typically indicates high flex areas and allows moisture to reach the laminate.

Chris Craft used a lot of wood as structural elements and these can rot out or lose bonding with the hull. I can''t recall the specifics of the Apache interior but a lot of the Chris Chrafts of that era had a lot of formica over plywood and the formica can trap moisture and allow rot to occur undetected. Simple tapping out of the bulkheads, especially near the edges can provide early detection of problems.

Also the ''scimitar'' style rudder on the early boats (I think later boats had a skeg hung rudder but I could be mistaken.) places a lot of strain on the rudder posts, which were a bit small (if I remember correctly) by modern standards.

Anyway, these are very nice boats for their day. They are not all that well known and so do not seem to have the strong following that I would think that they deserve.

Respectfully,
Jeff